Court Opinion

ID: 9461476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:15:22.547087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:04.807214
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur and append this separate statement not because I disagree with the opinion of the court, but because I want to record my concern about the practice of many prosecutors of deliberately injecting inadmissible prejudicial evidence into criminal trials and thereby unnecessarily jeopardizing an apparently strong case. In numerous other cases, we have condemned “prosecutorial overkill” and have felt obliged to reverse convictions based upon it. E. g., United States v. Smith, 500 F.2d 293 (6th Cir. 1974), United States v. Calvert, 498 F.2d 409 (6th Cir. 1974), and United States v. Nemeth, 430 F.2d 704 (6th Cir. 1970).
In this case, there were at least three instances in which the prosecutor *1196brought to the attention of the jury improper prejudicial evidence. In one, the government attorney elicited from an informer the statement that he wanted his identity to remain confidential because he feared that if it were disclosed, his life and the lives of other government informers would be endangered because someone might place bombs in their automobiles. The district court refused to grant a mistrial or to direct the jury to disregard the statement, observing that the informer had not said that he feared that appellant would place bombs in the automobiles. In another, the prosecutor asked an attorney who had represented appellant’s former wife in a divorce proceeding against him whether anyone had ever threatened to kill him if he continued to represent her in the matter. Again the court refused to grant a mistrial but did instruct the jury to disregard the question to which no answer had been given. In the third instance, after eliciting from appellant’s former accomplice the admission that he had firebombed a house. at appellant’s request, the prosecutor adduced the witness’ further testimony that he had been honorably discharged from the Marines and had never been in trouble until appellant met and corrupted him. Once more, the court denied the motion for a mistrial.
Although these errors are egregious, appellee did not deign in its brief to answer appellant’s arguments asserting them as reasons for reversal, possibly because it regarded them as unworthy of response. I believe, however, that they have substance, and were I not persuaded, like my colleagues, that the lawful evidence of appellant’s guilt is overwhelming, I would vote to reverse and require a new trial. In another appeal the proof of guilt may not be so compelling and the practice I deplore may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.