Court Opinion

ID: 9657630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:32:37.952908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:04.937005
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring in the result.
I agree with all of the majority opinion except for its analysis of the prosecutor’s closing argument. The state’s burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is enormous and that enormity ought not to be downplayed or made light of by irrelevant references to convictions of other defendants in other cases with other facts, when in those cases the convictions were proved beyond reasonable doubt. It is, after all, the guilt of the defendant in this case, that the state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I, therefore, disagree that the prosecutor’s argument implying that the standard of proof was no big deal, “was one method of undercutting defense arguments about the enormity of the State’s burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Majority opinion, page 17.
Because I believe that the prosecutor’s error was harmless and, therefore, not obvious error, I concur in the result.