Court Opinion

ID: 9764180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:13:50.274575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:54.403322
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. J ustice Pomeroy :
I cannot agree that the prosecutor’s use of the word “uneontroverfced” in his closing argument to the jury constituted adverse comment upon appellant’s exercise of his Fifth Amendment rights, as interpreted in Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 14 L. Ed. 2d 106 (1965).
For the remarks of a prosecuting attorney to be impermissible for this reason, it must appear that “the language used was manifestly intended or was of such character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify.” Knowles v. United States, 224 F. 2d 168, 170 (10th Cir. 1955). The question, therefore, is whether the jury would so understand the use of the word “uncontroverted”. The word “controvert” means “to dispute or oppose by reasoning; to deny; contradict.” Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2d Ed. (1942). “Uncontroverted” means, obviously, that something is not disputed or opposed by reasoning, or is not denied, or not contradicted. It is the most natural thing in the world for any lawyer in his summation to point out that salient points of his client’s case have not been disputed or denied, or that important testimony has not been contradicted. This is a fact of the case as it then stands; the lawyer is but giving emphasis to what is already known to the fact finder.
To hold that this kind of remark, without more, and particularly without any reference to the refusal *182of the defendant to testify or any indication that only the defendant could do the controverting, is an adverse comment on the defendant’s exercise of his Fifth Amendment right seems to me to be stretching things unduly. The holding converts the use of a factual, colorless word into a pejorative adverse commentary. To go farther and declare, as does the Court, that the thrice repeated use of “uncontroverted” in a lengthy summation argument “thoroughly exploited” the exercise of the defendant’s right not to testify seems to me to be an insupportable extravagance. If, as the Court’s opinion states, to view the word uncontrovei*ted thus innocently is an “act of sophistry”, so be it.
Contrary to the implication of the majority opinion, the federal courts are far from uanimous in finding error where the prosecutor comments on the uncontroverted nature of the evidence and only the defendant could have contradicted it. The opposite, and in my mind better, view has been expressed at some length by Judge Friendly in United States ex rel. Leak v. Follette, 418 F. 2d 1266, 1268 (2d Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1050: “Neither the language, the history, nor the policy of the self-incrimination clause affords support for the surprising proposition that in declaring that no person ‘shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,’ the authors of the Bill of Rights intended to prohibit proper advocacy concerning the strength of the prosecution’s case. This is quite different from specific comment on the defendant’s failure to take the stand. The remarks of the prosecutor and the judge in Griffin were held to violate the privilege because the California rule permitting them was ‘in substance a rule of evidence that allows the State the privilege of tendering to the jury for its consideration the failure of the accused to *183testify.’ 380 U.S. at 613, 85 S. Ct. at 1232. The thought was that ‘when the court solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him,’ id. at 614, 85 S. Ct. at 1233, the state is in practical effect exercising the compulsion the Fifth Amendment forbids. As against this, presumably no one would argue that the self-incrimination clause in any way inhibits the state’s production of evidence, even evidence which no one but the defendant can successfully contradict. If the state is free to do this, it must also be free to engage in normal advocacy so long as it does not point a finger at the accused’s remaining silent in the courtroom. It is one thing to prevent the state from making capital of the defendant’s invocation of the constitutional privilege but quite another to say that an accused who avails himself of it is entitled to impose on the prosecution shackles that would be unavailable to a man who testifies in his own defense. The Fifth Amendment was not aimed at the kind of ‘compulsion’ generated by the evidence and fair argument about it. Indeed it was a recognition of the plight of the defendant who was unable to take the stand that led to the enactment of statutes by almost every state, beginning with Maine in 1864, and by the United States, Act of March 16, 1878, 20 Stat. 30, now 18 U.S.C. §3481, making him competent to testify on his request; generally, these statutes also provided, in the language of the federal act, that ‘his failure to make such request shall not create any presumption against him.’ See Reeder, Comment on Failure of Accused to Testify, 31 Mich. L. Rev. 40 (1932).” Accord, United States v. Lipton, 467 F. 2d 1161 (2d Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 927; United States v. Cox, 428 F. 2d 683 (7th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 881; Doty v. United States, 416 F. 2d 887 (10th Cir. 1968), vacated sub. nom.; Epps v. United States, 401 U.S. 1006 (1971); *184Peeples v. United States, 341 F. 2d 60 (5th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 988; Jordan v. United States, 324 F. 2d 178 (5th Cir. 1963); Garcia v. United States, 315 F. 2d 133 (5th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 855. See generally Anno., 14 A.L.E. 3d 723 and cases cited therein.1
Innocent words can, no donbt, be given evil meanings by the way they are said, the gestures and facial expressions that accompany their utterance, and indeed the entire setting surrounding the speaking. It is, I suppose, at least theoretically possible to commit a Griffin violation in such a way, but there would have to be some evidence of the circumstance beyond the innocent spoken word. Here there was none.
While normally my disagreement with the Court’s opinion, as above expressed, would cause this opinion to be labelled as a dissent, there is another issue in this case which causes me to agree that a new trial should be awarded. Appellant challenges the introduction into evidence of a hooded jacket and .32 caliber revolver, both seized at his girlfriend’s apartment pursuant to a search warrant and identified at trial as belonging to the gunman who murdered Chester Darlak. The warrant was issued on the basis of sworn oral and unrecorded testimony presented by the police to the magistrate. For reasons set out at length in my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Milliken, 450 Pa. 310, 318, 300 A. 2d 78 (1973), it is my belief that such a procedure is violative of both the Fourth and *185Fourteenth Amendments. See also my dissenting opinion in Commonwealth v. Bedford & Hughes, 451 Pa. 325, 304 A. 2d 453 (1973). On this ground alone X concur in the Court’s grant of a new trial.

 As noted in United States ex rel. Leak v. Follette, supra, even courts purporting to follow the rule announced today by the majority have been very resourceful in thinking of persons other than the defendant who could have contradicted the prosecution’s evidence. So in the present case, alibi witnesses could have been called to testify that appellant was elsewhere at the time Chester Darlak was shot and killed in his grocery store. See United States v. McClain, 469 F. 2d 68 (3d Cir. 1972).