Court Opinion

ID: 9542480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:34:53.400964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:03.856763
License: Public Domain

EASTAUGH, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the result the court reaches today, because it has the effect of affirming Sivertsen’s judgment and conviction. But I disagree with the court’s analysis.
The court reasons that the words “you can assume” are “functionally equivalent in this context” to the words “the law presumes.”1 But the authorities the court discusses distinguish between “assume” and “presume,” and assign them different meanings and connotations. I agree that a prosecutor who asks a jury to “presume” facts relevant to guilt invites error, and that asking a jury to “assume” a relevant fact may be “perilously close” to inviting error.2 But I think that a prosecutor’s use of “assume” in a manner consistent with its proper meaning is not error.
Prosecutors must take care to avoid arguments which infringe, even unintentionally, on defendants’ rights. A prosecutor’s comments must be assessed contextually when their propriety is attacked. Absent a contextual implication that the defendant must produce evidence of innocence, I would not find error when a jury is asked to “assume” something. In context, the usage in this case *568was not inappropriate. The court correctly concludes that the prosecutor’s words were harmless.3 I would go further: it was not error to utter them.

. Op. at 566.

. Op. at 566.

. See Op. at 567.