Court Opinion

ID: 9761629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:48:19.306377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:38.945290
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The principal opinion suggests that all the state was trying to do by the first paragraph of the closing argument was to persuade the jury it must make the determination about whether the defendant knew the prescription was counterfeit from circumstantial evidence, “by circumstances, by looking at the surrounding facts.” But this was only the first step in the prosecutor’s devious argument. He was raising in the minds of the jurors the question, why must we do it that way? This he immediately answered. Because the only one who can actually say he knew is the defendant, said the prosecutor. Should we assume the jurors were so obtuse that they did not say to themselves, “That’s right, we can’t find out that way because he did not testify?” There are more ways of calling to a jury’s attention the failure of the defendant to testify than actually blurting out, “Look, he did not testify.” We have said that juries are “ . . . composed of ordinarily intelligent persons who should be credited with having common sense and an average understanding of our language.” Wims v. Bi-State Development Agency, 484 S.W.2d 323, 325 (Mo. banc 1972).
The principal opinion says that even if the jury did so understand, no matter because the court instructed the jury to disregard the reference. I respectfully disagree. To borrow the view expressed by the late Judge Jerome Frank, in United States v. Antonelli Fireworks Co., 155 F.2d 631, 648-49 (2d Cir. 1946), to call the error harmless is giving the defendant a “juryless” trial and “founded on a record other than that which the jury considered; for the judges are able to and do disregard the improper matter, but it is impossible to know that the jury did.”
I believe the court of appeals, St. Louis district, was correct in reversing and remanding this case on the stated ground that the prosecutor, in his closing argument, commented on defendant’s failure to testify. In part, the court of appeals, per Stewart, J., said as follows:
“The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which is practically identical with Article 1, Sec. 19 of the Missouri Constitution, provides in part: ‘ ... no person . . . shall be compelled, in any criminal case to be witness against himself . . . ’ These constitutional provisions have been held to prohibit both State and Federal prosecutors from commenting upon the defendant’s failure to testify . . . Rule 26.08(a) and Sec. 546.270 also furnish the accused with the same protection.
“To constitute a violation of the prohibition the prosecutor must make a direct and certain reference to the failure of the accused to testify . . . Crucial to this determination is whether the prosecutor made use of the words ‘defendant’ or ‘accused’ and ‘testify’ and, thus, called to the jury’s attention the accused’s failure to testify . . .

“ . . . We view the statement of the prosecutor within the framework of the facts before the jury. Only three persons could have testified: the pharmacist who filled the prescription; the doctor whose name appeared on the prescription; and the defendant who presented the prescription. Defendant was the only person who could give direct evidence as to whether ‘ . defendant then and there knew the prescription to be false, forged and counterfeit
“Within this framework we look at the statement which makes use of the words ‘say’ and ‘defendant’ which are synonymous with ‘testify’ and ‘accused’. The statement *240in this case meets the ‘ultimate test’ because the ‘jury’s attention was called to the fact that the accused did not testify’ .
“We empathize with the trial court where, as in this ease, a trial has progressed well into the closing argument and the court is faced with the request for a mistrial. However, we cannot treat lightly the constitutional rights of an accused. The very purpose of the statute and the rule is to keep ‘absolutely from the jury any reference to the constitutional right . against self-incrimination.’ .
“ . . . The remark was a direct reference to defendant’s failure to testify, and was prejudicial.
“The argument in this case is not a form of argument to be indulged as against the rule and the constitutional statutory rights of an accused.”
I would discharge this transfer as improvidently granted and let stand the opinion of the court of appeals.