Court Opinion

ID: 9548329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:01:46.210809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:48.858426
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I dissent.
In my opinion the remarks of the deputy district attorney with respect to the failure of defendant to call his wife as a witness constituted misconduct so reprehensible and so designedly planned that prejudice to defendant inevitably" followed.
It is conceded by the majority opinion, as the authorities hold, that the prosecution cannot comment upon or make a point of the failure of a defendant in a criminal case to call his wife as a witness. The matter is discussed in People v. Terramorse, 30 Cal.App. 267, 273 [157 P. 1134], where the court said: “In declining to consent that she [defendant’s wife] should be a witness against him the defendant was standing as strictly upon his legal rights as he would have been had he declined to be a witness himself, and he was equally entitled to the application of the rule that his declination to permit his wife to be a witness should not in any manner prejudice him or be used against him on the trial. (People v. Heacock, 10 Cal.App. [450], 456 [102 P. 543].) In making the foregoing comment the prosecuting officer was guilty of prejudicial misconduct which counsel for the defendant immediately called to the attention of the court, and requested that the jury be instructed to disregard it. The court did not give such an instruction as the defendant asked and was entitled to have given.”
In the instant case the prosecuting attorney commenced, what to all appearances was a preconceived plan, to discredit and prejudice the defendant for failing to call his wife as a witness. At the start of the trial the prosecution made inquiry to ascertain whether several witnesses were present, not men*665tioning defendant’s wife. After several witnesses had been called and examined the court directed the prosecuting attorney to call the next witness. Whereupon the prosecuting attorney called for defendant’s wife, although he knew that she had not been subpoenaed and he must have known she was not present. He thus left the impression with the jury that defendant was keeping his wife from court for the purpose of suppressing evidence. To consummate this obvious plan the prosecution argued to the jury that there were only five persons who knew what transpired at the scene of the alleged offense, and among them was defendant’s wife; that all the defendant testified to occurred in his wife’s presence; that “The wife did not testify, so we only have Mr. Goldman’s testimony and the defendant’s testimony”; that “defendant immediately goes to the back of the store where his wife is and there is some confusion, and who does he tell us?”; that “I think it is fair to say that we are entitled to know why the only other witness [referring to defendant’s wife] who is in this State did not come to tell us what-[Interruption in which defendant’s counsel claimed misconduct and the court admonished the jury; but the prosecution continued to insist] . . . Now, that person did not testify. Now, as his Honor has just said, all I have done is tell you how I view the evidence. I haven’t tried to tell you what the evidence is, but I have given you my honest interpretation of the facts and pointed out what I consider is very essential, and that is that Mrs. Klor did not choose to testify.” Then followed a similar interruption, but the prosecuting attorney persisted, going on to state from where he had been interrupted: “And from all of the facts that we have in this case, the only facts that corroborate any one of the two witnesses who did testify, the only independent facts that corroborate either one of those two witnesses are the facts pertaining to the phone conversation, which corroborates Mr. Goldman’s version of what happened, and not the defendant’s.”
This apparently deliberate and persistent misconduct cannot be condoned. It clearly implied that if defendant’s wife had testified her testimony would have been very damaging to defendant. It is impossible to say that defendant was not prejudiced.
Reference is made in the majority opinion to admonitions given to the jury when misconduct was charged by the defense, but they were wholly insufficient to cure the error. *666They merely told the jury that they were the judges of the evidence and not to take counsel’s statements as evidence. That did not at all meet the error in implying that the failure to call the wife could be held against the defendant. That had nothing to do with evidence. It had to do with the failure to call a witness. The instruction to the jury at the close of the evidence was equally ineffective. It was general, not specific, and was given after the impression had become fixed in the jurors’ minds.
In my opinion it is too obvious for any one to attempt to deny, that the misconduct of the prosecuting attorney in this ease was wilful and deliberate, and was designed to and did prejudice the defendant to such an extent that it could not be cured by any admonition the court might have given, and the defendant is therefore entitled to a new trial.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment.
Schauer, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied October 25, 1948. Carter, J., and Schauer, J., voted for a rehearing.