Summary
The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Anthony Abbatiello’s convictions and sentence for robbery, home invasion, firearm, and related offenses. The Court held that the prosecutor’s comments concerning potential perjury charges for alibi witnesses did not substantially interfere with the defense, and that any improper vouching during closing argument did not constitute plain error.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the prosecutor violated Abbatiello's due-process and compulsory-process rights by allegedly threatening potential alibi witnesses with perjury prosecution.
- Whether the prosecutor committed reversible prosecutorial misconduct by arguing that surveillance video showed Abbatiello was the defendant and by stating that Abbatiello's podmate told the truth.
- Whether any unpreserved prosecutorial misconduct constituted plain error requiring reversal.
Holdings
- The prosecutor's comments did not substantially interfere with the alibi witnesses' free and unhampered determination to testify and therefore did not violate due process or the right to compulsory process. The comments were a permissible, truthful warning that contradictory testimony could expose the witnesses to potential perjury prosecution.
- The prosecutor did not improperly interject a personal opinion or improperly vouch for guilt by arguing that the surveillance video showed Abbatiello was the defendant. The statement was an argument about a legitimate inference from the surveillance video and eyewitness description, not an assertion based on the prosecutor's superior personal knowledge.
- Even assuming that the prosecutor improperly vouched for the podmate by stating that he told the truth, the isolated comment was not plain error warranting reversal. The comment was not sufficiently prejudicial to substantial rights, and it was not part of repetitive vouching that cast doubt on the integrity of the judicial process.
Key quotations
“Under the Pierce test, a prosecutor’s statements “must amount to a substantial interference with a witness’s free and unhampered determination to testify before a due process violation will be found.”” (6)
“Where the prosecutor merely provides the witness with a truthful warning there is no constitutional violation.” (6)
“This Court has consistently reaffirmed that the prosecutor is allowed to argue all legitimate inferences of the defendant’s guilt that follow from the evidence.” (7)
“It is difficult to distinguish the statement that the podmate “told the truth about what [Abbatiello] told him” from the prosecutor’s statements in Whittle v. State, in which we held that a prosecutor’s repetitive description of witnesses’ testimony as “right” constituted improper vouching for the credibility of those witnesses.” (8)
Factual background
A motel-room robber threatened Carla Weston with a gun, took money and personal property, and fired at least three shots while fleeing from Weston and others. Surveillance footage, a photographic lineup identification, vehicle and phone records, evidence of Abbatiello's flight from his residence, and clothing seized there linked Abbatiello to the robbery. A jailhouse podmate testified that Abbatiello confessed to the robbery and shooting, while Abbatiello and two alibi witnesses placed him in Philadelphia.
Procedural history
A Superior Court jury found Abbatiello guilty of attempted assault, home invasion, first-degree robbery, four counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, reckless endangering, possession of firearms and ammunition by a person prohibited, and several traffic offenses. The Superior Court sentenced him cumulatively to fifty-three years of Level 5 incarceration, suspended after approximately forty-six years and six months for decreasing levels of probation. Abbatiello raised on direct appeal two prosecutorial-misconduct claims that he had not preserved at trial, so the Delaware Supreme Court reviewed them for plain error and affirmed.