Court Opinion

ID: 9646549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:02:46.902028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:39.452132
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached by my colleagues but not in the harsh character*418izations of the prosecutor’s conduct. See Powell v. United States, 458 A.2d 412 (D.C.1983), my separate statement. In addition, I cannot agree with the holding of predicate error on the so-called “incomplete missing witness argument” of the prosecutor in Part IV. Given our holding that the “error” was harmless, I see no more reason that “we must decide it” here than there was occasion to “decide it” in our earlier cases. It would seem that my colleagues simply want to decide that the prosecutor must play the child’s game of “Mother, May I” before making the observation that the defense has not presented all of the witnesses. My colleagues assume that something is “wrong” with a mention of the obvious fact that someone is missing. I doubt that assumption,1 but- in any event, they fail to give any guidance on what the trial judge should consider in granting or denying a request to make the argument. That much they owe the trial judges. I would leave it to counsel to argue whether the jury should infer anything from the unexplained absence of a knowledgeable witness.

. Certainly, inferences can be drawn from absence of evidence. Graves v. United States, 150 U.S. 118, 14 S.Ct. 40, 37 L.Ed. 1021 (1893). And in my view the contrary observation is not very well thought out. Burgess v. United States, 142 U.S.App.D.C. 198, 440 F.2d 226 (1970).