Court Opinion

ID: 9862200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 01:03:14.958298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:30:30.740417
License: Public Domain

KRAHULIK, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion holding that the prosecutor’s comments to the jury during final argument did not constitute reversible error. The prosecutor clearly commented on Hopkins’ failure to testify when he stated that:
[I]t is certainly worthy of comment that you never heard any testimony during this trial that the defendant was anywhere else from 6:30 in the morning until 8:30 to 9:00 in the morning on Saturday, August 8, 1987.
This comment was immediately followed by a request for mistrial and, alternatively, a request that the jury be admonished. The court denied both requests. To me, it is clear that the trial court should have admonished the jury to disregard the prosecutor’s argument because this comment clearly infringed upon the defendant’s exercise of his Fifth Amendment right to not testify. Moore v. State (1977), 267 Ind. 270, 369 N.E.2d 628, Dooley v. State (1979), 271 Ind. 404, 393 N.E.2d 154, and Williams v. *355State (1981), Ind., 426 N.E.2d 662. While the prosecutor’s comment did not constitute fundamental error, in my opinion the trial court’s refusal to admonish the jury ¡ constituted reversible error pursuant to the above-stated precedent.