Court Opinion

ID: 9677634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:56:27.144357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.163536
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
On the matter of what amounts to the prosecutor’s commenting on the failure of the defendant to testify, since we are reconsidering State v. Hutchinson (Mo.Sup. banc) 458 S.W.2d 553, I would overrule the Hutchinson decision and would not approve still another of these arguments where the prosecutors say one thing but everybody knows they mean another— namely, “I hope you will note that the defendant has not testified in his defense.” As predicted in Hutchinson, prosecutors have accepted our permissive assurance it is safe to make this appeal so long as they do not use a meat-ax approach. Witness these post-Hutchinson examples: “. The police officers, their testimony . . . is undisputed, unrefuted and undenied .”, in a case where defendant did not testify, approved, State v. Bibbs (Mo.Sup.) 461 S.W.2d 755 and . . his [defendant’s] turn then. Nothing . . . Counsel had no evidence at all . . . You heard no evidence put on by this counsel here . . .”, in a case where defendant did not testify, approved, State v. Huddleston (Mo.Sup.) 462 S.W.2d 691.
The present decision provides another weapon for the prosecutor’s already well stocked arsenal on how to argue to the jury, without penalty, that defendant has not taken the witness stand: do it by asking the jury to apply the rule that if the defendant does not call any witnesses, the jury can presume the evidence the witness would give would be unfavorable. In order to apply this rule, the jury must remind itself, as the prosecutor urges it to do, that the defendant has not testified.
Our decisions permitting the prosecutor to comment on the failure of the defendant to testify are at the expense of the constitutional right of the defendant not to incriminate himself. This right is too important to the people to water it down in order that prosecutors can make more effective arguments. As the law is applied in Missouri criminal trials today, the defendant must decide whether he will forego his right not to testify, or pay the price of having it argued to the jury that his silence means he is guilty.
I would also give a new trial in this case because of the inflammatory argument comparing defendant’s conduct to the soldiers casting dice for Christ’s garments on the cross, along with the accompanying arguments set forth in the majority opinion. As was stated in State v. Tiedt, banc, 357 Mo. 115, 206 S.W.2d 524, 528-529, what occurred here “. . . calls for the application of authorities declaring that the sting remains after the objection is sustained . . . ” In this case, as in Tiedt, “. . . in a matter so grave as urging in argument considerations affecting the exercise of the jury’s discretion to choose between punishing capitally or imposing a life sentence, inflammatory appeals to arouse bias and hostility toward defendant . . . cannot be sanctioned . . . ”, and, “In the absence of such argument, and on the proof adduced, the jury might reasonably have been expected to assess adequate punishment.” There was no justification for resorting to over-kill in the case before *794us and our tacit approval of it sets a bad precedent, in my opinion.
I therefore dissent. I do not reach the other points covered in the main opinion.