Court Opinion

ID: 9586186
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:08:06.088869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:14.588243
License: Public Domain

Judge Greene
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I believe Plaintiff’s closing jury argument contained grossly improper comments, and therefore would grant Duke a new trial.
In jury argument, a lawyer is not to determine matters of credibility and announce that opinion to the jury, as that is the prerogative of the jury. State v. Locklear, 294 N.C. 210, 218, 241 S.E.2d 65, 70 (1978). Thus a lawyer’s expression of her opinion to a jury that a witness is lying is a “step out of bounds” and the trial court is obliged to act ex mero motu and immediately “correct the transgression.” Id.; State v. Miller, 271 N.C. 646, 659, 157 S.E.2d 335, 345 (1967) (improper for lawyer to assert his opinion that a witness is lying); cf. State v. Noell, 284 N.C. 670, 202 S.E.2d 750 (1974) (district attorney’s argument that “I submit to you, that they have lied to you” was proper), vacated on other grounds, 428 U.S. 902, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1205 (1976); State v. Davis, 291 N.C. 1, 229 S.E.2d 285 (1976) (argument that “The State would argue and contend to you that [defendant’s] testimony was nothing but the testimony of a pathological liar,” was proper); State v. Solomon, 340 N.C. 212, 456 S.E.2d 778 (statement that defendant was “lying his head off’ was not improper because witness had admitted on the stand that he had lied), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 996, 133 L. Ed. 2d 438 (1995); State v. Tyler, 346 N.C. 187, 485 S.E.2d 599 (statement that defendant put his “hand on the Bible and told about 35,000 whoppers” did not require trial court to intervene ex mero motu because comment does not “equate to the type of specific, objectionable language referring to defendant as a liar”), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 139 L. Ed. 2d 411 (1997).
In this case, Plaintiff’s counsel repeatedly expressed her unequivocal opinion that various witnesses for defendants had lied on the witness stand. She even suggested that defendants’ counsel knew they were going to lie before they were placed on the witness stand and “they put them up anyway. That’s heavy. That’s a heavy accusation.” Indeed it is! These comments were grossly improper and the trial court erred in overruling defendants’ objection to them. To the extent there was no objection, the trial court erred in not intervening to immediately and ex mero motu stop the argument. The magnitude *106of this error entitles Duke to a new trial. See Locklear, 294 N.C. at 218, 241 S.E.2d at 70 (granting defendant a new trial).
I fully concur with the remainder of the majority’s opinion.