Court Opinion

ID: 9548671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:06:49.372128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:16.037388
License: Public Domain

*617Young, J.,
concurring in part, dissenting in part,
joined by Springer, C. J.:
I concur with my fellow justices that Skiba can be tried on only one of the charges of battery. However, because the prosecutor committed such gross misconduct, a harmless error analysis is inappropriate under the narrow circumstances of this case, contrary to the holding in the plurality opinion.
The prosecutor told the jury, “both as a fact and as a conclusion,” that Skiba lied to them on the stand, under oath. Ross v. State, 106 Nev. 924, 927, 803 P.2d 1104, 1106 (1990). These statements are clearly error in this state, as well as in other jurisdictions. Id.; Witherow v. State, 104 Nev. 721, 724, 765 P.2d 1153, 1155 (1988); see also Harris v. United States, 402 F.2d 656, 657-58 (D.C. Cir. 1968); State v. Stringer, 897 P.2d 1063, 1071-72 (Mont. 1995); State v. Arlington, 875 P.2d 307, 325 (Mont. 1994); Smallwood v. State, 907 P.2d 217, 229 (Okla. Crim. App. 1995); Williams v. State, 658 P.2d 499, 500 (Okla. Crim. App. 1983).
In Harris, cited in Witherow, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that a prosecutor’s statement that a defendant lied on the stand is highly improper. The court explained that the defendant’s testimony is a lie only if the jury accepts all the government witnesses’ testimony and rejects the defendant’s testimony. Harris, 402 F.2d at 657-58. While many strong adjectives may be used to persuade the jury to return a verdict of guilt, “it was for the jury, and not the prosecutor, to say which witnesses were telling the truth.” Id. at 658. The court held that the prosecutor may not divert the focus of the jury’s consideration of the case from the facts in evidence to the attorney’s personal evaluations of the weight of the evidence. Id. at 659.
The plurality opinion at least acknowledges that such statements are highly improper. The concurring opinion, however, inexplicably proposes to overrule governing authority in this state and hold that the unforgivable comments by the prosecutor are not even error at all. Unlike the concurrence, I do not propose to ignore the principles of stare decisis; I merely propose to extend an already existing precedent.
Ross and Witherow pertain to highly improper comments by the prosecutor about defense witnesses. In the current matter, the prosecutor utterly annihilated the credibility of the defendant. I conclude that stating that a defendant lied on the stand is even more egregious than a statement that a defense witness lied. Not only is a testifying defendant’s credibility at issue, so is his guilt'. A jury may disregard a defense witness’s testimony without holding it against the defendant. Thus, utilizing a mere harmless error standard in such a situation, as is employed by this court, is appropriate with regard to the credibility of a non-defendant *618witness. However, when the jury is told that the defendant, himself, is the perjurer, I find it extremely difficult to imagine that the jury could easily disregard his testimony without permitting the alleged unlawful act of lying under oath from influencing the verdict. Additionally, I firmly believe that stating that the defendant is a liar is a particularly inflammatory and prejudicial method of conveying to the jury inconsistencies and discrepancies in the evidence.
Moreover, unlike many cases where a defendant takes the stand and testifies only as to his version of events, Skiba also testified as to his state of mind. In order to disprove the only element of battery at issue in the trial, whether or not Skiba hit Mckenzie in self-defense, Skiba testified as to his reasonable belief of immediate harm. The veracity and credibility of Skiba’s testimony was especially crucial to dispute the State’s evidence that this was not self-defense.
Although the State presented numerous witnesses to prove that Skiba did not act in self-defense, it is the quality, not the quantity, of evidence upon which a jury relies in rendering its verdict. Jury instruction no. 14 specifically stated, “It is lawful for a person who is being assaulted to defend himself from attack if, as a reasonable person, he has grounds for believing and does believe that bodily injury is about to be inflicted upon him.” (Emphasis added.) If the jury believed Skiba, it would have acquitted him because the State would have failed to meet its burden that Skiba did not act in self-defense. See Barone v. State, 109 Nev. 778, 780, 858 P.2d 27, 29 (1993) (holding that in proving a case of battery, the State has the burden of proving the defendant did not act in self-defense). I conclude that informing the jury at closing arguments that Skiba’s testimony about his belief of immediate harm is a lie is insufficient to meet the State’s burden under Barone.
Accordingly, in a situation where the state of mind of the defendant is the ultimate issue in the case, the defendant testifies, and the prosecutor informs the jury that the defendant lied on the stand, I believe this court should reverse the conviction and not use a mere harmless error standard. I conclude that using a harmless error standard too often may give free reign to prosecutors to continue the misconduct at issue. I fear, especially in cases of particularly gross misconduct, as the present matter, such a standard will encourage other prosecutors to repeat this egregious error in the future.1
*619I feel that the prosecutors in this state need a stern reminder of their role as representatives of the people. “[A prosecutor] has no obligation to win at all costs and serves no higher purpose by so attempting.” Bruno v. Rushen, 721 F.2d 1193, 1195 (9th Cir. 1983). Indeed, a prosecutor’s interest in a criminal case “is not that it shall win a case, but that justice be done .... But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.” Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1934) (emphasis added).
I further remind Nevada prosecutors: “It can be inferred that [the prosecutor’s improper remarks that the defense witness lied] were fresh in the jurors’ minds as they entered the jury room and commenced their deliberations. In addition, the imprimatur of the prosecutor’s office added force and legitimacy to the prosecutor’s argument to the jury.” Ross, 106 Nev. at 928, 803 P.2d at 1106 (footnote omitted).
Due to the severe impact an accusation of lying under oath has on a criminal defendant who- testified as to his state of mind at the time of the relevant incident, I must conclude that the prosecutor’s comment in this case constitutes more than mere harmless error and requires reversal of Skiba’s conviction.

Further, a holding that calling a defendant a liar on the stand is mere harmless error (or worse yet, no error at all) may violate a defendant’s Fifth *619Amendment right to testify on his own behalf. What defendant would ever choose to testify at their trial knowing that the prosecutor could permissibly disparage him in such a particularly inflammatory way? What competent defense counsel would allow his client to testify under such a threat?