Court Opinion

ID: 9675015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:39:21.134416+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.859797
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that the closing argument of appellee’s counsel was proper and even if it was not, that appellant did not *926properly preserve error. I respectfully dissent.
Conspicuously absent from the majority opinion is any detail of the eomplained-of argument of appellee’s counsel. It is possible that if the argument was set forth, the majority would be hard pressed to find it not reversible error. It is, of course easier to address the argument in the abstract. It is also possible that there is the hidden fear that it could be used as judicial precedent for the following scenario:
A Caucasian man worked at a hotel. On several nights, he observed a wealthy African-American male abuse and belittle the staff. One night he was asked to deliver something to one of the rooms. It so happened that this African-American male was visiting that room. When the hotel employee made the delivery, the African-American male invited him inside. Once he entered, the African-American male began to verbally abuse him. He cursed the employee, he repeatedly threatened to kill him. He told the employee to kneel down and kiss his feet. He brandished a gun. He told the employee that in the Fifth Ward, he would be no more than a target for shooting practice. He finally called down to the front desk and demanded $1,000,000 to spare the employee’s life.
The hotel manager came to the room and the employee was able to leave. He worked that night but quit after management began to treat him differently. He suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome. He decided to sue the African-American male. The African-American male answered the suit but did nothing else. He did not participate in discovery. He did not appear at trial, even though counsel for both parties had agreed to the trial setting. During voir dire, the employee’s counsel began by describing the defendant as a gun-wielding black man from the Fifth Ward. He asked the venire if anyone knew several blacks from the Fifth Ward who were currently in the news for terrible crimes they committed. He implied that the defendant had been arrested the night of the incident even though he knew he had not.
During trial, all of the facts were put before the jury. The employee related every statement said to him by the defendant. The defendant did not present his own witness because he failed to designate any. The employee’s counsel made the following closing argument:
Defendant has abused you the jury. He has abused the very foundation and basis of this country and you must hold him accountable. In some places blacks think they should be treated like Gods. They can do anything they want. The defendant thinks he is that type of person and that he can come to our side of town and do what ever he wants. He is wrong and you need to send him a message that he is wrong. All of you are respectable citizens. You know what America stands for and you know that we cannot allow someone from the Fifth Ward go wherever he wants and say, “When I’m here slavery is fine; and if I say kiss my feet and if I say I will kill you, if I want to terrorize you, that is okay because that is how I would treat you where I am from.” That is wrong and we must tell him that.
The defendant has not even come here to defend himself. He has not even tried to do the right thing and admit he did it, his counsel refuses even today, I suppose on instructions from the Fifth Ward. He is thumbing his nose at you, at this process. You have the opportunity to do something about it. You need to send a message to the defendant in the Fifth Ward or wherever he is hiding out and tell him that in our part of the city you don’t act like that. I suggest that what ever you award in actual damages, you need to double it, triple it, quadruple it, whatever you feel is going to wake him up so that the next time he leaves the Fifth Ward and comes to other parts of this city, he will think twice before he terrorizes someone.
You have the opportunity in your sole discretion to decide what message you want to send to the Fifth Ward and other such communities. You have the opportunity to do something right for our community. Do something to show that some of us are good and some of us are bad. You must *927send a message long distance because he didn’t even bother to come and defend himself. You are going to have to send it to the Fifth Ward or wherever he is hiding out.
I am sure the majority would be quick to argue that the above example is not analogous at all to the case at hand. Why? Because it would have a very hard time justifying such ethnic references. But even so, that is what they have done in their majority opinion.
Appellant’s trial counsel failed to object to the outrageous argument given by counsel for appellee. However, the majority chooses to ignore not only our rules of procedure but also the very ease they so heavily rely on to support this egregious argument. Appellant contends the argument was incurable and violated the tenets of proper argument established by the supreme court in Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Reese, 584 S.W.2d 835, 839 (Tex.1979). Incurable argument does not require the predicate of an objection. See Tex. R.Crv.P. 324(b)(5); e.g. Texas Employers’ Ins. Ass’n v. Guerrero, 800 S.W.2d 859, 863 (Tex.App. — San Antonio 1990, writ denied). If the argument of appellee’s counsel was improper, and if it was incurable, then appellant properly preserved error in his motion for new trial.
Appellee’s counsel had an overriding theme throughout his closing argument. He did discuss the mental and physical stress suffered by appellee, but more important to his argument was his focus on the nationality of appellant. Starting on the first page of his closing argument, and lasting throughout, he continually alluded to an “us” versus “them” argument:
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He has abused you1 in this process. He has abused the very foundation and basis of what this country stands for and he should be held accountable for that and that is what we are asking you to do. In some places the very rich are almost like God. They can do anything they want. Mr. Soerono Haryanto thinks he is that kind of person, and he thinks America is that kind of place. He is wrong about that. He is dead wrong about that, and you should send a message to him to let him know that he is wrong about that.
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In this case, you have a rare opportunity. You have the opportunity to emphasize what America stands for in many, many ways, responsibility for your conduct, of course; but even more deeply engrained (sic) in that is this country was founded on the idea that people from all over the world would be here someday.
All of us, if we go back far enough, come from someplace else. America is described as the great melting pot and that is what it is and that’s what you know of the things that makes this country so strong and great, that a diverse group of people can come together and live in a free land. And is it a place where we should not allow someone from Singapore or Indonesia or the Philippines, or whatever this man is, to come over here and say, “When I’m here, slavery2 is fine; and if I say to kiss my feet and if I say I will kill you, if I have the right to terrorize you for a period of time, it’s fine for who I am”? (sic) That is wrong, and we must tell him that.
This Court has even told us that it’s a very historical court. You are now a participant of that history, and you should put your stamp in that history with the verdict in this case.
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Stand up and admit that you did it and try to do the right thing, but they refuse even today, I suppose on long distance instruc- • tions from Singapore.
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He is thumbing his nose at you, at this process, at this country. And you have the opportunity to do something about it, and you need to take that opportunity in your hands. You need to take the bit between your teeth'. You need to send a message *928not just to Soerono Haryanto in the Philippines or Singapore or wherever he is hiding out, but to send a message all the way around that in America you can’t do this, that we refuse to allow you to do this.
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And the way that the criminal justice system is set up here, after the police get them, prosecute them, courts lock them up, they are back in Singapore before you know it. So, it may not be all bad that we can’t give him three to five years punishment for the acts he’s engaged in. But we can send him a message in the only thing that makes a difference to him, and that’s his pocket book.
I suggest to you that whatever you award in actual damages, you need to double it, triple it, quadruple it, whatever you feel is going to wake him up and say, sir, tell you what, next time you come to the United States and you get the inkling in your mind that you are going to get yourself drunk, grab one of our citizens, put him in your room and terrorize him for an hour and to demand ransom for them, as you are picking out your pistol or thinking of taking that life into your hands, maybe you will remember that check you had to write. Maybe you will not do it. Maybe you will just not come here, which will suit me just fine.
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You have the opportunity in your sole discretion to decide what sort of message you want to send around the world, across the United States, to the communities around us and to our community.
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“Yes, I am Mr. Soerono’s executive assistant. No he can’t be here. He is in jail in Singapore or on a plane to Mexico or whatever.” Not one single person climbed in this witness chair in the defense of this man.
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He is the kind of man that gives his lawyer instructions. “Go down and do anything you can think of, whether it’s based on fact or not, and keep this jury tied up and see if you can get somebody to bite. If you get three, if you can get three, we can try the case some other time when I am in Singapore or wherever.”
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You have the opportunity to do something right for this community. Do something right for the United States of America and the basic values that underpen (sic) it’s (sic) very existence. You have the right to do something for the ideas that all persons are created equal, all of us. Pakistani goes to Mosque. Whites, black, red, brown, the whole crew of us, we are all equal. Some of us are good and some of us are bad and that’s the way life turns out. But as human beings, we start out on an even playing field; and we should. We are guaranteed that right in the United States.
Now, it’s not always followed through on and everything is not always fair; but the ideal, the ideal is there and we have held from that ideal and we have worked towards that. And we have somebody come in here, fly in with his entourage and say, “Well, that is fine for you people; but from where I come, people like you kiss my feet. People like you, I can kill you if I want to. I, Soerono Haryanto, I’m telling this jury I can do what I want and there is nothing you can do about it. There is nothing meaningful you can do about it because my lawyers stand up and say they are all lying and I couldn’t be there. Sorry. Go back in the jury room and send me a bill for a couple of Ferraris.” (sic) That is what he is telling you.
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The fact of the matter is when we get down to the end of the charge and the end of the case, when you are looking at the damages that are assessed in the past, Mr. Haryanto put a value on this man’s life of a million dollars to take it away. He has made substantial innuendos that taking things away interest him. He was very close, I submit, to pulling that trigger. If Mr. Tanguay hadn’t been there, I submit to you that he would have, and then been on a plane to Singapore. “The DA can’t get me here,” and I don’t know that be*929cause the courthouse is across the street, that Mr. Haryanto didn’t want to be around here.
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I don’t know the reason he is not here. But the message that you are going to have to send him is going to have to be long distance. You are going to have to send it all the way across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines or to Singapore or wherever he is, and the only way you are going be able to raise this man’s consciousness to teach him a lesson and punish him and deter him is to write down numbers in the actual damages and punitive damages in the blanks of these charges, is large numbers. And when I say large numbers, I mean large numbers to Mr. Soerono Har-yanto. Put down half a million dollars on the actual damages’ blank. I’m not sure he will even bat an eye. He may.
The majority narrowly focuses on the section of Reese that says that most improper jury argument can be cured by an objection and instruction to disregard, but ignores its statement that appeals to racial prejudice are one of the exceptional kinds of argument that are considered incurable. Reese, 584 S.W.2d at 840. An appeal for ethnic solidarity is no different. Guerrero, 800 S.W.2d at 862. Nor do I find that an appeal to national origin should be treated any differently. Throughout his closing argument, appellee’s counsel asked the jury to protect our American values and punish this interloper from abroad.
This argument was similar to that disapproved of in Guerrero. That court did not find an outright plea for ethnic solidarity, but instead found “veiled and subtle ethnic references” that could not be affirmed. Guerrero, 800 S.W.2d at 864-66. A statement is objectionable whether its inappropriate plea is indirect, implied or direct and express. Id. at 864^65. We cannot permit counsel to employ a sophisticated, patriotic plea for national solidarity, while we condemn those who are open with their argument. We would be asked “to label some arguments permissible and uphold them with a wink when everyone knew that [a national] appeal had been made.” Id at 865.
I cannot help but agree with the reasoning and analysis of the court in Guerrero:
[The supreme] court condemned such appeals to prejudice as “exceptional” and as “an affront to the court and the equality which it must portray.” Such arguments, the court said, “will be dealt with harshly.” (citations omitted). We think there are compelling reasons for Reese’s harsh, incurable-error approach. When a racial or ethnic appeal is made, the dispute is no longer confined to the litigants; there has been an attack on the social glue that helps bind society together. Reese characterized it as an affront to the court. The offense is against society, and it makes no difference whether the victimized-litigant has shown harm. Lawyers have no right to undermine the ethnic harmony of society simply to win a lawsuit.
Id. (emphasis in original). Here appellee’s argument was based on an affront to American society. It was no longer the terrible harm suffered by appellee but an attack on everything good and right about America.
Appellee and the majority argue that this argument was only based on the facts and evidence adduced at trial. True, appellant was not a national of this country. True, he told appellee that he would be a servant in his country. But these truths do not allow appellee to make a plea to punish appellant just because he is a foreigner. If this were so, then any defendant that was not a member of the community could be attacked for that difference. If this were true, then as in the example above, counsel could use a implied racial attack because the defendant was an African-American and talked about it during the attack. Surely the majority would not seriously argue that appellee could ask the jury to show those African-Americans that we do not behave in such a manner in our neighborhood.
Appellee’s counsel states that he was not pursuing a racial, ethnic or nationalistic theme because his client was also an immigrant. However his client’s immigrant status was presented in the context of this country as a great melting pot, where all of us can trace our history back to immigrants who came to this country for our great ideals of equality. He argues that this entire line *930of argument shows that he felt all people are created equal, and should be treated fairly and the same. But this argument fit into his attack on the nationality of appellant. His client was an immigrant, who had come to this country for the protection offered by our ideals. In contrast, appellant was the interloper, not here permanently, but away in the “Philippines, Singapore, or wherever.” Appellant did not believe in our ideals and he had no use for them. Appellee was the champion of our “great melting pot.”
The references made by appellee to the nationality of appellant were not incidental references. Incidental references to the race of parties or witnesses would not rise to the level of incurable error. See Guerrero, 800 S.W.2d at 867. Here, appellee’s counsel made great use of appellant’s nationality. Such a plea to race, ethnicity or nationality, whether done before the jury with a plea for unity for a party, or for solidarity against a party, is incurable and reversible error occurs. I agree with the court in Guerrero, that incurable argument “does not mean simply that no objection need be made; it also means that the argument’s harmfulness, its reversible impact, cannot be cured or corrected by instruction.” Id. at 864. If the argument is incurable, separate harm need not be shown.
Even if appellant was required to show harm, this case clearly illustrates the harmful impact of the argument. In Reese, the court said a reversal must come from an evaluation of the whole case, which begins with voir dire and ends with closing argument. Reese, 684 S.W.2d at 840. All of the evidence must be examined to determine the argument’s probable effect on a material finding. Id. The court must look at how long the argument continued, whether it was repeated or abandoned. Id.
The record before us shows appellee never abandoned this argument. Prom the first page of voir dire until the last of closing argument, appellee’s counsel drove home this theme of nationality. His statements during voir dire were more blatant than those in his closing arguments. He started by calling appellant “a gun wielding Filipino.” He repeatedly referred to appellant’s nationality. He asked the venire if anyone knew Imelda or Ferdinand Marcos. He asked if any one on the jury felt a visitor to the United States could “bring that sort of country with” them. He stated that the jury was going to “send a message to the Philippines or to Jakarta, around the world, that you can’t have this kind of conduct.” A juror told appellant’s trial counsel during voir dire that
“anyone who enters this country that I live in and love, to visit, to do business or to reside, in my opinion, must abide by the laws of this land; and in my opinion, this man has not done that. He is not here to answer the charges and apparently puts himself above the law, and I have a real problem with that.”
The message of appellee’s counsel was getting through. This prospective juror focused on an “attack” on the values of the United States, and not on the imprisonment of ap-pellee.
The effect of the argument can also be seen on the damages awarded by the jury. Appellee’s counsel improperly asked the jury to base the actual damages award on the wealth of appellant. He told them to send a message across the world. The jury came back with $500,000 in past damages and another $500,000 in future damages. At trial, appellee put on the following evidence of damages:
PAST DAMAGES
Medical Bills:
MacGregor Medical Assoc. $323.00
Dr. Thomasson 4 office visits3
Lost Wages: 6 months, $7,224.004
Intangible damages for mental anguish, pain & suffering.
*931FUTURE DAMAGES
Treatment:
One on one sessions $23,400 5
Group sessions $11,7006
Intangible damages for mental anguish, pain & suffering.
A liberal reading of appellee’s proof shows actual damages in the amount of $42,647. While it is in the province of the jury to determine the award for intangible damages, the evidence before us does not lead to a sound basis for an additional $957,353 in damages. There is no doubt that appellee was subjected to a humiliating and frightening experience. But his testimony at trial was that he had not seen a doctor for followup in almost two years. He continued to experience difficulty sleeping but was only taking over-the-counter sleep aids. He still feared appellant but had not had contact with him since he left the Marriott, two years before trial. While in the normal circumstance, a reviewing court should not disturb such an arbitrary award of damages, we can consider the disparity in evaluating the impact of improper argument. Having read the entire record, and finding a scarcity of testimony regarding damages, I have no doubt that the jury was inflamed by counsel for appellee when it made its damages findings. Even though harm is not required with this type of argument, the record clearly illustrates the harmful effect of the argument made by appellee’s counsel.
This argument was and is “an affront to the court and the equality which it must portray.” Reese, 584 S.W.2d at 840. I believe the practice of law and the trial of cases should be conducted on a higher plane. I would sustain appellant’s first point of error and remand this cause for a new trial.

. The "you” referred to by counsel is the jury.

. Appellee testified that appellant said "servant” not "slave.”

. No testimony regarding charges; did testify that he was given prescription medication but no evidence introduced on costs.

. No testimony from plaintiff regarding amount lost. Supervisor from Marriott testified that he *931was making $6-7/hour at time of incident. Using the higher figure, approximate lost wages would be $7,224.00. ($7/hr x 40 x 4.3(wks) x 6(mos)).

. Dr. Thomasson testified that in a worst case scenario it would take up to three years of one on one counseling, once a week at $150/hr. ($150 x 52(wks) x 3(yrs)).

. Dr. Thomasson testified that in a worst case scenario it would take up to three years of group counseling, once a week at $75/hr. ($75 x 52(wks) x 3(yrs)).