Court Opinion

ID: 9777428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:10:58.532575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:02.831386
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent with respect to the holding of the majority on Point 5 of defendant’s allegations of trial error.
*529The reason I dissent is that it is my opinion that while this Court is constitutionally bound to follow the holding of the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri in State v. Hutchinson, 458 S.W.2d 553 (Mo. banc 1970) and State v. Pruitt, 479 S.W.2d 785 (Mo. banc 1972) that there can be no constitutional, statutory nor rule violation unless there is a direct and certain reference to the failure of the accused to testify by Article 5, Sec. 2 of the Constitution of Missouri, 1945, we are here considering what is a federally guaranteed constitutional right which has been allegedly violated and the wrong rule of law has been applied.
In Hutchinson, supra, 458 S.W.2d 1.c. 555, the Court recognized that since the question whether a defendant’s right under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution not to be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself is a federally guaranteed right made applicable to the several states by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), those rights are to be protected by federal, not state, rules and standards. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1966).
Further, in Hutchinson the Court distinguished Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965) and Chapman, supra, on the basis that they involved situations where there were “direct and certain reference to failure of the accused to testify,” and they did not therefore apply in cases where there was no direct reference to the failure of the accused to testify. The Court said that no case of the Supreme Court of the United States has “articulated a federal standard applicable to the States which would require in a fact situation such as that which confronts us that we hold that the argument violated defendant’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.” No such case has come from the Supreme Court of the United States to this date.
Nonetheless, reference to cases on this point decided by the several United States Circuit Courts of Appeal makes it clear that the test applied for violation of these same rights under federal law is more restrictive than the “direct and certain reference” gauge applied in this State. The rule in those courts is whether the comment contained language intended to be, or which was of such character “that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify?” (Emphasis supplied). United States ex rel. Leak v. Follette, 418 F.2d 1266, 1269 (2nd Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1050, 90 S.Ct. 1388, 25 L.Ed.2d 665.
Many post Griffin and Chapman federal cases have upheld the right of the prosecutor to argue to the jury that his case stands uncontradicted, or that the defense has come forward with no evidence, or that the defense has produced no witnesses except in those instances where the defendant alone could possibly contradict the government’s evidence. United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 882 (1st Cir., 1971); Rodriguez-Sandoval v. United States, 409 F.2d 529, 531 [2] (1st Cir. 1969); Desmond v. United States, 345 F.2d 225, 227[7] (1st Cir. 1965); United States v. Dioguardi, 492 F.2d 70, 81 [6] (2nd Cir. 1974); United States v. Lipton, 467 F.2d 1161, 1168 (2nd Cir. 1972); United States v. Williams, 479 F.2d 1138, 1140 [3] (4th Cir. 1973); Williams v. Wainwright, 416 F.2d 1042, 1044 (5th Cir. 1969); United States v. Handman, 447 F.2d 853, 855[1, 3, 4] (7th Cir. 1971); United States v. Poole, 379 F.2d 645, 649 (7th Cir. 1967); Doty v. United States, 416 F.2d 887 (10th Cir.). As early as 1925 the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in Barnes v. United States, 8 F.2d 832, 834[3] reversed and remanded a conviction for sale of smoking opium, where neither defendant testified, and the prosecutor in argument stated to the jury that no human being had testified that the government witness lied when he testified that he bought dope from the defendants and, as a result of an objec*530tion made by defense counsel, a colloquy between the Court and counsel emphasized the fact that at the time of the sale only one defendant and the government witness were present. The Court, l.c. 835 said: “The only persons who could contradict the testimony of the government were the defendants themselves, and under such circumstances, involving, as they do, the very gist of the offense charged, we feel that the conduct of the prosecutor cannot be approved.”
The dissenting judges in Hutchinson — a 4 to 3 decision — were, without so stating, applying the federal standard to a case where the only witness who could explain the case from the defendant’s point of view was the defendant himself, and the argument of the prosecutor that “the only thing the defense brought you is a complete lack of evidence . . . He had his chance,” would naturally draw the jurors’ attention to the fact that the defendant did not take the stand and testify. Judge Seiler there, 458 S.W.2d, 1.c. 560 said: “We thereby encourage the use of devious and indirect argument by prosecutors, who will now know they are safe so long as they do not use the meat-ax approach . . . We are rewarding artifice and encouraging the tactic of getting before the jury indirectly what cannot be done directly.” I agree.
The argument in this case, in context, is in my opinion, intended to be of such character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the defendant to testify. The enumeration of every possible member of the defendant’s family together with his girlfriend — outside the record — emphasized that the “somebody” referred to of necessity had to be the defendant.
What to me is equally disturbing is that the prosecutor was permitted to go outside the record, establish a “red-herring” alibi defense which was unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, and then destroy it to the defendant’s disadvantage. To justify this tactic on the grounds that the state is permitted to argue the failure of the defense to produce witnesses is likewise mer-itless, for it presupposes that he had such witnesses and there is no evidence to support such a supposition. That this is at least unprofessional conduct is clear. The American Bar Association Standards, The Prosecution Function, § 5.9 (1971) reads: “It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor intentionally to refer to or argue on the basis of facts outside the record whether at trial or on appeal, unless such facts are matters of common public knowledge based on ordinary human experience or matters of which the court may take judicial notice.”
For the aforesaid reasons I would reverse and remand the conviction for a new trial.