Court Opinion

ID: 9673834
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:19:11.746296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:24.350919
License: Public Domain

*911McDONALD, Presiding Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the affirmance, but I feel that 'just as a trial court is precluded from giving undue prominence in its charge to a jury by singling out particular facts or specific parts of testimony and charging thereon, a similar rule applies to a prosecutor in cases of this kind. He should not be allowed to utilize the court’s charge as was done in the case at bar. True, any lawyer may read to the jury portions of the Court’s charge, or all of the Court’s charge. However, in those areas of our jurisprudence wherein restraint is imposed upon prosecutors to refrain from alluding to or mentioning the failure of a defendant to testify, I think it highly improper for a prosecutor to use the Court’s charge as a vehicle to get before the jury what amounts to an improper comment by the prosecutor. I do not condone such practice. In fact, I condemn it. Such trial strategy, if allowed, would in effect be arming the state with a weapon it is not entitled to use. The clear purpose and intent of Art. 658, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P. would be given a new and mis-intended meaning. A continuance of such trial antics will call for a reversal of many cases. While the complained of argument does border closely upon improper comment on the failure of appellants to testify, I agree that it does not call for a reversal of this case.
MORRISON, J., joins in this concurring opinion.