Norris v. State

In Norris v. State, 902 S.W.2d 428 (Tex. Crim. App.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 890, 133 L. Ed. 2d 165, 116 S. Ct. 237 (1995), the prosecutor argued: You know, I don't want to offend you when I say this; I just ask you to consider it. And it's not an accusation. But with the knowledge you've got now in your hands as jurors from all the way back to 1979 all the way up to 1987--the tracks of violence, the threats, the gunfire, the blood--if you don't do something about this and he kills again, aren't you just a little bit responsible? Think about it. Now you've got your chance to stop it and to do something. You've got the evidence. You've got the law. He's had a fair trial. You know about prior rehabilitation attempts. If you don't stop him and he does it again, you had the chance to stop him. What are you going to do then? You will have had some responsibility, possibly. I'm not going to say blood on your hands. But it will be more difficult to wash them. Norris, 902 S.W.2d at 444. The Court held that the prosecutor's statements were proper pleas for law enforcement. Sterling and Norris involve essentially the same type of argument, containing two components: (1) an allegation that the defendant will commit another murder if he is not executed; (2) the prosecutor's placement of moral responsibility upon the jury for that second murder if a verdict of death is not delivered. Component (1) of the argument is a deduction from the evidence while component (2) is a plea for law enforcement. The argument in Norris possesses another characteristic: the use of colorful speech to make an emotional impact on the jury.