Court Opinion

ID: 9759200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:08:34.55879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.222090
License: Public Domain

*425ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
Trial counsel’s failure to object to the prosecutor’s prejudicial closing argument requires that appellant be granted a new trial.
In his closing, the prosecutor said to the jury:
“[L]et me tell you this, there is only one way, one way that you can find that man [ (the defendant) ] not guilty and that is if that door opens and Sharron Coston [ (the victim) ] walks in and sits down right next to her mother right now. Shall we wait?”
This prosecutorial tactic, of directing the jury’s attention to the rear of the courtroom to await the “arrival” of the deceased victim, is perhaps the most offensive tactic which has been subject to this Court’s review over the past decade. This tactic has necessitated the vacation of numerable judgments of sentence. E.g., Commonwealth v. Cronin, 464 Pa. 138, 346 A.2d 59 (1978); Commonwealth v. Lark, 460 Pa. 399, 333 A.2d 786 (1975). See Commonwealth v. Lipscomb, 455 Pa. 525, 317 A.2d 205 (1974). Moreover, it is a tactic which this Court has repeatedly held to be so inherently prejudicial as to require defense objection. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Black, 480 Pa. 394, 390 A.2d 750 (1978); Commonwealth v. Evans, 479 Pa. 100, 387 A.2d 854 (1978). “Trial counsel could not have had a reasonable basis designed to effectuate [his client’s] interests when he failed to object to [these] prejudicial and inflammatory remarks.” Commonwealth v. Black, supra, 480 Pa. at 397, 390 A.2d at 750.
Despite appellant’s entitlement to relief, the majority deems appellant’s contention “finally litigated” solely on the basis of the following passage from the Opinion of the Court filed upon the disposition of appellant’s direct appeal:
“McKenna alleges some nine trial errors, any one of which, he argues, requires the grant of a new trial. Having carefully reviewed the record, we find merit in none of these claims of error .... ”
476 Pa. 428, 431, 383 A.2d 174, 176 (1978). Although the record establishes that appellant had indeed sought this Court’s review of the prosecutor’s prejudicial tactic, the *426record also establishes that appellant had failed to comply with the mandates of Commonwealth v. Clair, 458 Pa. 418, 326 A.2d 272 (1974) (timely objection required to preserve claims of error for appellate review). Thus, when in this case the Opinion of the Court stated that there was “no merit” to appellant’s claim of prosecutorial misconduct, it must be concluded that that disposition meant only that appellant could not prevail on the claim because of its improper procedural posture.
As in Black and in Evans, where trial counsel failed to interpose objection in the face of an identical prosecutorial tactic, appellant must be granted relief.
O’BRIEN, C. J., joins in this dissenting opinion.