Court Opinion

ID: 9650185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:26:31.634079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:18.775008
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the assistant district attorney’s remarks in closing to the jury do not require a new trial.
In closing, the assistant district attorney said:
■Just remember ladies and gentlemen, judge this case using your common sense, reasonable doubt, it is very easy to do. This place is not like a TV show. The whole thing is not a TV show. This is human beings. Speaking of TV shows, there was a TV show on Saturday, I think it was called The World of Survival, or something like that. They were talking about the Serengeti Plains in Africa, they were talking about lions. Think of the lion as a noble creature. They will go up and knock down something and eat it, it is part of their nature. I watched this show and the lion does not go for the leader of the herd, the lion did not go for the strong, the fast, the tough, the lions lie and wait until they could see the aged, the weak, the crippled, the sick. It is upon those persons whom the lions prey.
MR. SNEE: Objection, Your Honor.
MR. CASTILLE: Not those persons, those animals. THE COURT: It is argument but I don’t know where we are going. We better be careful where we are going. MR. SNEE: Are you overruling my objection?
THE COURT: At the moment I will overrule your objection.
MR. CASTILLE: The lion makes a kill on these plains and you can see coming around are these other little animals, jackals. After the lions go, the jackals move in and the vultures move in. I was struck by this. The situation we had here at 12th and Mt. Vernon, the aged, the weak—
*383MR. SNEE: I will renew my objection.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. CASTILLE: The weak of our society, the old, the infirm, they are good targets if you need a little money, real good targets.
N.T. 186-188.
The standards to be applied in appraising these remarks are long settled, and have only recently been insisted upon by our Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Starks, 479 Pa. 51, 387 A.2d 829 (1978). There the Court said:
"As we have stated time and again, a prosecuting attorney is an officer of the court and has a duty to see that justice is not compromised in an effort to seek convictions. Commonwealth v. Collins, 462 Pa. 495, 341 A.2d 492 (1975); Commonwealth v. Revty, 448 Pa. 512, 295 A.2d 300 (1972). As we put it in Commonwealth v. Potter, 445 Pa. 284, 287, 285 A.2d 492, 494 (1971):
`This Court has made clear . . . that the prosecuting attorney enjoys an office of unusual responsibility, and that his trial conduct should never be vindictive or attempt in any manner to influence the jury by arousing their prejudices. Commonwealth v. Toney, 439 Pa. 173, 180, 266 A.2d 732, 736 (1970). Likewise, the ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function recognize: The prosecutor is both an administrator of justice and an advocate; he must exercise sound discretion in the performance of his functions. ABA Project, Prosecution Function, supra at § 1.1(b). Furthermore, [t]he duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict. Id. at § 1.1(c).'
With respect to the closing argument of the lawyer for the Commonwealth, we have expressly adopted the rationale of the A.B.A. Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Joyner, 469 Pa. 333, 365 A.2d 1233 (1976); Commonwealth v. Cronin, 464 Pa. 138, 346 A.2d 59 (1975); Commonwealth v. Collins, supra. We again set forth the provisions of Section 5.8 of those Standards:
*384‘(a) The prosecutor may argue all reasonable inferences from evidence in the record. It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor intentionally to misstate the evidence or mislead the jury as to the inferences it may draw.
‘(b) It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor to express his personal belief or opinion as to the truth of falsity of any testimony or evidence or the guilt of the defendant.
‘(c) The prosecutor should not use arguments calculated to inflame the passions or prejudices of the jury.
‘(d) The prosecutor should refrain from argument which would divert the jury from its duty to decide the case on the evidence, by injecting issues broader than the guilt or innocence of the accused under the controlling law, or by making predictions of the consequences of the jury’s verdict.’ ”
479 Pa. at 56, 387 A.2d at 831-832.
By characterizing appellant as a lion lying in wait for “the aged, the weak, the crippled, the sick,” the assistant district attorney violated his responsibility as an officer of the court to see that justice was done.
It is never permissible to characterize another person as an animal.
The word animal is of particular significance to the anthropologist who knows that in many “primitive” societies this is the word used most often to distinguish people from “nonpeople,” or “the others.” Exactly the same concept of exclusivity underlies racism, religious fanaticism, economic warfare, political chauvinism, and other similar characteristics that exist in our modern society .
Turnbull, Death by Decree, Natural History, April/May 1978 at 51.
Slavery was possible only because the slaves were seen as less than people. See A. Leon Higginbotham, In the Matter of Color 50-53 (1978) (the pages cited are a chapter subdivision, entitled "Creditor and Estate Rights in Slaves: Were Slaves Like Horses and Dogs or Like Real Estate?") The *385tragedy of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 15 L.Ed. 691 (1857), was that there the Court held that "We the people" did not include black people. Similarly, it was for many years the attitude of the courts that prisoners were "slaves of the state," and so with no right to decent treatment. See, e.g., Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. (21 Gratt.) 790, 796 (1871).
The moment we classify another person as a thing or animal, we free ourselves from the obligation to treat that person as someone with inalienable rights. We should never permit an assistant district attorney to invite a jury to engage in such thinking.
The judgment of sentence should be vacated, and the case remanded for new trial.
JACOBS, President Judge, joins in this opinion.