Court Opinion

ID: 9694979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:02:32.060519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:07.356894
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
This young man who faced a life sentence without parole is certainly entitled to a fair trial. The prosecutor’s claim that the jury needed to protect themselves from Stetter had no relevance to the issues in this case; nor is it a fair comment on the evidence.
This type of argument evinces a “win at all costs” mentality because, if not proper, it still will pass muster as harmless error. As the majority states, the State’s evidence against Stetter was strong, if not overwhelming. Ergo: Why even make such an argument? This type of conduct is contrary to the precedent handed down by this court in State v. Blaine, 427 N.W.2d 113, 115-16 (S.D.1988), where we held:
The duty and obligation of the prosecutor is perhaps best set forth in Viereck v. United States, 318 U.S. 236, 248, 63 S.Ct. 561, 566-67, 87 L.Ed. 734, 741 (1943), quoting Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314, 1321 (1935):
The United States Attorney is representative not of ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in all criminal prosecutions is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.
*97As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor— indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.
This is a foul which should not be overlooked in this life without parole case.
The trial court’s admonishment to the jury was too little too late in my opinion. Once the cattle are milling along the road, it is too late to close the gate. Further, it is a legal fiction to think that lay jurors can wash from their minds this seed which has been planted.
No matter how reprehensible the conduct of a defendant may be, each person is entitled to a fair but not necessarily a perfect trial. State v. Bennis, 457 N.W.2d 843 (S.D.1990). Although Stetter’s conduct is totally unacceptable in our society, I am convinced that, due to the prosecutor’s overreaching final argument, Stetter was prohibited from receiving a fair trial.
Finally, I concur in the dissent filed by Justice Wuest on Issue 4.