holding trial court did not abuse discretion in permitting prosecutor to use leading questions during direct examination of 14-year-old witness to minimize risk that witness would unintentionally testify about unrelated allegations against appellant
How later courts described this case
- holding trial court did not abuse discretion in permitting prosecutor to use leading questions during direct examination of 14-year-old witness to minimize risk that witness would unintentionally testify about unrelated allegations against appellant
- concluding that advocating for a death sentence predicated upon religious writings constitutes reversible error because it suggests that the jury should base its decision on an independent source of law
- holding trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing prosecutor to lead fourteen-year- old witness based upon age and need to steer witness around prejudicial and extraneous references to defendant’s alleged involvement in another crime
- holding that a new trial was warranted where the prosecutor stated, “As the Bible says, and the murderer shall be put to death”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join the majority’s affirmance of the conviction, however, I must dissent from the overreaction of the majority to the prosecution’s biblical reference. The standard in evaluating whether a prosecutor crossed the line in his closing argument is whether his comments would have “the effect of arousing the jury’s emotion to such a degree that it becomes impossible for the jury to impose sentence based on consideration of the relevant evidence according to the standards of the statute.” Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 502 Pa. 474, 502 , 467 A.2d 288, 302 (1983). In this case the isolated comment of the prosecutor was the last sentence in a brief closing. This was not emotional oratory calling for divinely motivated retribution; rather it was a reference to one of the texts from which our social system has evolved. The majority opinion is an unmerited censure of citizens called to such vast responsibility. To believe them swayed from their solemn, sworn duty by a single reference to a *588 legal irrelevance is a presciosity that undermines the very essence of trial by jury.