Opinion ID: 1224786
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: prosecutor comment

Text: The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees, in part, that [n]o person ... shall be compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself. Section 10 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights also protects this right. In Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 615, 14 L. Ed.2d 106, 110, 85 S. Ct. 1229, reh. denied 381 U.S. 957 (1965), the United States Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment forbids either comment by the prosecution on the accused's silence or instructions by the court that such silence is evidence of guilt. See State v. Reeves, 224 Kan. 90, 93, 577 P.2d 1175 (1978). This constitutional constraint is codified in K.S.A. 60-439: If a privilege is exercised not to testify or to prevent another from testifying, either in the action or with respect to particular matters, or to refuse to disclose or to prevent another from disclosing any matter, the judge and counsel may not comment thereon, no presumption shall arise with respect to the exercise of the privilege, and the trier of fact may not draw any adverse inference therefrom. In those jury cases wherein the right to exercise a privilege, as herein provided, may be misunderstood and unfavorable inferences drawn by the trier of the fact, or may be impaired in the particular case, the court, at the request of the party exercising the privilege, may instruct the jury in support of such privilege. During closing argument, the State reviewed in great detail certain aspects of Ninci's videotaped statement. The State then commented: When you look at the whole picture, folks, he knew and he agreed and he was there and he involved himself. The defendant then says, well, you know, if you think that I really knew what was going to happen that night or I agreed to involve myself in this thingyou knowif you believe that, then I want you to think that the only reason I did that was because Glen Ford made me do it. That the only reason that I danced with the devil is because Glen Ford made me do it. The defendant says I acted under threat of continuous, immediate and imminent infliction of death and great bodily harm and that instruction has been included in your instruction packet under Instruction No. 22 when he says I'm using the defense of compulsion. Well, you know, what, folks, there's no evidence of that. The only evidence that you have out of Mike Ninci's mouth is that he didn't know what Glen was going to do. .... [T]he only evidence that you hear from the defendant's taped statement is that he was thinking about the possibility of getting killed. He was thinking about it. And again, folks, you got to look at that from the first view of the defendant's statement. And that is that the defendant is doing anything he can to manipulate the truth, to escape responsibility for that. Ninci's counsel objected and moved for a mistrial because he thought the prosecutor's comment was an improper reference to Ninci's decision to not take the stand and testify. The State asserted that the comment was not improper because it referred only to Ninci's videotaped statement, which was played to the jury. The trial court agreed and denied the motion. A prosecutor commits error when `the language used was manifestly intended or was of such a character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify.' State v. Ponds, 227 Kan. 627, 632, 608 P.2d 946 (1980) (quoting State v. Henderson, 226 Kan. 726, 736, 603 P.2d 613 [1979]). We agree with the trial court that the prosecutor's comment was not of such a character that the jury would have naturally and necessarily understood the statement to be a comment on Ninci's failure to testify. When read in context, it becomes obvious that the prosecutor's closing argument mostly consisted of a dissection of Ninci's videotaped statement. When the prosecutor stated that there was no evidence out of Mike Ninci's mouth as to how Ford compelled him to commit the crimes charged, the prosecutor was referring to the fact that Ninci never told the police on the videotape how Ford compelled him to commit the crimes. The State was not referring to the fact that Ninci had never testified on the stand at trial, as prohibited by Griffith. This interpretation of the statement is supported by the prosecutor's comments immediately following the defendant's objection to the statement. At that time, the prosecutor said, [T]he only evidence that you hear from the defendant's taped statement is that he was thinking about the possibility of getting killed [by Ford if he did not help commit the crimes against Owen]. He was thinking about it. And again, folks, you have to look at that from the first view of the defendant's statement. And that is that the defendant is doing anything he can to manipulate the truth, to escape responsibility for that. We do not find error concerning this issue.