Court Opinion

ID: 9759207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:08:37.215224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.246890
License: Public Domain

Douglas, J.,
dissenting: I find the prejudicial effect of the prosecution’s references to a possible “rape” to be so egregious as *550to have denied defendant the fair trial guaranteed to him by the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution.
The defendant was on trial for criminal restraint. In his opening statement the assistant county attorney set the stage for the introduction of facts sufficient to convict the defendant of the crime charged. But he clearly exceeded the bounds of fairness when he said “They had other intentions for Brenda.” He also said “She is going to tell what was going through her mind.” At trial she testified that “I was afraid they were going to take me away and rape me. . . .” These statements are reminiscent of the “spectral evidence” admitted in the seventeenth century Salem witch trials.
This case does not involve defense counsel’s failure to object, except, or file a motion in limine. He did everything procedurally necessary to bring to the attention of the trial judge this outrageous planting of the specter of “rape” which gave fruit to a verdict of guilty.
Defendant was not charged with rape, attempted rape, conspiracy to commit rape, kidnapping, or assault. Yet the court permits the prosecutor to obtain a conviction not on “what happened” but on what went “through her mind,” to use his own words. As long ago as 1917 this court noted that a prosecutor who argues “irrelevant facts calculated to prejudice the jury” commits misconduct that is fatal to the verdict. State v. Small, 78 N.H. 525, 529, 102 A. 883, 886 (1917). The misconduct here was inflammatory and without justification. While a prosecutor must be able to strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. See State v. Scarlett, 118 N.H. 904, 905, 395 A.2d 1244, 1246 (1978).
In State v. Preston, 121 N.H. 147, 427 A.2d 32 (1981) this court was compelled to
“caution prosecutors to avoid misstatements of evidence, improper argument, or other improper conduct. This court has often addressed complaints by criminal defendants of prosecutorial misconduct, although the alleged misconduct usually has not required us to reverse the convictions. ... It is only fair to state that, because of the continuing problem, we will take a firmer stand in the future. . . . The prosecutor should not ‘use arguments calculated to inflame the passions or prejudices of the jury.’ ”
State v. Preston, Id. at 151, 427 A.2d at 34 (citations omitted). The majority opinion changes the yellow warning light of Preston to bright green.
*551In final argument the fears of the witness were turned into fact when the prosecutor said “She was going to be raped. . . .” He continued his conjecture by asking “what plans they had for her” and “what fears were in her mind”? What if she had said they were going to kill or sexually assault her and mutilate her body in a far off land? Where is the legal limit to the imagination of witnesses? In this State, unfortunately, there is apparently none.
But such a holding is not without precedent in our region. During a time when our residents were controlled by the colony of Massachusetts Bay such evidence was much in vogue. In 1692 in the famous Salem witch trials evidence known as “spectral evidence” was admitted. It had its origin in the rich progressive soil of the Spanish Inquisition and had such notable advocates as Bartolommeo Spina who wrote as early as 1523. See R. Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology 477 (1959). As Robbins notes, innocent victims of witchcraft were allowed to testify as to their tormentor’s specter, or spirit. Id. “Thanks to this arrangement, hallucinations, dreams, and mere fancies would be accepted in court as factual proof not of the psychological condition of the accuser but of the behaviour of the accused.” M. STARKEY, The Devil in Massachusetts 54 (1969). Obviously some enlightened minds were concerned about the fact that “spectral evidence” was the “sort of ‘proof’ against which there is no disproof.” Id. Even such “hard-liners” as Rev. Cotton Mather began to urge that such evidence be used with “caution.” R. Robbins, supra, at 479; see also F. Hutchinson, Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft (1718), quoted in id.
Because this divided court upholds a conviction on the basis of a crime imagined by the victim and prosecutor, and not on the basis of a crime committed, I must dissent. As with spectral evidence, the admission of victims’ conjectures is now to be governed only by the limits of their fears and imaginations, whether or not objectively proven facts are forthcoming to justify them.