Court Opinion

ID: 9768530
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:07:43.346058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.734207
License: Public Domain

PARRISH, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached with respect to each point defendant raises on appeal. I agree with the principal opinion’s discussion regarding Points I and III. I agree with all aspects of the principal opinion’s discussion of Point II other than the conclusion that the prosecuting attorney obliquely or impliedly referred to punishment in the opening segment of the state’s closing argument.
The principal opinion concludes that the prosecuting attorney’s argument “that ‘[r]ape is an extremely cruel crime’ and that a child’s home should not be ‘a harbor for sexual abuse, as it was for [the victim]’ ” was an oblique or implied reference to punishment and equates those references to the argument in State v. Hale, 371 S.W.2d 249, 255-56 (Mo.1963). I do not agree.
In Hale the jury was told in the prosecuting attorney’s opening segment of the state’s closing argument that the case being tried was serious; “that the type of verdict rendered would be serious not only to the defendant but also to the state.” Id. at 255. In Hale the prosecuting attorney referred to the verdict. A verdict in a criminal case in which the jury recommends punishment includes a finding regarding guilt and, if that finding is guilty, the jury’s assessment of punishment. Thus, in Hale, by referring to the verdict, the prosecuting attorney obliquely or impliedly referred to punishment.
In this case, the prosecuting attorney did not refer to the verdict. He referred only to the serious nature of the offense. I do not believe the prosecuting attorney referred to punishment in the opening segment of the state’s closing argument in any respect.
Nevertheless, as the principal opinion points out, in the final segment of the state’s closing argument in this case, the prosecuting attorney did not ask the jury to assess a particular punishment. The prosecuting attorney did not argue for a particular punishment. The prosecuting attorney told the jury that punishment was for them to decide. I believe that was proper; that it did not violate the requirement that if the state plans to argue punishment to the jury, the prosecuting attorney must discuss punishment in the opening segment of closing argument. I agree that defendant’s second point must be denied.