Court Opinion

ID: 9742587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:16:27.695617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:33.936140
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially) .
I am unable to agree with the basis of Division I in the majority opinion.
In refusing defense counsel’s request that final arguments be reported, trial court said in part:
“The court takes note of the fact that the defendant is represented by Mr. Cri-telli under a court appointment at the expense of the state. Because of the affidavit of indigency, the court assumes he is without funds to pay the reporter for reporting arguments. The court feels it would be an improper expense to tax the state for reporting arguments in this case.”
This is the exercise of trial court “discretion” now upheld. I believe trial court’s ruling was wrong on factual, statutory, constitutional, and policy grounds.
*412I. The facts. Trial court’s ruling assumes a court reporter is entitled to compensation other than his salary when ordered to report final arguments of counsel. I am unaware of any basis for such an assumption. Court reporters are full-time public employees. Their duties and compensation are set by statute. Code § 605.6 requires a reporter “upon the request of either party in a civil case or a criminal case, [to] take and report in full the oral evidence and proceedings in the case and perform all duties required of him on the trial, as provided by law.” Code § 605.7 provides, “He shall attend such sessions of the court and perform such other reporting and related duties in aid of the court as the judge who appointed him may direct * * *_» por jjjg services he receives an annual salary fixed in Code § 605.8 (as amended by Acts 1973 G.A. ch. 284, § 1).
He is reimbursed for travel expense under Code § 605.10 (as amended by Acts 1973 G.A. ch. 284, § 3). Litigants are charged for reporter services as part of court costs. § 605.12, The Code, as amended by Acts 1973 G.A. ch. 284, § 6. It is unlikely the legislature intended litigants to be charged by both the court and the reporter for reporter services. The only extra compensation the court reporter is authorized to receive for performance of his assigned duties is for transcription of his original notes under Code § 605.11. He is not entitled to be paid anything other than his salary for performing other duties assigned by the court including reporting, i. e. making original notes, of final arguments.
This is not like a situation where counsel contracts privately for reporter services. This is a question of the reporter’s statutory, court-ordered duty.
Since trial court’s ruling was predicated entirely on an erroneous factual basis, it cannot be upheld as an exercise of sound discretion.
II. The statutes. I do not agree with the majority’s interpretation of Code § 624.11. It would be strange for the legislature to make arguments part of trial proceedings, Code § 780.6, require portions of arguments objected to be reported when ordered by the court, Code § 624.9, and at the same time say in Code § 624.11 that arguments need not be reported. I believe the legislature plainly mandates reporting of final arguments upon order of the court.
A more reasonable interpretation of Code § 624.11 is that in jury trials arguments of counsel not made in the presence of the jury need not be reported. Likewise, statements of the court, except rulings, made out of the jury’s presence, need not be reported. The intent is obvious. Arguments (and court statements other than rulings) out of the jury’s presence do not affect the jury verdict and hence cannot be an essential part of the record.
The applicable statutes authorize the court to order reporting of final arguments and intend the authority be exercised in proper cases. I believe this was such a case.
III.The Constitution. Although the United States Supreme Court has left the door open to permit states to provide equivalent alternatives to reporting and subsequent transcription of arguments to provide effective appellate review, our cases plainly show there is no equivalent alternative in this state.
We have made it impossible to secure reversal of a criminal conviction based upon prosecutor misconduct without a complete record of arguments in situations where otherwise prejudicial remarks can be presumed fair rebuttal to remarks of defense counsel. See, e. g., State v. Latham, 254 Iowa 513, 517, 117 N.W.2d 840, 843 (1962) (“Where the argument for the defense is not before us the argument for the State is presumed to be in response thereto. If responsive it was not error.”). Trial court told defendant in this case he had no right to make the very record we have said is indispensable for him to preserve error.
*413Disagreements arise over efforts to prepare a bill of exceptions. See, e. g., State v. Horsey, 180 N.W.2d 459, 461 (Iowa 1970) (“Quite obviously court and counsel were at odds over the accuracy of the recitations of the bill. This is, at best, an unsatisfactory record to ask our acceptance of defendant’s disputed version of what was argued.”). The bill of exceptions procedure is wholly unsatisfactory. It is full of technical traps for the unwary. See, e. g., State v. Kilduff, 160 Iowa 388, 393-394, 141 N.W. 962, 963-964 (1913), and citations. As State v. Horsey, supra, illustrates, it can become a trial in itself. The likelihood of dispute where human memory must be relied upon to reconstruct an incident which occurred during the heat of argument is great. The procedure simply asks too much of human nature, and of course doubts are resolved against the party charged with the duty to complete the record. Everything in our cases on the subject points to one inevitable conclusion: there is no equivalent alternative in Iowa to the full reporting of final arguments.
Yet we have said over and over again that “alleged improper statements or prejudicial remarks of the prosecutor not preserved in the record cannot be reviewed.” State v. LaMar, 260 Iowa 957, 966, 151 N. W.2d 496, 501 (1967), and citations. See State v. Kendrick, 173 N.W.2d 560, 563 (Iowa 1970), and citations.
It ill behooves this court, after stressing the necessity that counsel make a full and complete record to preserve error, to approve a ruling which deprives counsel of the means of doing so. This is especially significant where counsel is court appointed. State v. Williams, 207 N.W.2d 98, 104 (Iowa 1973) (“Assignment of counsel under such circumstances as to preclude the giving of effective aid in the preparation and trial of the case will not satisfy the necessary requisites of due process of law.”).
The essence of due process is fairness. The essence of equal protection is equal justice. Neither fairness nor equal justice is possible when one accused of crime is denied the only reasonable way to assure that if he is convicted it is because his legal guilt has been established by the evidence rather than because of inflammatory remarks by a zealous prosecutor.
I believe refusal of a reporter’s services during final argument in a criminal case in this state is a denial of due process and, where (as here) the accused is indigent, of equal protection.
IV. The policy. The policy manifest in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, this court, and the applicable statutes is that arguments to the jury are recognized as an important, essential, and integral part of the trial process. The convenience of the court reporter and the absence of an affirmative statutory mandate that all arguments be reported do not constitute proper excuse or justification for refusing the services of this public employee in reporting them.
Our recent amendment to rule 196, Rules of Civil Procedure, by which the final draft of the court’s instructions must be presented to counsel prior to argument, removes the reason previously urged for denying litigants the reporter’s services during arguments. No longer can it be urged he is better occupied typing the court’s final draft of instructions than reporting arguments.
Code § 624.9 clearly authorizes the court to order final arguments to be reported, and I believe it makes it a practical necessity for the court to do so when request is made. Whether arguments are reported or not a litigant has an absolute right under the statute to have his objections and the court’s rulings reported. Principles governing our review make it impossible to secure reversal where this court is uninformed as to what the argument was which is assailed. We do not review objections and rulings out of context. There is simply no adequate way to reconstruct the argument to give flesh to an otherwise skeletal *414objection. The procedure disrupts the trial; it annoys the court, opposing counsel and the jury; it invites argument over what was or was not said; and as anyone who has experienced such frustration knows, these interruptions frequently end with the court simply throwing up its hands and advising counsel to proceed with argument without the record being completed. These practical aspects of the problem have an inevitable chilling effect on the proper efforts of lawyers to serve their clients by making objections to improper argument. The only fair resolution of this difficulty is the simple expedient of having final arguments reported upon request. There is simply no factor or circumstance which can outweigh the advantages of having the court order the reporter to report final arguments. Rather than cast any additional burden upon the public, it would serve the manifest public interest in seeing that our system of justice accomplishes its intended purposes.
We must judicially note the large number of civil and criminal appeals coming to this court in which attorney misconduct in argument is claimed. The fact a record is being made is itself an inhibiting influence to prevent such misconduct. And a full record is the only adequate basis to assure fair review.
Trial judges ought to be told, apart from questions of constitutional and statutory law, requests that final arguments be reported should be granted.
In this case trial court erred in refusing to order arguments reported. I do not agree with the majority’s statement that defense counsel waived error by failing to object to the prosecutor’s argument at the time misconduct occurred. We have said an objection to improper argument is timely if made in motion for mistrial before submission of the case to the jury. Andrews v. Struble, 178 N.W.2d 391, 400-403 (Iowa 1970). However, defense counsel here did not object to remarks of the prosecutor until motion for new trial. An objection to improper argument made for the first time in motion for new trial is not timely. Id. at 401. (“Since the remedy for misconduct * * * is to call the attention of the presiding judge [to it] and move by some proper procedure to have the matter corrected, it is not timely to await the result of the trial and then first complain by allegation in motion for new trial in the event of an adverse verdict.”). I would hold trial court erred in refusing to order arguments reported, but since no timely objection was made to the prosecutor’s remarks, there was no prejudice. State v. Kelsey, 201 N.W.2d 921, 927 (Iowa 1972).
I concur only in the result.
MASON, REYNOLDSON and HARRIS, JJ., join this special concurrence.