court my name is walter k pile i represent mr miller helen in this case mr miller search that during the closing argument the prosecutor made improper prejudicial arguments to the jury and that those improper remarks were sufficiently agreed is that they gave him an unfair trial in violation of due process cla the prosecutor argued that mr miller who was acting pro se had an advantage she started out by saying i want to tell you something that i think is very important mr miller has an advantage  in comments that he was in a suit and suggested that this was somehow different from what he had been wearing during the commission of the crimes that in addition to appearing in a nice suit he said he presented an expensive defense and he had unlimited resources of vailable for his defense and she concluded i want you to think very carefully about these advantages that mr miller has well the idea that a criminal defendant this mr miller was image and the idea that he has unlimited resources it's simply not true and it simply has no place in a prosecutor's argument the prosecutor can comment on the evidence the prosecutor can comment on inferences to be drawn from the evidence this was not in evidence as to his unlimited resources if you followed up by saying commenting on the credibility of the witnesses mr miller had contended in his opening in his part of the of the argument that the witnesses were not believable and erica who is one of the witnesses had not left mr miller as he still continued to hang around him and the prosecutor explained she was afraid erica was afraid of mr miller he did drugs daily he was a member of the mafia he was a member of the area and grammar brotherhood as you said erica would be afraid of somebody like that which he she said i would be afraid of her of him now the state says these arguments states are several things they say the argument about unlimited resources and so forth suggest they suggest it's an ambiguous argument at least they quote from cases that say an ambiguous argument does not necessarily rise to a due process violation but there's nothing ambiguous about this statement he has unlimited resources is not ambiguous the state says well she was just saying don't have sympathy for the defendant because he doesn't have a lawyer or supporters i would be afraid of might be ambiguous well the says it's it's really saying a reasonable person would be would be afraid of them and that's one interpretation so in that sense it's ambiguous but it also when we when the whole the whole idea of of vouching for a witness or bringing in things from outside are not part of the record the whole idea is that a prosecutor is in a position number one has the procedure the government and we see all these television programs today the prosecutors always the good guy i was reading an article in the chicago daily log bulletin that said that it took a coming on the way that relations have broken down with that last decade between prosecutors and defense counsel that suggested it was the television programs because the defense lawyers always played as somebody who has a smirk on his face and is is trying to find some loophole the prosecutors still need some of the other i mean we can concede that it's great for prosecutors to avoid the i'm correct and this was a series of things he also she also made the implication right after saying that erica was afraid of him i don't we know this i would be afraid of him the prosecutor the jury views the prosecutors having inside information they always think when you choose a jury the jury says you say you have any experience in jury to the last trial you sat as a juror what were your experience they said we very often they'll say we thought we didn't get all the evidence and think the current court cases recognize that the jurors do sometimes think this and after talking about erica being afraid and i would be afraid she followed up with this implication that there are other witnesses out there is if there's other witnesses out there who don't want to come forward who want to hide well fine how many more of these blonde twenty years olds have to come into court to show mr miller's scheme this doesn't show this doesn't have any legitimate purpose none of these arguments have a legitimate purpose in a final argument and the implication is that the prosecutor knows about this as one case it says the process that when you when you do this you're saying to the jury i won't know more about this case than you do and this guy is really a bad guy so when you take all these things together and remember this is a case where the jury asked to rehear the testimony of erica twice the it was read back once in the ask a second time to have the evidence read back of testimony of america and the outcome of the case did turn on the credibility of the witnesses so in a situation like this there is the fission presidents there was no legitimate reason for this these comments to be made and the  credibility of erica so i suggest that all these things come together to the point where deprive the definitive a fair trial or save the balance your time for of all i do thank you very much  mr taken yes thank your honour's mayor please the court my name is bruce ortega and i'm representing the state in this case and it's our view that the challenge remarks of the prosecutor did not rise to the level of a due process violation and certainly in so ruling the state court do first is concentrate on brecht and assume for a moment that there was misconduct either rising to the level of a constitutional violation and let's determine whether or not that misconduct had a substantial and injurious effect on the verdict now the petitioners position is that this misconduct had the effect of supporting the credibility of the two main prosecution witnesses erica and bree and but for that the jury would not have returned the guilty verdicts it's our position that the charges in this case erica and breathe their testimony was overwhelmingly corroborated by other evidence apart from themselves to prosecutors remarks if improper did not have a substantial and injurious defect on the verdict let's take a look at the two sexual assault alex convictions the evidence that supports that apart from the testimony of erica to sexual assault examination she was distraught she had trauma to her mouth which corroborated her testimony that the defendant held his hand over her mouth to keep her from scream each she had the inside of her mouth was cut up trauma to her vaginal area a bruise forming on her arm which corroborated her testimony that he grabbed her and tried to pull her towards the bedroom a bruise forming on her inner thigh which corroborate her testimony that he pulled out her legs let's take a look at the escort service convictions the pimping and the pandering the evidence on these was overwhelming apart from the testimony of  have leah patton petitioner's own niece who testified that petitioners escort service was a front for prostitution testified that she overheard petitioner tell the girls that if they were ever arrested for prostitution employment contracts they signed would protect them from prostitution charges inside his computer were lists of women's names lists of men's names time periods and monetary a petitioner said one view of this evidence was the petitioner was running a legitimate dating service and that the girls just on their own would have sex with the men which of course discounted reese testimony that he always gave them condoms and lubricant before they went on their gates and i know of no legitimate dating service where only one party pays and there's a time limit put on it while the petitioner is outside wait of bob dylan the jury didn't know didn't your weatherman to know which way the wind blows he was overwhelmingly guilty on the sexual assault convictions on the pimping in the pandering and any improper remarks the prosecutor made did not have a substantial injuries yes counsel has addressed certain things about the overwhelming evidence yet there in every in every witness that testified to the things counsel said there was it was not a clear cut thing for example a pleasant hill police officer and we've we've listed some of these things in our reply brief the present elite priest officer told how erica had lied to him in filing a traffic report a martinez police officer was in the courtroom when he was called to the stand and testified that the story that erica told on the stand was contain a lot of things that she had never told him patton as  develops of was counsel said testified that this was a prostitution ring but on cross examination it was brought out that all this information was received from erica not from the from the not from mr miller so all these mind that the issue is where we come into that gray area where we just don't know and there's another case o'neill versus mechanics which is not stated in the briefs but that amplifies grokked in the petitioner should win and i suggest that at best at best here we don't know whether the jury verdict was was or was affected ok thanks both counsel for the arguments very good