Court Opinion

ID: 9565438
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:21:14.455348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:38.781261
License: Public Domain

Benham, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction. However, I dissent to Division 7 (b) and to Division 8 (c) and would hold that Christenson’s death sentence must be reversed.
1. In Division 7 (b), the majority concludes that the prosecutor merely commented on the defendant’s courtroom demeanor when he told the jury that it was so “unusual” that “nobody even [said] I’m sorry” and to “remember” that the “defendant [had] sat right there and never moved.” The majority interprets this to be a comment on the defendant’s “demeanor.” But the test for reversing for improper comment on the defendant’s failure to testify is not how the comment might be construed most favorably to the state, but, as the majority notes in Division 7 (a), whether the prosecutor’s “manifest intention” was to comment on the defendant’s failure to testify or whether the jury would “naturally and necessarily” take it to be such a comment. Even if it was not the prosecutor’s “manifest intention” to comment on the defendant’s failure to testify, the argument is improper if the jury would “naturally and necessarily” interpret it as such comment.
I believe that a jury would naturally and necessarily have interpreted the prosecutor’s observation that it was so “unusual” in this *93kind of case that nobody said “I’m sorry” and his exhortation to the jury to remember that Christenson had “sat right there and never moved” as a comment on the defendant’s failure to testify.8
Decided March 15, 1991 —
Reconsideration denied March 27, 1991.
James A. Messner, Richard A. Bunn, Fulbright & Jaworski, Frederick Robinson, Stephen M. McNabb, Michael G. McGovern, for appellant.
Douglas C. Pullen, District Attorney, Charles E. Bagley, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Leonora Grant, for appellee.
2. In Division 8 (c), the majority holds the trial court erred by allowing the prosecutor to question defense character witnesses about numerous crimes allegedly committed by this defendant without requiring the prosecutor to prove that his questions were asked in good faith and based on reliable information. I agree with the majority that the state’s cross-examination was error, but I cannot agree that a remand for a belated demonstration of reliability is sufficient to cure the error. A remand would not address a fundamental flaw in this sentencing trial: Not only was considerable prejudicial information having no evidentiary basis presented to this jury, but, in his closing argument, the prosecutor alluded to this information as if it was evidence and urged the jury to impose a death sentence based, in part, on this alleged extensive prior record.
This court is required to determine whether the death sentence “was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor.” OCGA § 17-10-35 (c) (1). Where the jury has been exposed to highly prejudicial non-evidence and is asked to impose a death sentence based on that non-evidence, I can only conclude that the death sentence was imposed “under the influence of . . . arbitrary factor[s],” and therefore may not stand.
I would affirm the conviction, reverse the sentence, and remand for a retrial of the sentencing phase.

 Moreover, I note that at least one court has held that it is improper for a prosecutor to comment about the demeanor of a non-testifying defendant. United States v. Schuler, 813 F2d 978 (9th Cir. 1987).