Court Opinion

ID: 9524455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:52:48.120598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:24.396652
License: Public Domain

Abrams, J.
(concurring). While I can concur in the result reached by the court, I think it necessary to add the following remarks. Every experienced prosecutor- knows that “a bad argument can lose a good case.”1 Codinha, Trial Tac*913tics for Prosecutors: Closing Argument, MCLE-NELI 171 (1979). That is exactly what happened here. Due to the misconduct of an experienced prosecutor, we are forced to reverse a strong Commonwealth case.
The prosecutor’s misconduct in this case penalizes taxpayers by requiring the expenditure of thousands of dollars for a new trial. The prosecutor’s misconduct requires reallocation of scarce police, prosecutorial, and judicial resources from new prosecutions to this retrial. The prosecutor’s misconduct forces the friends and family of the victim to relive the trauma of the crime and again suffer the ordeal of a trial. The prosecutor’s misconduct penalizes the defendant, who again must undergo the fear and anxiety associated with a criminal trial. Why, then, is the prosecutor, whose conduct results in such consequences, not named in our opinion?2
Experienced prosecutors, including this prosecutor, know that “juries for the most part do their duty, and find in accordance with the facts,” and that prosecutors should only “[djiscuss the issues, the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses [and that they should] not misstate the evidence in closing argument.” Codinha, supra at 171, 176. Well knowing these principles, this prosecutor appealed to the passions of the jury, went outside the scope of the evidence, and commented on the defendant’s silence. He knew that such tactics went beyond “the bounds of decency and fairness and [were] calculated to ‘sweep [the jury from a calm and fair] assessment of the evidence.’” Codinha, supra at 173, quoting Commonwealth v. Graziano, 368 Mass. 325, 332 (1975).
*914We fail in our duty to the public and the Bar when we do not penalize publicly those prosecutors who engage in egregious conduct. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the decision of the majority not to name the prosecutor in our opinion.3

 We have said that “we shall not tolerate misconduct by lawyers during the persuasion phase of a criminal trial.” Commonwealth v. Haas, 373 Mass. 545, 557 (1977). However, experienced prosecutors know that we do not name the erring prosecutor in our opinions; we simply indicate, if such is the case, that appellate counsel is not the person responsible for the misconduct at trial. See, e.g., the majority opinion, supra at 901 n.l; Commonwealth v. Hoppin, supra at 26 n.2; Commonwealth v. Ferreira, 381 Mass. 306, 315 n.12 (1980); Commonwealth v. Roberts, 378 Mass. 116, 119 n.3 (1979); Commonwealth v. Shelley, 374 Mass. 466, 473 n.3 (1978).

 There is no question that we have given ample warning to prosecutors that we are concerned with excesses in prosecutorial summation. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Roberts, supra at 117-118; Commonwealth v. O’Brien, 377 Mass. 772, 778 (1979); Commonwealth v. Haas, supra; Commonwealth v. Earltop, 372 Mass. 199, 204-207 (1977) (Hennessey, C.J., concurring); Commonwealth v. Johnson, 372 Mass. 185, 196-198 (1977). Prosecutors well know that a prosecutor’s closing argument is a “vulnerable area in which ... an otherwise well-tried Commonwealth case” can be reversed. Codinha, supra.

 Whether we identify the prosecutor or not in our opinions, the Board of Bar Overseers may seek its own sanctions. (At present the Board issues private reprimands.)