Court Opinion

ID: 9604003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:12:51.094777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:17.362345
License: Public Domain

Gunderson, C. J.,
concurring:
I agree that the prosecutor’s “Merry Christmas” argument constituted misconduct. Moreover, in the factual context of this case, I agree that such misconduct may be deemed nonprejudicial. With the approval of my brethren, however, I take this occasion to note that this court will consider penalizing prosecutors personally for similar derelictions hereafter. Such unprofessional tactics, however well intentioned, burden our court system in intolerable ways.
First, inflammatory argument inevitably creates serious appellate issues, occasioning unnecessary expenditure of time by this court, and by counsel, even if we ultimately decide reversal for a new trial is unnecessary — as we have in this case. The waste ensuing- from improvident prosecutorial comment often does not end in this court, of course. Frequently, as may well happen in the instant case, the defense raises similar issues again in federal court, sometimes successfully and sometimes *815not, but always at additional public expense needlessly occasioned by the overzealous prosecutor.
Second, where a new trial ultimately is ordered, everything done before is at best a total loss. Indeed, with the passage of time, marshaling evidence necessary for successful presentation of the people’s case may have become more difficult and costly, or even impossible. In such instances, the prosecutor’s misguided efforts at eloquence may free the person he sought to convict.
Third, judicial resort to the harmless error rule, as in this case, erodes confidence in the court system, since calling clear misconduct “harmless” will always be viewed by some as “sweeping it under the rug.” (We can, at best, make a debatable judgment call.) Still, an appellate court like ours cannot try to correct prosecutorial misconduct by abandoning the “harmless error” rule where it seems applicable; for to do so would only impose greater burdens on our court system and penalize the taxpayers who support it.
What, then, should be done when prosecutors burden the courts, and endanger their capacity to deliver justice to the public, by improper argument or similar misconduct? To be effective, it seems, sanctions should place the loss as fully as possible on the offending lawyer.
Accordingly, in cases tried after this date, where the trial transcript discloses improper argument, I understand that this court will consider referring the offending attorney to the local administrative committee for determination of an appropriate penalty. Where a retrial is necessitated, I suggest the penalty might properly include payment of court costs to the state, and an appropriate assessment to cover the cost of public or private defense counsel.
More than a century of admonitions has failed to engender in all who serve as prosecutors that instinct for propriety and fairness which their public duty obviously demands. Manifestly, another approach is indicated.