Court Opinion

ID: 9529769
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:54:04.590984+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:54.773839
License: Public Domain

BRETT, Judge,
specially concurring:
I agree with Judge Bussey that the evidence in this case amply supports the finding of the aggravated circumstances. At the same time, the prosecutor’s statements during closing argument to both stages of this murder trial were such 'that the jury would have had difficulty not being preju-dicially influenced by collateral matters. Although there were not objections to all comments, and although the trial court did not rule on all objections entered, I believe that relief must be granted for the following reasons: There were timely objections at crucial points; the comments directly bore upon the choice of penalty and the jury was influenced by these references, as evidenced by their question sent back to the judge during deliberations; and the affirmance of a case in which the death penalty has been assessed requires that the trial court be particularly cognizant of any prejudicial influence on the jury.
At the close of the first stage, there were two types of objectionable comments by the District Attorney. First, there were repeated references to the defense attorney’s efforts to “con” the jury. Casting aspersions on the conduct of opposing counsel cannot be interpreted as a fair interpretation of and comment on the evidence at trial. Second, the prosecutor blatantly alluded to parole immediately following a statement of his personal opinion in the following excerpt:
[PROSECUTOR]: And I might be at fault a little bit in doing it, but in my own personal opinion, if you don’t think it is murder—
MR. JONES: If the Court please, I object to counsel’s personal opinion.
[PROSECUTOR]: Based on this evidence, ladies and gentlemen—
THE COURT: He may express his conclusions from the evidence.
[PROSECUTOR]: Based on this evidence, in my opinion, if you don’t think it is murder in the first degree, then I would suggest, as Mr. Jones has said, that the penalty of manslaughter could be anything up to 5000 years, and I would rather you find him guilty of manslaughter in the first degree and give him 2000 years in the penitentiary so that maybe within twenty-five or thirty years he might actually be there some ten years in the penitentiary, so that he can’t go out and rape and ravish and kill somebody else again.
MR. JONES: If the Court please, I object to that and ask that it be stricken.
[PROSECUTOR]: So that you take that evidence you have there and, if you cannot, if your own heart and conscience, say that man killed the woman, murder in the first degree, then you find that lesser offense, but put him in the penitentiary for long enough that he can’t do it again. Thank you.
* * * * * *
MR. JONES: Your Honor, may we approach the bench just one second?
THE COURT: Very well.
MR. JONES: (In low tones at the bench) I made an objection, Your Honor. I objected to Mr. Hoch’s remarks about giving him 2000 years in the penitentiary so he would serve twenty-five or thirty or ten, and I ask that the jury be admonished to disregard that and I move to strike it before they leave the room.
THE COURT: (In low tones) I didn’t hear it the same way, therefore the objection is overruled and the request denied. (Emphasis added)
*645At the conclusion of the second stage, additional comments were error. A reference to the parole status of the appellant at the time of trial was made without objection. This Court has stated the basis for the rule oh preservation of error by objection as follows: “The policy considerations underlying this rule are to draw the alleged error to the attention of the trial court and to provide that court an opportunity to correct any error at the time of trial.” Myers v. State, 623 P.2d 1035 (Okl.Cr.1981). However, that policy was not deterred in the case now before us, where the judge had already overruled the defense’s objection to a similar comment on parole.
At least four comments had the effect of placing the jurors in the posture of community watchdogs. The District Attorney also expressed his own regret at a prior leniency toward this same appellant and he warned the jury to avoid that same mistake. The appellant objected but the objection was overruled in the following:
[B]ut what about the family of poor Eunice Mason? Are they to be considered or must we forget about those? And the other families to come? Because you have to be the protector, based on that evidence, and, ladies and gentlemen, there is one thing I must tell you. There is one person who must share a large portion of the blame for Eunice Mason’s death, and I am that person, and it hurts me to say that I must share that, because, as first assistant for the five counties, I am responsible for all ultimate decisions that any assistant makes in any of those five counties, and in this particular case, involving this man, I made a decision—
MR. JONES: If Your Honor please, I believe this is outside the scope of the evidence.
THE COURT: I do not know at this stage. You are cautioned stay within evidence.
[PROSECUTOR]: As shown by the records here in case no. CRF-76-154, assault with a dangerous weapon, as well as the other, based upon the report submitted to you for your consideration from Dr. Adel-man, and I must say I have no quarrel with Dr. Adelman because I have to agree that Dr. Adelman is probably one of the finest psychiatrists in the State of Oklahoma and that Garfield County is most fortunate to have such a person here to take care of some of the problems that we have, and I relied upon his statement, even though—
MR. JONES: Your Honor, I object. This is outside the scope of evidence. This is improper argument, what Mr. Hoch relied upon.
THE COURT: Overruled. Proceed.
MR. JONES: Note our objection and exception.
[PROSECUTOR]: This letter was written to Mr. Stephen Jones, who, in the judgment and sentence in the case I just referred to, was the attorney for Mr. William Denton Jones at that time. Not only had Mr. William Denton Jones had a suspended sentence on unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, whereby he agreed to abide by all rules and regulations of probation, that has been attached to and made an exhibit, Mr. William Denton Jones agreed not to violate any law; that he would be a good model citizen and not do other type things, and if he violated any of those, he was to be revoked and sent to the penitentiary, and we have him going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was convicted of this crime of assault and battery. A good, old, self-pitied D.A. didn’t revoke him, but gave him a chance. We came around and, based upon the facts represented to us, and disregarding the facts from another person in another exhibit, we relied upon Dr. Adelman and we gave him another chance.
MR. JONES: Your Honor, we again renew our objection. This is not in regard to any evidence.
THE COURT: You are again overruled. This is much closer to the evidence than Sir Winston Churchill.
MR. JONES: I object to Your Honor’s statement as prejudicial.
jfs * ⅜: * * *
*646[B]ut you now know and, ladies and gentlemen, you only have to answer to yourselves and to your family and you can say, “Am I going to take and protect the people of Garfield County? Am I going to take and fulfill my duty or am I going to take and be derelict in it and forget about the law and disregard the evidence and let the same thing happen?” And I pray to you and I beg of you and pray to God that you don’t make the same mistake that I made, because I will live with it as long as Eunice Mason — as I can remember that fact that I was responsible for her death. Please for God’s sake, don’t make the same mistake.
Then, the prosecutor dealt his final blow with his reference to the intervention of God. He admonished the jurors that if their decision to impose death were an error, God would intervene:
Go by what you know, and you go out to that jury room and you be the protector that you are and you do your duty and you find those four elements, as we all know, exist and then you reach over there and you take that one verdict that says death and sign it, like you know that the evidence and the law says, and the only thing that you need to say to Mr. William Denton Jones, if anything at all, is, if and when you write that verdict, “God have mercy on his soul,” and you let God worry about the future of Mr. William Denton Jones because, if God says that he shall not die, he will take and cause that force to intervene between the time that you do it and the time that it is set for his final execution, and you know that as well as I do.
MR. JONES: To which we object, Your Honor, as improper.
The court did not rule on the defense objection.
My concern that the jury was improperly led to consider the effect of parole is verified by the following portion of the transcript:
THE COURT: (Thereafter, at the hour of 3:53 o’clock p.m., of said day, the jury returned into court, with all appearances being as before, except that Mrs. Shaw was not present.)
THE COURT: Has the jury reached a verdict?
JUROR: No, Your Honor. We have a question that we would like to ask and see if we could get answered.
THE COURT: You may state the question and then we will determine whether or not it can be answered.
JUROR: The jury would like to know if there is a minimum number of years that must be served on a life sentence before one is eligible for parole, or may it just stipulate “no parole”?
THE COURT: Will counsel approach the bench, please? (Off-the-record-discussion in low tones at the bench between Court and counsel.)
THE COURT: With regard to your question, parole is not a matter of consideration by either the jury or the Court, therefore I can give no answer to either part of the question.
This was a heinous crime and the conviction is sound. However, I cannot, in good conscience, affirm the sentence of death in light of the obvious prejudice effected by the statements made by the District Attorney during closing arguments. Therefore, I concur that the death sentence imposed should be modified to the sentence of life imprisonment, and as modified, affirmed.
I am authorized to state that Judge CORNISH concurs in my views.
APPENDIX A
The relevant portion of Ms. Morrison’s voir dire is as follows:
MR. HOCH: You understand the Court is going to do all the instructing and will decide all questions of law and all questions of procedure?
JUROR MORRISON: Right.
MR. HOCH: That all of us must abide by those decisions, whether we like it or not? You understand that?
JUROR MORRISON: Yes.
MR. HOCH: And you can do that without any difficulty?
*647JUROR MORRISON: To a point.
MR. HOCH: Well, if the Court gives you a particular instruction which you don’t like, is that—
JUROR MORRISON: Well, my thinking is this. I could find a man guilty, but I could not condemn him to death.
MR. HOCH: I will ask the question this way. If the Court tells you, after you have heard all the evidence and the Court defines the material elements, and you go out and you decide and all the jurors decide the defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree beyond a reasonable doubt — you have decided — that question — then it came down to the question, if the Court gave you an instruction that in a proper case, where the facts and circumstances were such that it was justified, the death penalty, could you impose the death penalty without doing violence to your conscience?
JUROR MORRISON: No, I do not think my religious belief would allow it.
MR. HOCH: Let me ask you this. In that event, after you have heard all the evidence and there is no question about his guilt and all the evidence is overwhelming as to the facts and circumstances and all the conditions that the Court gives to you, and that this is a proper case, irregardless of what the evidence may be, if the Court instructed you, you would refuse to impose the death penalty?
JUROR MORRISON: I would find him guilty, but not sentence him to death.
MR. HOCH: I will challenge her for cause.
THE COURT: You may step down, Mrs. Morrison.
APPENDIX B
The relevant portion of Ms. Fuksa’s voir dire is several pages long, but the following quote gives the substance of it:
MR. HOCH: Well, let me ask you this. If you are selected as a juror here and required to be a juror, can you give this case your full and undivided attention all the time that you are here?
JUROR FUKSA: Well, yes, but I couldn’t sentence anybody. My conscience wouldn’t let me.
MR. HOCH: I didn’t hear.
JUROR FUKSA: I couldn’t sentence anybody. My conscience wouldn’t let me. I told that once before. I couldn’t live with myself.
MR. HOCH: Let me ask you this question. If you had determined the question of guilt and you found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the Court gives you an instruction that under the law, if certain facts and circumstances exist, that you can consider the death penalty in a certain case, in a proper case, are you saying that you could not consider the death penalty without doing violence to your conscience?
JUROR FUKSA: I couldn’t.
MR. HOCH: Irregardless [sic] of what the evidence might be, the facts and circumstances surrounding this particular crime, and the fact that the Court gives you instructions that certain things exist, if you find all those exist, would you still refuse to consider the death penalty?
JUROR FUKSA: Yes.