Court Opinion

ID: 9464632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:38:33.972006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:44.083564
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the result and I concur in most of the majority opinion. I would, however, place the determination that the prosecutor’s reference to Satterfield’s failure to testify in support of his claim of self-defense did not invalidate his conviction upon a somewhat different ground.
Satterfield was tried non-jury. While his counsel failed to object to the prosecutor’s statement at the time that it was made, he made a delayed objection later in the day after the trial court had returned a guilty verdict. Even if Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), is not limited in its application solely to jury trials, the record in the instant case shows beyond peradventure of doubt that any violation of Griffin did not prejudice Satterfield. This conclusion follows from the response of the trial judge to Satter-field’s counsel’s objection to the prosecutor’s comment. The trial judge said:
[A]t the time I immediately erased [the prosecutor’s comment] from my mind because as a matter of fact if it had any effect, it had the effect of militating in favor of [Satterfield] because I was aware that such comment should not be made and, therefore, it had a backlash effect, if it had any effect whatever. I purposely kept that out of my mind.
In my view, there is thus no need for us to undertake to fathom the “prejudice” and “cause” exception to the contemporaneous objection rule stated in Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). Especially is this so since the Supreme Court has stated that it will undertake to define these concepts in an appropriate case. 433 U.S. at 87, 97 S.Ct. 2497.