Court Opinion

ID: 9727582
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:44:00.391495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:40.373102
License: Public Domain

*341CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with Justice Handler that under any recognized standard of review, the conclusion is inescapable that the prosecutor’s egregious conduct resulted in reversible error, given the weakness of the State’s case and the implications of our holding in State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 324 (1987). Post at 365-370. Twenty-five years ago Justice Brennan declared for this Court:
The weaker the State’s case against the defendant, the more, not the less, is it the prosecuting attorney’s obligation to stay within bounds, that no man be convicted unjustly. A prosecuting attorney’s standing rests upon his reputation for prosecuting fairly, “that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer,” not upon the number of convictions he obtains. In the heat of advocacy he may with propriety employ to the full his talent for forceful expression, but he must confine himself to fair comment upon the facts in evidence.
[State v. Bogen, 13 N.J. 137, 141 (1953).]
Everyone seems to recognize the outrageous nature of the prosecutor’s conduct in this case. The majority concludes, however, that the error was harmless, given the prompt curative instructions of the trial court. See ante at 323 and 325-326. I would hasten to acknowledge that the trial court’s efforts to corral the prosecutor, to secure this loose cannon in the courtroom, bordered on the heroic. I cannot imagine how the court could have done more in its attempt to fashion some semblance of order out of the chaos left by the prosecutor’s mangling of the evidence and by his taking of liberties with the record in his summation to the jury. But here, as in the view of three members of the Court in State v. DiPaglia, 64 N.J. 288 (1974), “the circumstances created by the tactics of the prosecutor did not lend themselves to remedial instruction * * * sufficient to avoid the potential for harm.” Id. at 306 (dissenting opinion).
It is worth recalling that even though “the evidence for conviction may be deemed legally sufficient,” a defendant is “nonetheless entitled to a trial * * * fair and free from prejudicial error.” State v. Jackson, 43 N.J. 148, 156 (1964).
[T]he sound administration of justice dictates that the means as well as the ends be just; where serious trial error has undermined the proceeding, there must be *342reversal without regard to our own views as to guilt. This is particularly true where, as here, lives are at stake and stricter appellate approaches are warranted. [Ibid, (citations omitted).]
See also State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 322-23 (reversal of a criminal conviction is warranted if prosecutorial misconduct is “so egregious that it deprived defendant of a fair trial”).
A word of caution. This Court took note, in State v. Spano, 64 N.J. 566 (1974), of “á plethora of cases in which prosecutors have been admonished,” and of the phenomenon of “improper comments * * * fast becoming too prevalent, thereby vitiating defendant’s right to a fair trial.” Id. at 568. We there announced that “[h]enceforth, an expression of displeasure may not suffice. Further and more severe action may be necessary.” Id. at 569. Consistent with that salutary declaration I voted, as a majority of the Court did not, to reverse convictions on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct in State v. DiPaglia, supra, 64 N.J. at 298 (dissenting opinion); State v. Perry, 65 N.J. 45, 55 (1974) (dissenting opinion); and State v. Kenny, 68 N.J. 17, 32 (1975) (concurring opinion).
Here, too, I would vote to reverse based on prosecutorial excess, as so vividly recounted by Justice Handler. I see little hope of avoiding repetition of the deprivation of a fundamental constitutional right to a fair trial if we do no more than “reiterate our warning to prosecutors in capital cases” that dire consequences may flow from their violations of the “special ethical rules governing prosecutors.” Ante at 325.