Court Opinion

ID: 9855668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:29:02.578234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:36:19.017846
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
As the sentence in the majority opinion “Admonishment deprives the error of prejudice” is oversimplistic considering our previous decisions on this point, I concur only in the results of this decision, not wishing to marry myself to such restrictive language. Refinements to this entire question of pros-ecutorial misconduct are found in the settled law of this state. If admonishment alone cures the error, a prosecutor possesses a license to act unjustly toward a defendant. I note that the trial court’s jury instruction # 10 was a stock curative instruction: “Offered testimony not received or stricken out and statements of counsel not supported by the evidence or fair inference drawn therefrom should not be considered by you in arriving at your verdict.”
Counsel for the state attempted to use defendant’s wife as a witness to prove the *489crime charged. Defendant objected, claiming the privilege afforded by SDCL 19-IS-IS. The objection was sustained and defendant’s wife was thereupon excused from the witness stand. Knowing this, the prosecutor commented during final argument (according to defense counsel’s motion in the transcript — there being no transcript of final arguments) that defense counsel prevented the wife from testifying. The trial court confirmed in chambers that the comment had been made and “it was error on the part of the State’s Attorney to comment, that it is not prejudicial error and is not error of such magnitude to create mistrial.” The prosecutor’s comment was an improper tactic to gain a conviction by invoking a negative image of the defendant. By innuendo, the comment portrayed defendant as keeping information from the jury and thereby subverting truth.
In conjuction with this point, SDCL 19-13-28 provides:
The claim of a privilege, whether in the present proceeding or upon a prior occasion, is not a proper subject of comment by judge or counsel. No inference may be drawn therefrom.
Defense counsel, according to the trial court, immediately objected to the prosecutor’s comment and requested an admonition to the jury, which was duly given. No specific jury instruction pertaining to the improper remark was requested by defense counsel. See State v. Christiansen, 46 S.D. 61, 190 N.W. 777 (1922); see also State v. Kidd, 286 N.W.2d 120 (S.D.1979) (Henderson, J., concurring specially); Schlagel v. Sokota Hybrid Producers, 279 N.W.2d 431 (S.D.1979) (Henderson, J., concurring specially). Perhaps defense counsel was satisfied with the trial court’s stock jury instruction # 10. A motion for mistrial was made in chambers by defense counsel after closing arguments, which was denied.
In Kidd, we said:
However, no hard and fast rules exist which state with certainty when prosecu-torial misconduct reaches a level of prejudicial error which demands reversal of the conviction and a new trial; each case must be decided on its own facts. State v. Webb, [251 N.W.2d 687 (S.D.1977)]. Furthermore, we will not disturb the trial court’s ruling on a motion for a new trial based on misconduct of counsel unless we are convinced there has been a clear abuse of discretion. State v. Havens, 264 N.W.2d 918 (S.D.1978); State v. Burtts, 81 S.D. 150, 132 N.W.2d 209 (1964); State v. Norman, 72 S.D. 168, 31 N.W.2d 258 (1948).
Id. at 121-122.
I join in the results of the majority decision believing that this case strains the outer limits of liberality in determining that the prosecutorial misconduct does not attain the level of prejudicial error. I do so because of the trial court’s immediate admonition to the jury to disregard the prosecutor’s statement and the aforementioned general curative instruction. I cannot say that the trial court clearly abused its discretion.
I pose this question: What ad vocative role shall our state’s attorneys play in this never ending quest for justice, architects of fairness or engineers of victory?