Court Opinion

ID: 9533704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:03.841742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:08.305941
License: Public Domain

PARKS, Presiding Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. The prosecutor’s comments had the cumulative effect of prejudicial error and require reversal. Although the appellant failed to object to some of the comments, the prejudicial effect of the remarks should not be overlooked.
On the issue of prosecutorial misconduct, this court has previously held in Ward v. State, 633 P.2d 757 (Okl.Cr.1981):
“It is impossible upon such a subject to formulate a general rule infallibly applicable in all cases. Each case is tested by itself as a measure.”
This court can, and should, examine the conduct of the trial to determine if the jury was allowed to consider the fact questions with a minimum of passion; particularly if the passion is provoked by matters dehors the evidence as in the case of prosecutorial impropriety.
The Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert H. Macy, repeatedly breached the boundaries of the issues in this case, as shown in the appendix. The prosecutor called attention to the defense counsel’s body english and demeanor in the courtroom and inferred it was evidence of the appellant’s guilt. Babek v. State, 587 P.2d 1375 (Okl.Cr.1978). He erroneously stated appellant had plead guilty to the charge. Mayberry v. State, 603 P.2d 1150 (Okl.Cr.1979); Cobbs v. State, 629 P.2d 368 (Okl.Cr.1981).
The prosecutor’s remarks about politicians and lawyers were a prohibitory injection of his personal views of the ethics and the credibility of the members of both groups. It appears the prosecutor has a low opinion of both politicians and lawyers. The prosecutor is both a lawyer and an elected official, ergo, a politician; therefore, his opinion appears formed from first hand knowledge. In Hildahl v. State, 536 P.2d 1292 (Okl.Cr.1975), the prosecutor tried to turn the jury from a trial of the defendant into a trial of a whole industry. Preston v. State, 491 P.2d 779 (Okl.Cr.1971).
There was no evidence, or even the hint of omitted evidence, that the appellant stood to gain financially from Keller if *972Keller was set free, although the prosecutor injected this issue in closing argument. Materiality is not a defense to perjury or subordination of perjury. 21 O.S.1981, § 498. Nevertheless, the prosecutor impressed on the jury the affidavit had some magical power; that Keller, already in prison on a first degree murder conviction would have been set free if the affidavit had been used. The state’s ease did not support the prosecutor’s remarks on the usefulness or the importance of the affidavit in any tribunal.
For these reasons, this case should be REVERSED and REMANDED for a new trial.