Com. v. Starks

• Decision Date: 02 June 1978
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. William STARKS, Appellant (two cases).
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 829

387 A.2d 829

479 Pa. 51

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. William STARKS, Appellant (two cases).

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued April 21, 1977.

Decided June 2, 1978.

[479 Pa. 54] Louis Lipschitz, Philadelphia, for appellant.

F. Emmett Fitzpatrick, Dist. Atty., Steven H. Goldblatt, Asst. Dist. Atty., Chief, Appeals Div., Gaele Barthold, Philadelphia, for appellee.

Before EAGEN, C. J., and O'BRIEN, ROBERTS, POMEROY, NIX and MANDERINO, JJ.

OPINION OF THE COURT

POMEROY, Justice.

Appellant, William Starks, was convicted by a jury of murder of the first degree and unlawfully carrying a firearm. After post-trial motions were denied, Starks was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment on the murder charge and to a concurrent sentence of two and one-half to five years on the firearms conviction. This appeal followed. ¹

The record discloses that on August 24, 1973, Philadelphia police, responding to a radio call, found one Bennie Fields lying in the cartway of Rodman Street in Philadelphia. Fields had been shot six times and died soon after the police removed him to the hospital. In November, 1973, appellant was arrested and preliminarily arraigned on unrelated charges. Immediately following that preliminary arraignment, Starks was further detained by police for questioning concerning the shooting of Fields. Appellant quickly admitted shooting the decedent in a dispute over a drug deal. He was then charged with the murder of Fields and ultimately tried for that crime. The Commonwealth's principal proof was the confession. Taking the stand in his own defense, Starks maintained that he did not shoot Fields. He contended that the statement was untrue and had been involuntarily given following repeated threats and beatings by the police.

Appellant now alleges that a number of trial errors require that he be tried again. We agree that the assistant district attorney exceeded the bounds of proper prosecutorial advocacy and that the appellant was thereby deprived of a fair trial. A new trial must therefore be awarded. ²

As we have stated time and again, a prosecuting attorney is an officer of the court and has a duty to see that justice is not compromised in an effort to seek convictions. Commonwealth v. Collins, 462 Pa. 495, 341 A.2d 492 (1975); Commonwealth v. Revty, 448 Pa. 512, 295 A.2d 300 (1972). As we put it in Commonwealth v. Potter, 445 Pa. 284, 287, 285 A.2d 492, 494 (1971):

"This Court has made clear '. . . that the prosecuting attorney enjoys an office of unusual responsibility, and that his trial conduct should never be vindictive or attempt in any manner to influence the jury by arousing their prejudices.' Commonwealth v. Toney, 439 Pa. 173, 180, 266 A.2d 732, 736 (1970). Likewise, the ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function recognize: 'The prosecutor is both an administrator of justice and an advocate; he must exercise sound discretion in the performance of his functions.' ABA Project, Prosecution Function, supra at § 1.1(b). Furthermore, '(t)he duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict.' Id. at § 1.1(c)."

With respect to the closing argument of the lawyer for the Commonwealth, we have expressly adopted the rationale of the A.B.A. Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Joyner, 469 Pa. 333, 365 A.2d 1233 (1976); Commonwealth v. Cronin, 464 Pa. 138, 346 A.2d 59 (1975); Commonwealth v. Collins, supra. We again set forth the provisions of Section 5.8 of those Standards:

"(a) The prosecutor may argue all reasonable inferences from evidence in the record. It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor intentionally to misstate the evidence or mislead the jury as to the inferences it may draw.

"(b) It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor to express his personal belief or opinion as to the truth or falsity of any testimony or evidence or the guilt of the defendant.

"(c) The prosecutor should not use arguments calculated to inflame the passions or prejudices of the jury.

"(d) The prosecutor should refrain from argument which would divert the jury from its duty to decide the case on the evidence, by injecting issues broader than the guilt or innocence of the accused under the controlling law, or by making predictions of the consequences of the jury's verdict."

A review of the prosecutor's closing argument in the case at bar exposes a substantial deviation from these standards.

As stated above, the prosecution's case was bottomed on Starks' confession, and the defense was mainly directed to an attack upon the voluntariness of that confession, alleging that it was coerced by the police. In response to that charge, the assistant district attorney in his closing address to the jury stated: ". . . think the worst about Detective Morris and think the worst about Detective Richardson, but for Christ's sake, you cannot believe they were born yesterday." Again, he adjured, "If you believe that Detective Richardson and Detective Morris engaged in beating this defendant and beat him into signing a paper that they prepared, that were not the words of this defendant, I want you to understand, I mean, I want you to send him home . . . God help us if the police are going to do what the defendant says. If that is what you believe, ladies and gentlemen, not only let the defendant go, but I would be concerned about staying around myself." We believe that such expressions by the prosecutor indirectly conveyed his personal belief concerning critical issues at trial in violation of our established standards. See, e. g., Commonwealth v. Joyner, supra; Commonwealth v. Cronin, supra; Commonwealth v. Russell, 456 Pa. 559, 322 A.2d 127 (1974); Commonwealth v. Lipscomb, 455 Pa. 525, 317 A.2d 205 (1974); Code of Professional Responsibility, Disciplinary Rule DR 7-106(C)(4).

We are also of the opinion that the prosecutor placed unnecessary emphasis on the involvement of drugs in the case. The drug transaction between Starks and Fields, the victim, was peripheral only, not a central feature of the case. ⁴ But throughout the closing argument, the prosecutor repeatedly spoke of the defendant as a "pusher" and a "dealer":

"Don't you think that would be fairer, be fairer to the cocaine pusher, to the cocaine distributor. Don't you think that would be fairer?" (Trial Record at 480-481)

"when the police have a cocaine pusher, cocaine distributor who is involved in the killing of a cocaine pusher on the streets, because the pusher welshed on the deal involving a shipment of cocaine, if you believe that fairness after the defendant has been duly warned, not just by the police but by a defense lawyer that he does not have to talk if he does not want to. . . ." (Trial Record at 481)

The drug issue was further emphasized when the assistant district attorney stated:

"So, I don't come to this case with what I regard as extraneous principles of philosophy. I come to this case with the cruel, hard knowledge that it is just not this defendant who is supplying the drugs, it is just not Benny Fields who is out there pushing them, it is that somewhere, and I know it, I have seen them, there is some child whose body is being polluted right now by those drugs, right now. Don't you see, that sight, the sight of that child, that affects my view of what is fair. The sight of that child does have an influence on me, but that kind of fairness has no place in the case. This business about the bankers and the like all that philosophy has no place in the case. The law is what governs the facts as you find them." (Trial Record at 482-483)

The fact that an issue is before the jury does not justify counsel's over-emphasis of an illegal and socially reprehensible activity in a manner calculated to arouse the prejudice of the jury in resolving the ultimate issue of the guilt or innocence of the defendant with respect to the murder and firearm charges. We think it likely that these remarks could have inflamed the passions of the jurors in a manner which impeded their ability to determine objectively the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Commonwealth v. Collins, 462 Pa. 495, 341 A.2d 492 (1975); Commonwealth v. Harvell, 458 Pa. 406, 327 A.2d 27 (1974); Commonwealth v. Revty, 448 Pa. 512, 295 A.2d 300 (1972).

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