or makes assertions not supported by any evidence that are prejudicial to the opposite party.
- CRIMINAL LAW—ARGUMENTS & CONDUCT OF COUNSEL—ACTION OF COURT.—When proper objection is made to counsel's statements, the presiding judge should appropriately reprimand counsel and instruct the jury not to consider the statement and do everything possible to see that the jury verdict is neither produced nor influenced by such arguments.
- CRIMINAL LAW—ARGUMENTS & CONDUCT OF COUNSEL—ACTION OF COURT.—Failure to sustain a proper objection to argument of matters not disclosed by the record is error since it gives the appearance that the improper argument has not only the sanction but the endorsement of the court.
- CRIMINAL LAW—ARGUMENTS & CONDUCT OF COUNSEL—DISCRETION OF COURT.—The trial judge has a wide latitude of discretion in the control of arguments to the jury but it is not unlimited.
- CRIMINAL LAW—ARGUMENTS & CONDUCT OF COUNSEL—REVIEW.—The Supreme Court will reverse where counsel goes beyond the record to state facts that are prejudicial to the opposite party unless the trial court has by its ruling removed the prejudice, and failure of the trial court to interfere calls for a reversal.
- CRIMINAL LAW—ARGUMENTS & CONDUCT OF COUNSEL—REVIEW.—Error in the overruling of an objection to prosecutor's statement in argument to the jury could not be said to be harmless in view of the punishment fixed by the jury.
Appeal from Miller Circuit Court, J. Hugh Lookadoo, Judge; reversed and remanded.
Charles D. Barnette, for appellant.
Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen., by: B. J. McCoy, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
JOHN A. FOGLEMAN, Justice. Robert Lewis Williams filed a petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction of possession of heroin, a felony, after trial on June 4, 1973, resulting in a sentence to seventy years' imprisonment on three counts. He also filed a motion for disqualification in the post-conviction proceeding of Circuit Judge John W. Goodson, who had presided over his trial. In support of this motion, appellant Williams filed an affidavit in which he stated that immediately preceding the jury's being excused from the
