Court Opinion

ID: 9531196
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:08:37.195581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:22.080478
License: Public Domain

Hennessey, C.J.
(dissenting). I dissent. I agree with the majority that the prosecutor’s conduct here must be examined in light of principles which require the disclosure of material, exculpatory evidence, as well as the principle which requires the prosecutor to speak remedially when he knows that a witness is giving false and misleading testimony as to plea bargaining. Nor should the prosecutor, in argument or otherwise, himself knowingly deceive or mislead the jury. Nevertheless, I think the trial judge was correct in concluding that nothing occurred here to warrant a new trial.
At the time of the trial the prosecutor’s offer to Hunt to recommend a sentence for murder in the second degree had been outstanding and unaccepted by Hunt for more than eight months. More importantly, that offer was made to Hunt before the prosecutor knew of a second person’s involvement. While it may not always be controlling in cases like this that the prosecutor’s offer was not in the nature of a quid pro quo, that fact is certainly highly significant. In this case Hunt was, first and last, offered a second degree recommendation, and it was not a quid pro quo offer. If the jury had known all the circumstances, it is not logical to assume that they would have been significantly influenced in their appraisal of Hunt’s credibility. I have in mind here that the defendant of course had the aid of the jury’s common sense and their knowledge from Hunt’s testimony that he hoped to improve his own situation by his testimony in*16culpating the defendant. The aggressive argument of defense counsel on this issue would not have been stronger or more convincing if all the plea bargaining facts, up to the time of the closing arguments, had been disclosed to the jury.1
It would have been wiser for the prosecutor to have omitted the controversial comment in his closing argument, but our inquiry here should focus on the cause and effect relationship between the prosecutor’s conduct and the conviction of the defendant. Doing that, I conclude, with the trial judge, that what occurred here was “not so material as to warrant a new trial.”

 Defense counsel argued to the jury as follows: “[Hunt] is lying because he wants a short sentence. He is lying because he hopes he will get something out of it. He told you from the witness stand, I hope I will get something out of this. That is why he is testifying here today; that is why he testified the day before yesterday, I beg your pardon, and that is why and for no other reason. Because if he had a conscience, he would have turned Vincent Collins in the very first chance he got and he did not do it.”