Court Opinion

ID: 9776195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:23:11.110243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:35.680824
License: Public Domain

Beier, J.,
dissenting: I respectfully dissent from my colleagues’ disposition of this case, because I believe the prosecutorial misconduct that all of us agree existed was unavoidably reversible error.
The only truly contested issue for the jury on the murder charge in this case was whether defendant Taurus Adams acted in justifiable self-defense during a bar fight or with premeditation and intent to kill Ratsamy Phanivong. In my view, conflicting evidence on the behavior of Adams and Phanivong made this issue far from open and shut.
Under such circumstances, the prosecutor’s repeated misstatements of the law and encouragement of purely emotional responses from members of the jury undermine my confidence in the verdict. Even if the prosecutor’s missteps were not gross and flagrant or motivated by ill will — and I think the clarity of precedent on their inappropriateness means that they were — the harmless error test of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 22, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705, reh. denied 386 U.S. 987 (1967), cannot be met.
I would therefore reverse and remand for new fair trial.
Johnson, J., joins in the foregoing dissent.