In arguing before a jury, no attorney shall address or refer to by name or otherwise any member of the jury he is addressing, or otherwise make any personal appeal to any or all members of the jury.
Note:
This is substantially the language of Circuit Court Rule 77.
Annotations Rule 22
22
Closing Argument
We instruct trial judges to omit any language, whether in remarks to the jury or in an instruction, which might have the effect of lessening the State's burden of proof in a criminal case. Such language includes, but is not limited to, any language suggesting to the jury that its task is to "search for the truth" or to find "true facts," or that the jury should render a "just verdict." State v. Beaty, 423 S.C. 26, 46, 813 S.E.2d 502, 512, reh'g denied (May 25, 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 432, 202 L. Ed. 2d 318 (2018).
In our prior opinion, we agreed in part, holding that in criminal trials, "where the party with the 'middle' argument requests, the party with the right to the first and last closing argument must open in full on the law and the facts, and in reply may respond in full to the other party's argument but may not raise new matter." State v. Beaty, 423 S.C. 26, 36, 813 S.E.2d 502, 507, reh'g denied (May 25, 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 432, 202 L. Ed. 2d 318 (2018).
"This Court cannot simply assume that from July 1, 1985 through the trial of the instant case, the criminal trial courts of this State have uniformly continued to follow repealed Circuit Court Rule 58 to the extent that it remains the "practice as it has heretofore existed" in criminal cases in which the defendant introduces evidence. We have no effective way to ascertain the prevailing practices of current and past trial judges. We can only conclude that absent a published court rule or a defined common law rule, individual trial judges have developed their own practices governing closing argument in cases in which a defendant introduces evidence. That is an untenable approach to such an important phase of a criminal trial." State v. Beaty, 423 S.C. 26, 40, 813 S.E.2d 502, 509, reh'g denied (May 25, 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 432, 202 L. Ed. 2d 318 (2018).
indictment.'A material variance between charge and proof entitled the defendant to a directed verdict; such a variance is not material if it 'is not an element of the offense.'" State v. Gunn, 313 S.C. 124, 437 S.E.2d 75, 82 (1993). remarks "so as not to appeal to the personal biases of the...
