Is a Jury Comment About Defendant's Lack of Remorse Allowed ?

The prosecutor in Oliva v. State, 942 S.W.2d 727, 733-34 (Tex. App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1997) comment on appellant's lack of remorse and there was no evidence to support the comment in the record. See Oliva, 942 S.W.2d at 734. In Cacy v. State, 901 S.W.2d 691, 703 (Tex. App.--El Paso 1995, pet. ref'd), the prosecutor said in closing argument of the punishment hearing that "I've always heard that the first step to rehabilitation is for the person who needs it . . . to come forward and ask for it." Cacy, 901 S.W.2d at 703. The State argued that the comment "could have referred to other witnesses, who themselves may have noted Appellant's need for rehabilitation." Id. The Cacy court disagreed and noted that appellant was the only person who might be expected to ask for rehabilitation. Id. The Cacy court found the witnesses' failures to opine that appellant needed rehabilitation to be irrelevant to an assessment of punishment for appellant's crime, i.e., murder. Id.