Opinion ID: 1109659
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prosecutor's Comment on Defendant's Failure To Take the Stand (Assignment Ten)

Text: The defendant did not testify on his own behalf during the guilt or penalty phase of the trial. During his closing rebuttal argument in the guilt phase, the prosecutor referred to the fact that the defendant had made statements to several people implicating himself in the deaths of the two women. He then stated that: I will submit to you that there can be no better evidence in a criminal proceeding but that evidence from the defendant's own mouth, not contradicted by anybody. Nobody came here and contradicted anything that was attributed to him, not one single person. Nobody took the stand. Defense counsel timely objected to these remarks by the prosecutor, and moved for a mistrial on the ground that the prosecutor had improperly directed the jury's attention to the fact that the defendant did not testify on his own behalf. The trial court denied the motion without reasons. La.C.Cr.P. art. 770(3) provides that the trial court  shall  declare a mistrial when the prosecutor refers directly or indirectly to ... [t]he failure of the defendant to testify in his own defense.... Art. 770(3)'s prohibition against such prosecutorial comment safeguards the defendant from unfavorable inferences which might otherwise be drawn from his silence. State v. Fullilove, 389 So.2d 1282 (La. 1980). The rule helps implement the defendant's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and is constitutionally required. Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965). Art. 770(3) prohibits both direct and indirect references to the defendant's failure to take the stand. When the prosecutor makes a direct reference to the defendant's failure to take the stand, a mistrial should be declared, and it is irrelevant whether the prosecutor intended for the jury to draw unfavorable inferences from defendant's silence. Fullilove, 389 So.2d at 1284. Nor, in the case of a direct reference, will this Court attempt to determine the effect that the remark had on the jury. Id. Where the reference to the defendant's failure to take the stand is not direct, this Court will inquire into the remark's intended effect on the jury in order to distinguish indirect references to the defendant's failure to testify (which are impermissible) from general statements that the prosecution's case is unrebutted (which are permissible). Id.; see also State v. Jackson, 454 So.2d 116 (La.1984). When our cases speak of the need to ascertain the intention of a prosecutor's reference to the unrebutted nature of the state's case, we of course do not envision the impossible task of reading what was actually in the prosecutor's mind at the time the statement was made. Instead, the test we have employed for determining the intent of such a statement is as follows. In cases where the prosecutor simply emphasized that the state's evidence was unrebutted, and there were witnesses other than the defendant who could have testified on behalf of the defense but did not do so, we have held that the prosecutor's argument did not constitute an indirect reference to the defendant's failure to take the stand. See, e.g., State v. Jackson, 454 So.2d 116, 118 (La.1984); State v. Smith, 433 So.2d 688 (La.1983); State v. Latin, 412 So.2d 1357 (La.1982). On the other hand, where the defendant is the only witness who could have rebutted the state's evidence, a reference to the testimony as uncontroverted focuses the jury's attention on the defendant's failure to testify and mandates a mistrial. State v. Perkins, 374 So.2d 1234, 1237 (La.1979). See also State v. Fullilove, 389 So.2d 1282 (La.1980); State v. Harvill, 403 So.2d 706 (La.1981). In Harvill, for example, the sole evidence which the state presented against defendant was his taped confession. In closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury: Did you hear one word up there today that said it wasn't true? One word? You didn't. Agreeing with the defendant's argument that the prosecutor's remarks warranted a mistrial, we reasoned that: The prosecutor's reference to the unrebutted character of the State's evidence was clearly a comment upon the failure of the defendant to testify in his own defense, as only the defendant could recant the taped confession which formed the entirety of the prosecution's case against him. 403 So.2d at 711. In this case, the challenged statements of the prosecutor focused on the absence of testimony in rebuttal to the testimony of those state witnesses who said that the defendant told them that he committed the crimes. Those witnesses were Dorothy Johnson (defendant's sister-in-law), and two inmates, John Williams and Henry Foster. Johnson testified that defendant told her in a conversation at her home that he committed the murders. There were no other persons assertedly present at time of this conversation. Nor were there any other persons assertedly present on the separate occasions when defendant admitted to Williams and Foster that he committed the crimes. It is obvious, then, that the only person who could have contradicted the testimony of these witnesses about what the defendant told them was the defendant himself. By emphasizing that the testimony of these witnesses was unrebutted (Nobody came here and contradicted anything that was attributed to him [defendant], not one single person. Nobody took the stand.), the prosecutor indirectly referred to the defendant's failure to take the stand in violation of Art. 770(3). Art. 770(3) provides that a mistrial shall be declared when the prosecutor indirectly refers to the defendant's failure to testify on his own behalf. Because there was such a reference here, the trial court's failure to declare a mistrial constitutes reversible error. See State v. Fullilove, 389 So.2d 1282 (La.1980); State v. Perkins, 374 So.2d 1234 (La.1979). Certain language in the majority opinion in State v. Jackson, 454 So.2d 116 (La.1984) indicates that a violation of Art. 770(3) can be considered harmless error in a case where the evidence of the defendant's guilt is overwhelming. Id. at 118. However, we question whether such a harmless error inquiry is ever appropriate, for Art. 770(3) mandates a mistrial, at that point in the trial when the motion is urged, in any case in which the prosecutor makes a direct or indirect reference to the defendant's failure to testify. When such an improper reference is made, the trial judge does not have discretion to deny the motion based on his perception that the error may prove to be harmless, a speculative judgment at best. Nor does the Code of Criminal Procedure allow the trial judge to attempt to minimize the effect of the error by simply admonishing the jury to disregard the prosecutor's remarks. Even if the harmless error doctrine is applicable to this issue in some cases, we cannot say that the prosecutor's improper reference to this defendant's failure to take the stand was harmless. The evidence against defendant consisted primarily of the testimony of certain witnesses regarding what the defendant had told them about the crimes, as well as certain other evidence, all circumstantial or peripheral. We can hardly conclude that the prosecutor's improper reference to the defendant's failure to take the stand and contradict the testimony of those who claimed that he had confessed the crime to them, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Lee, 524 So.2d 1176, 1191 (La.1987); State v. Gibson, 391 So.2d 421 (La.1980).