Opinion ID: 1155625
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Animosity Between the Prosecutor and Defense Counsel

Text: Defendant points to more than 100 on-the-record exchanges between the prosecutor and defense counsel that indicate an acrimonious relationship between the two attorneys. They include objections to questions asked by either counsel, a few instances of bickering between counsel over an objection or a ruling, and several accusations by defense counsel that the prosecutor was reacting to a particular question or ruling by making faces or was whispering too loudly to the investigating officer seated at counsel table. The following exchanges are illustrative: Mr. Hawk [defense counsel]: Well, do I have an objection or is he going to give me a lecture? Mr. Wall [prosecutor]: I am responding to his objection. Mr. Hawk: You're barbarian. Mr. Wall: You're putting on a show. On one occasion, when the prosecutor objected to defense counsel's friendly parroting banter with a witness, defense counsel retorted, The shoe is on the other foot? In another instance, the prosecutor remarked that defense counsel should refrain from making comments like `Oh Jesus Christ.' On yet another occasion, referring to defense counsel's handling of an exhibit, the prosecutor asked that the record reflect that defense counsel had commingled laboratory samples with other evidentiary containers and envelopes. When defense counsel queried whether his treatment of the exhibit made any difference, the prosecutor responded with apparent sarcasm, Hard to tell now. (3a) Defendant contends that the frequent acrimonious exchanges between his counsel and the prosecutor created a carnival atmosphere uncontrolled by the trial court, depriving him of a fair trial before an impartial jury as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and resulting in a penalty determination based on caprice or emotion incompatible with the Eighth Amendment. The record does not support this contention. The exchanges between trial counsel to which defendant refers comprise but a small portion of a trial that extended over 10 months. By defendant's own description, most of these exchanges were petty. Several took place outside the jury's presence and thus would not have been heard by the jurors. Those that were made in front of the jury were not protracted, and generally were promptly interrupted by the trial court when it warned counsel not to make personal comments, or ordered a recess, or admonished the jury to disregard any personal comments made by the prosecutor and defense counsel. Contrary to defendant's assertions, the acrimony that the attorneys exhibited towards each other during trial was not sufficiently extensive or uncontrolled to deprive defendant of a fair trial or to impair the reliability of the jury's penalty determination; thus, defendant's constitutional rights were not violated. Recognizing that his own trial attorney initiated much of the rancor, defendant nonetheless faults the prosecutor for engaging in misconduct. We disagree. It is the duty of every member of the bar to maintain the respect due to the courts and to abstain from all offensive personality. (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 6068, subds. (b) and (f).) (4) A prosecutor is held to a standard higher than that imposed on other attorneys because of the unique function he or she performs in representing the interests, and in exercising the sovereign power, of the State. ( People v. Kelley (1977) 75 Cal. App.3d 672, 690 [142 Cal. Rptr. 457].) As the United States Supreme Court has explained, the prosecutor represents a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. ( Berger v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 78, 88 [79 L.Ed. 1314, 1321, 55 S.Ct. 629].) Prosecutors who engage in rude or intemperate behavior, even in response to provocation by opposing counsel, greatly demean the office they hold and the People in whose name they serve. (See People v. Bain (1971) 5 Cal.3d 839, 849 [97 Cal. Rptr. 684, 489 P.2d 564]; People v. Kelley, supra, 75 Cal.3d 672, 680-689.) (5) A prosecutor's rude and intemperate behavior violates the federal Constitution when it comprises a pattern of conduct so egregious that it infects the trial with such unfairness as to make the conviction a denial of due process. ( People v. Harris (1989) 47 Cal.3d 1047, 1084 [255 Cal. Rptr. 352, 767 P.2d 619], citing Donnelly v. DeChristoforo (1974) 416 U.S. 637, 642-643 [40 L.Ed.2d 431, 436-437, 94 S.Ct. 1868].) But conduct by a prosecutor that does not render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair is prosecutorial misconduct under state law only if it involves `the use of deceptive or reprehensible methods to attempt to persuade either the court or the jury.' ( People v. Haskett (1982) 30 Cal.3d 841, 866 [180 Cal. Rptr. 640, 640 P.2d 776], quoting People v. Strickland (1974) 11 Cal.3d 946, 955 [114 Cal. Rptr. 632, 523 P.2d 672].) Included within the deceptive or reprehensible methods we have held to constitute prosecutorial misconduct are personal attacks on the integrity of opposing counsel. ( People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 538 [262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129].) (3b) Here, we are satisfied there was no denial of due process under the federal Constitution. The prosecutor's behavior, though on occasion rude and intemperate, did not comprise a pattern of egregious misbehavior making the trial fundamentally unfair. In this lengthy trial, the prosecutor's lapses from courteous demeanor were occasional rather than systematic and pervasive. Nor has defendant demonstrated prejudicial misconduct under state law. None of the instances that defendant characterizes as prosecutorial misconduct appears to have been either intended or likely to deceive the jury on any material issue. Moreover, it is not reasonably likely that the jury would have understood the prosecutor's bickering with defense counsel, or his use of facial expressions or gestures to express dismay or disbelief, to be a personal attack on defense counsel's integrity. In all likelihood, the jury viewed such behavior as expressing merely a clash of personalities. Thus, it is not reasonably probable that the prosecutor's occasional intemperate behavior affected the jury's evaluation of the evidence or the rendering of its verdict. ( People v. Strickland, supra, 11 Cal.3d 946, 955; People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 835 [299 P.2d 243].)