Court Opinion

ID: 9660113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:05:29.115711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:15.566227
License: Public Domain

HANSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent on the issue of prosecutorial misconduct. Because there were multiple acts of misconduct and all but one was of a type that we have specifically addressed and clearly prohibited in previous decisions, I would reverse Dobbins’ conviction prophylactieally, without *514engaging in either a harmless error or a plain error analysis. State v. Salitros, 499 N.W.2d 815, 820 (Minn.1993) (reversing conviction in the interests of justice for improper remarks by the prosecution in closing argument about the defendant’s character, even though the defendant made no objection and the court did not find prejudice). If we do not reverse this conviction, with six serious acts of prosecu-torial misconduct, the concept that the prosecutor is a “minister of justice” has no meaning.
A.
The five acts of misconduct acknowledged by the majority are: (1) cross-examination questions that used Dobbins’ right of confrontation to impeach his testimony; (2) cross-examination questions that emphasized Dobbins’ silence and then his request for counsel during the custodial interrogation1; (3) cross-examination questions that asked Dobbins whether other witnesses, whose credibility was not put into central focus, were lying; (4) cross-examination questions that challenged Dobbins’ character based on his unfaithfulness to his girlfriend; and (5) cross-examination questions and closing argument that attempted to separate defendant from the jurors and to align the prosecutor with the jurors, by using “your world” references to emphasize racial and socioeconomic differences and by stating what the prosecutor would do if she were in Dobbins’ position.
These acts of misconduct were not isolated or inadvertent. They appear to have been deliberate, not arising spontaneously in the heat of trial. And they were flagrant because they were pursued with persistence and intensity. Our opinions condemning this type of conduct are meaningless if we allow the state, which apparently believed at trial that such misconduct was necessary to assure a guilty verdict, to now avoid appellate sanctions by arguing that the defendant cannot prove that the misconduct had a significant effect on the verdict. I conclude that this is one of the extreme cases that requires reversal in order to effectively exercise our supervisory powers.
B.
Further, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the “was he lying?” question directed at the testimony of King did not amount to prosecutorial misconduct. I acknowledge that the state may have relied on the confusion generated by our decision in State v. Morton, where we created an exception for such questions where the defendant places the credibility of a state’s witness into “central focus.” 701 N.W.2d 225, 233 (Minn.2005) (quoting State v. Pilot, 595 N.W.2d 511, 518 (Minn.1999)). But I would put an end to that exception because it does nothing to resolve the evidentiary objections to this type of question.
Asking one witness to opine on the veracity of another witness calls for impermissible speculation, lacks foundation and is, at best, argumentative. It violates several rules of evidence, including Rule 401 (excluding irrelevant evidence); Rule 403 (excluding relevant evidence whose probative value is substantially outweighed by the possibility of unfair prejudice or confusion); Rule 602 (requiring that a witness testify only about matters shown to be within her personal knowledge); Rule 701 *515(restricting opinion evidence by lay witnesses); and Rule 702 (requiring foundation for expert opinion evidence). A defendant does not open the door to such a question by merely testifying in a way that contradicts the testimony of another witness. I would conclude that the “was he lying?” question relative to King was a sixth act of misconduct.

. This cross-examination had no conceivable purpose but to suggest to the jury that Dobbin’s silence and his request for counsel were an indication of guilt. The fact that the state asked the question seven times, in seven different ways, suggests that the state was insistent that the prejudice not be lost on the jury.