Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-06-01449/USCOURTS-ca10-06-01449-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Johnson Kenneth Taylor
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

January 29, 2008

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

PUBLISH

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JOHNSON KENNETH TAYLOR,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 06-1449

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Colorado

(D.C. No. 05-cr-00103-JAP)

Jill M. Wichlens, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Raymond P. Moore, Federal

Public Defender, with her on the briefs), Denver, Colorado, for DefendantAppellant.

Andrew A. Vogt, Assistant United States Attorney (Troy A. Eid, United States

Attorney, with him on the brief), Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before BRISCOE, Circuit Judge, McWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, and

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.

During opening statements at Johnson Kenneth Taylor’s trial arising out of

a fight that he initiated on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, the prosecutor

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urged the jury to convict Mr. Taylor in order to “end the cycle of violence” on the

reservation. Mr. Taylor objected to this remark and the district court promptly

issued a curative instruction. Mr. Taylor did not voice any concerns about the

content or sufficiency of the instruction or any lingering prejudice. Accordingly,

the trial proceeded and, after three days, resulted in Mr. Taylor’s conviction. Mr.

Taylor now contends for the first time on appeal that the prosecutor’s remark was

insufficiently addressed by the district court’s instruction. 

There is no question that the prosecutor’s remark was inappropriate. The

jury’s role in a criminal trial is to find facts related to the defendant’s innocence

or guilt, a function in which prosecutorial appeals to the resolution of social ills

play no useful role. Nevertheless, because Mr. Taylor expressed no

dissatisfaction with the ameliorative course adopted by the district court, we are

able to review the district court’s failure to issue either a mistrial or further

corrective instruction sua sponte only for the presence of plain error. Discerning

none, we affirm. 

I

Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, as we

must, this case arose from a fight at an outdoor party. Following a tribal

powwow, Mr. Taylor, the victim Justin Boyd, and several others went to a bar in

Ignacio, Colorado where they drank heavily and used cocaine. When the bar

closed, the group drove to a remote location on the reservation to continue the

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party, stopping on the way to pick up more alcohol. Roughly 200 people

attended. At some point during the party, Mr. Taylor’s ex-wife, Raylene

Echohawk, became distraught and told Mr. Taylor that a man had made lewd

comments to her and groped her. Ms. Echohawk then saw Mr. Boyd and

indicated that he was the man in question. Mr. Taylor ran over to the car in

which Mr. Boyd was sitting in the front passenger side seat. Mr. Taylor

approached the side of the car and, through an open window, struck Mr. Boyd

twice on the right side of his face. Mr. Taylor then opened the car door and

dragged Mr. Boyd from the vehicle. 

Mr. Boyd testified at trial that he subsequently ended up on the ground on

his hands and knees, where he was repeatedly kicked in the face and ribs by

multiple people. Mr. Boyd lost consciousness during the beating, and was

dragged 50 yards from the car. He was left semi-conscious in nearby bushes and

his wallet, cell phone, belt, and cocaine were stolen. The next morning, a

bloodied Mr. Boyd regained consciousness and managed to walk 20 minutes to a

house where he sought assistance for his injuries. He was taken to a hospital, and

several days later had plastic surgery to repair a shattered orbital bone around his

left eye. His lip and nose were scarred, and he continues to suffer from double

vision and “flashes.” 

On March 10, 2005, a federal grand jury indicted Mr. Taylor on one count

of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, or aiding and abetting such an

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assault, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 113(a)(6), and 1153. After three days of

testimony and deliberations, the jury found Mr. Taylor guilty as charged. 

 During opening statements at trial, the prosecutor made the following

remark:

You have to kind of put yourself in the shoes of those living on the

Southern Ute Reservation and look at it through their eyes and get past

the alcohol and the cocaine, not that it doesn’t happen here every day

with our families and friends. That’s the reality of the reservation.

This case is about asking you, the jury, to tell Johnson Taylor that

he had no justifiable sufficient legal right to sucker punch Justin Boyd,

to scar him permanently, and to end the cycle of violence out there.

Trial Tr. at 161. Defense counsel immediately objected that the remark was

“inappropriate.” Id. The court responded by admonishing the jury to “remember

that what the lawyers tell you is not evidence, and the evidence in the case is

what you must decide.” Id. at 161-162. Defense counsel did not object to the

content of the court’s instruction, move for further instructions, move for a

mistrial, or otherwise register any dissatisfaction with the court’s curative course. 

After entry of judgment, Mr. Taylor appealed his conviction arguing for the

first time that the district court’s instruction was insufficient to cure the prejudice

created by the prosecutor’s remark and that a new trial is necessary. 

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II

A criminal trial is about the innocence or guilt of the individual defendant

as measured against the statutory elements devised by Congress. Comments

suggesting to the jury that a guilty verdict may be proper for reasons outside of

the four corners of the statute run the risk of erroneous convictions. Appeals

about the need to address societal ills speak not to the question whether the

accused committed the crime alleged, but divert attention from that dispositive

question and confuse the task of the jury – as finder of fact – with the task of

elected officials – as the authors of social policy. Our sister circuit captured our

concern when it explained that “[t]he amelioration of society’s woes is far too

heavy a burden for the individual defendant to bear.” United States v. Monaghan,

741 F.2d 1434, 1441 (D.C. Cir. 1984). 

On appeal, the impropriety of the prosecutor’s remark is common ground. 

Throughout its oral presentation, the government conceded that the comment had

no proper place at trial. The remaining disputed question before us is, thus,

whether the district court’s curative instruction, not objected to by defense

counsel, sufficed to address the prejudice suffered by the defendant. In

confronting that question, we must first resolve an antecedent question concerning

the appropriate standard of review.

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A 

Where the defendant contemporaneously moves for a mistrial on the basis

of prosecutorial misconduct, we review the denial of such a motion for abuse of

discretion. United States v. Gabaldon, 91 F.3d 91, 94 (10th Cir. 1996). By

contrast, in cases of prosecutorial misconduct in which the defendant makes no

objection, our precedent limits us to plain error review. See, e.g., United States v.

Hall, 473 F.3d 1295, 1305 (10th Cir. 2007); United States v. Russell, 109 F.3d

1503, 1514 (10th Cir. 1997). The case before us falls somewhere between these

two extremes: on the one hand, Mr. Taylor did lodge a contemporaneous

objection to the prosecutor’s remark but, on the other hand, he did not move for a

mistrial and the court rapidly responded with a curative instruction to which

counsel issued no complaint. 

We think that the rationales for applying plain error review apply here, and

that standard of review ought to control. The district court issued a curative

instruction in response to Mr. Taylor’s objection, effectively agreeing with Mr.

Taylor that the challenged action was, in fact, prosecutorial misconduct. Because

it sided with him, Mr. Taylor cannot fairly be said to be appealing the district

court’s ruling on his objection. See United States v. Inglese, 282 F.3d 528, 538-

39 (7th Cir. 2002) (“Even if the government’s comment was improper, because

[the defendants] received the relief that they requested, there is no adverse ruling

about which they can complain.”). Instead, Mr. Taylor’s complaint can more

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accurately be said to pertain to the adequacy of the district court’s curative

actions. That is, the gravamen of Mr. Taylor’s appeal is that, even after the

district court’s instructions to the jury, there remained a modicum of uncured

prejudice sufficient to imperil his right to a fair trial. Mr. Taylor did not,

however, alert the district court to his belief on this score. He neither advanced a

contemporaneous objection to the district court’s curative instruction, nor moved

for a mistrial. Such actions, which would have given the district court the

information necessary to evaluate the need for further curative steps, would have

properly preserved the claim of error for appeal. Instead, for all that the district

court knew, it had addressed Mr. Taylor’s complaint to his satisfaction; it had no

reason to believe any further issue or concern remained. Where this happens –

where a party seeks on appeal to raise an issue not squarely presented to the

district court in order to allow it to exercise its judgment in the first instance – we

traditionally review only for plain error. 

The rationale for this rule stems from concerns of fairness, an appreciation

of the benefits of adversarial process, and the promotion of effective appellate

review. If failing to object does not yield a more deferential standard of review

than when an objection is interposed, savvy litigants, after having protested

opposing counsel’s remarks, would be encouraged by our legal rules to remain

mum about any problems they see lurking in a district court’s proffered curative

instructions and raise those concerns only on appeal. Such a rule would thus

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1

 Our concurring colleague notes that mistrial motions are already

plentiful. Concurrence at 3 n.1. Such motions, affording as they do the district

court notice of a potential problem and the opportunity to exercise its discretion

to cure it, are reviewed in our circuit for an abuse of discretion. Meanwhile, Mr.

Taylor asks us to grant more expansive de novo review where a litigant does not

move for a mistrial but merely objects and then remains quiet about a lurking

problem in the district court’s responsive curative instruction. We fail to see why

smart litigants, who quite rightly conform their conduct to legal rules, would not

seek to take advantage of such an inexplicable disparity in our legal regime.

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effectively invite litigants to sandbag opponents and the district court and afford

them no opportunity to address and correct, if possible, any alleged deficiency in

the court’s curative actions.1

 Such a rule would likewise tend to hamper our

appellate review. Distant from trial, we are not well-suited to assess the impact

of remarks like the one at issue here – one-sentence in an opening statement –

without the benefit of the parties’ and district court’s contemporary analysis and

assessment. As we have explained many times before, jury prejudice is “a highly

fact-based, circumstances-dependent [issue], which the district court is far better

positioned to consider than we” given its close vantage to the fray. United States

v. Jones, 468 F.3d 704, 710 (10th Cir. 2006).

Our application of plain error review comports with our past practice in

analogous situations. For example, in United States v. Gonzalez-Montoya, 161

F.3d 643, 650 (10th Cir. 1998), defense counsel objected to a prosecutor’s

discussion of the “deliberate ignorance” standard, but did not object again to the

prosecutor’s subsequent misstatement of the law on deliberate ignorance; we held

that the proper scope of review of the prosecutor’s subsequent, unobjected-to

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statement was for plain error only. Similarly, it seems to us, an initial objection

to prosecutorial misconduct is insufficient to preserve a claim of prejudicial error

to a district court’s subsequent curative instruction. In both cases, a supervening

event has occurred and it is that supervening event the appellant seeks to

challenge on appeal.

Our holding today also mirrors those of several of our sister circuits who

have already confronted the question we do today. See United States v. Griffin,

437 F.3d 767, 769-770 (8th Cir. 2006) (“[I]n this case, the district court sustained

[the defendant]’s objection and gave a cautionary instruction to the jury. [The

defendant] neither moved for a mistrial nor objected to the adequacy of that

instruction. Therefore, the claim of error was not preserved.”); United States v.

Hakim, 344 F.3d 324, 328 (3d Cir. 2003) (holding that where defense counsel did

not object to the sufficiency of the curative instruction, the court reviewed the

content of the curative instruction only for plain error); United States v. Canales,

744 F.2d 413, 431 (5th Cir. 1984) (applying plain error review to claims of

prosecutorial misconduct that were the subject of curative instructions not

objected to at trial). 

B

Mr. Taylor argues that United States v. Pulido-Jacobo, 377 F.3d 1124,

1134 (10th Cir. 2004) dictates application of a de novo standard of review. In

fact, however, Pulido-Jacobo indicates that we will review claims of

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2

 Our case law requiring de novo review of the decision to overrule an

objection to misconduct is admittedly at odds with holdings of most of our sister

circuits who review the decision to overrule an objection on the grounds of

prosecutorial misconduct for abuse of discretion. See Griffin, 437 F.3d at 769;

United States v. Mitchell, 502 F.3d 931, 970 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v.

Simpson, 479 F.3d 492, 503 (7th Cir. 2007); United States v. Lore, 430 F.3d 190,

210 (3d Cir. 2005). But see United States v. Roach, 502 F.3d 425, 432-33 (6th

Cir. 2007). Because Mr. Taylor’s objection was sustained, however, we have no

need or occasion to address this issue.

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prosecutorial misconduct de novo only in situations in which a contemporaneous

objection to prosecutorial misconduct has been entered and overruled. See id. at

1133-34; see also Duckett v. Mullin, 306 F.3d 982, 988-91 (10th Cir. 2002). 

That, of course, is not this case as Mr. Taylor’s objection was hardly overruled. 

Neither is the distinction merely a formal one. When a defendant’s

objection to prosecutorial misconduct has been overruled, the defendant has put

the district court on notice that he believes that there is an issue of uncured

prejudice, and the district court simply disagrees. Having objected, there is little

else that a defendant can do to ensure the fairness of his trial and preserve his or

her issue for appeal. By contrast, in our case the district court agreed with the

defendant’s objection and thought it had fully addressed it; the defendant did

nothing to raise and share his apparent lingering concerns and we have no

indication that, if asked, the district court would have declined the opportunity to

take further corrective action.2

Mr. Taylor responds that he is entitled to de novo review because his

objection was effectively overruled, or at least was not ruled on. In this vein, Mr.

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Taylor makes much of the fact that the district court did not utter the word

“sustained.” But in response to Mr. Taylor’s objection the court interrupted the

prosecutor’s opening statement and immediately issued a curative instruction;

under such circumstances we cannot help but conclude that the objection was

sustained, both legally and effectively in the eye of the jury. See Shank v. Naes,

773 F.2d 1121, 1127 (10th Cir. 1985) (“Thus, plaintiff-appellant’s objection was

sustained by the court advising the jury there was no such evidence.”). Indeed, a

court’s instruction to the jury that it must disregard a lawyer’s statement arguably

does considerably more damage to that attorney’s credibility in the jury’s

estimation than would the bare utterance of the word “sustained.” 

Our respected colleague in concurrence would reject this distinction

between overruled and sustained objections, advancing two arguments in support

of this proposition. First, the concurrence suggests that we have “allowed the

government – rather than Defendant – to frame the issue Defendant has

appealed.” Concurrence at 4 n.2. But the question presented by both parties is

whether any prejudice created by the prosecutorial misconduct in this case

warrants reversal. Mr. Taylor asks us to answer this question in the affirmative. 

In its brief, the government asks us to answer this question in the negative, and

does so expressly arguing that, because the district court exercised its discretion

to give a curative instruction, Mr. Taylor was required to object further to

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3

 To pluck just one example from the government’s brief: “Had Defendant

moved for a mistrial or a new trial or otherwise requested the trial court to take

corrective action beyond the curative instruction . . . , the district court would

have been able to exercise its discretion to further address the alleged error, and

this Court would have been in a position to review the decision of the district

court under the applicable abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gov’t Brief at 9. The

concurrence itself concedes that the government argued that plain error review

applied because Mr. Taylor neither moved for a mistrial nor objected to the

sufficiency of the curative instruction. Concurrence at 4 n.2. 

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preserve his claim of prejudicial error. See Gov’t Brief at 4-10.3 Confronted with

this argument, in his reply brief Mr. Taylor asks that we make clear the “plainerror standard does not apply.” Reply Brief at 2-4. We are, of course, required to

consider any argument properly presented by a party for affirming the district

court’s judgment, see, e.g., United States v. White, 326 F.3d 1135, 1138 (10th Cir.

2003), and there can be no question that the parties fully joined issue on the

question of our standard of review both in their briefing and at oral argument. 

The concurrence seems to suggest that we should ignore the curative

instruction merely because Mr. Taylor did not raise it in his opening brief. 

Concurrence at 1. But to do so would allow the appellant to control the standard

of review on appeal merely by omitting record facts from its brief. For example,

as we and the concurrence agree, we review misconduct claims that are the

subject of an overruled objection de novo, Pulido-Jacobo, 377 F.3d at 1134,

unless there is a subsequent motion for a mistrial, in which case we review for an

abuse of discretion, Gabaldon, 91 F.3d at 94. As we read the concurrence’s

approach, an appellant whose objection was overruled and who subsequently

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moved for a mistrial could simply omit reference to the mistrial motion in its

opening brief (thereby framing the issue in terms of his objection rather than the

mistrial motion) and receive de novo review. We decline to curtail the adversarial

process in this fashion. 

Second, the concurrence suggests that a de novo standard of review is

compelled by Gabaldon, United States v. Meienberg, 263 F.3d 1177, 1179-80

(10th Cir. 2001), United States v. Oberle, 136 F.3d 1414, 1421 (10th Cir. 1998),

and United States v. Lonedog, 929 F.2d 568, 572-74 (10th Cir. 1991). However,

none of these cases answered the question before us today: whether a litigant

who has received all the relief he requested, in the form of a sustained objection

and a curative instruction, should nonetheless be entitled to de novo review of the

effects of any lingering prejudice. 

In Gabaldon, we held only that an abuse of discretion standard of review

applies where there is a contemporaneous objection and motion for a mistrial. To

be sure, in dicta we said that in the absence of a mistrial motion, the appropriate

standard of review would be de novo. Gabaldon, 91 F.3d at 94. But this

statement, aside from its lack of precedential value, also is contrary to our

precedent to the extent it suggests that we review de novo, rather than for plain

error, cases in which there has been neither a mistrial motion nor a

contemporaneous objection, a point the concurrence acknowledges. See Hall, 473

F.3d 1295; Concurrence at 4. Oberle applied de novo review to an objected-to

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instance of misconduct, but, as the concurrence acknowledges, there is no

indication that the district court subsequently offered a curative instruction. 

Concurrence at 6. Unlike Gabaldon and Oberle, Meienberg and Lonedog did

involve sustained objections to prosecutorial misconduct that were not the subject

of further objection or a mistrial motion. Unlike here, however, the parties did

not apparently dispute the applicable standard of review, and, in any event, the

court simply did not pass on the issue. While the concurrence asserts that

because the court in Meienberg adopted the inquiry discussed in Gabaldon’s

dicta, it necessarily adopted the standard of review, Concurrence at 5, Meienberg

nowhere discusses a standard of review for misconduct, de novo or otherwise. 

We take our duty to follow precedent very seriously, but there simply is no

prior decision on point in our court addressing the applicable standard of review

in the circumstances now before us. “Questions which merely lurk in the record,

neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be

considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.” United Food

& Commercial Workers Union, Local 1564, 207 F.3d 1193, 1199 (10th Cir. 2000)

(quoting Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507 (1925)); see also Brecht v. Abrahamson,

507 U.S. 619, 630-631 (1993); United States v. Romero, 491 F.3d 1173, 1177

(10th Cir. 2007). Accordingly, there is no impediment to our decision today, one

bringing our case law in this arena into better harmony with our holding in

Gonzalez-Montoya and the views of our sister circuits. 

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III

With the applicable standard of review sorted, we must now turn to decide

whether the district court’s failure sua sponte to grant a mistrial or issue some

further curative instructions was plain error. Plain error occurs when there is

(1) error, (2) that is plain, which (3) affects the defendant’s substantial rights, and

which (4) seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial

proceedings. United States v. Ruiz-Terrazas, 477 F.3d 1196, 1199 (10th Cir.

2007). In this case, we barely get out of the gate, finding no error that can

reasonably be described as plain. 

A

The Supreme Court has explained that error is plain when it is “clear” or

“obvious.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993). In turn, to be clear

or obvious, the error must be contrary to well-settled law. United States v. Smith,

413 F.3d 1253, 1274 (10th Cir. 2005). Mr. Taylor points us to no authority for

the proposition that the district court was clearly obliged under the circumstances

to grant a mistrial sua sponte in response to a remark already the subject of a

curative instruction. Indeed, the weight of authority seems to rest heavily against

him. See, e.g., United States v. Devous, 764 F.2d 1349, 1356 (10th Cir. 1985)

(holding that where the prosecutor made improper remarks during closing

arguments and a curative instruction was given, it was not plain error not to grant

a mistrial sua sponte); United States v. Malik, 2007 WL 2153560, at *2-3 (3d Cir.

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July 27, 2007) (holding that failing to grant a mistrial sua sponte following the

prosecution’s references to the defendant as “the Muslim guy” was not plain error

where the defense had objected and the prosecution had been instructed to refer to

the defendant by name); United States v. Norris, 780 F.2d 1207, 1212 (5th Cir.

1986) (holding that where the jury was instructed to disregard inadmissible

testimony that it was not plain error not to order a mistrial sua sponte). 

Neither is any error made clear or obvious when the specific circumstances

of this case are considered. The prosecutor’s comment came during opening

statements, was not referred to again at any point during the three day trial, and

the government did not attempt to press any improper insinuation to its advantage

later in the trial. See United States v. Novak, 918 F.2d 107, 111 (10th Cir. 1990)

(distinguishing improper prejudicial remarks made in opening statements that are

isolated from those that the government attempts to substantiate and press to its

advantage during the trial). Further, of course, the district court instructed the

jury that the prosecutor’s comment was not to be considered evidence; we

generally presume that juries follow courts’ instructions, see Abuan v. Level 3

Commc’ns, Inc., 353 F.3d 1158, 1175 (10th Cir. 2003); and Mr. Taylor points us

to nothing in the record suggesting that the jury failed to do so in this case.

B

Mr. Taylor responds that the problem is not whether the jury followed the

court’s instructions, but whether the instructions themselves addressed the correct

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source of prejudice. That is, Mr. Taylor does not worry that the jury might have

considered the prosecutor’s remark to be evidence; his concern is instead that the

jury might have heeded the prosecutor’s call to use Mr. Taylor’s trial as a vehicle

to correct a broad social problem. In effect, Mr. Taylor argues, the prosecutor

confused the jury about its role, not about evidentiary issues. 

To be sure, Mr. Taylor could have raised this concern at trial, and had he

done so we would be reviewing this matter in a very different posture. But,

given that Mr. Taylor presses this point for the first time only on appeal, we can

ask only whether the district court’s failure to anticipate it was clearly wrong. It

was not. District judges are not obliged to guess at a litigant’s theory or

anticipate its future arguments on appeal. Besides, the instruction the district

court offered was reasonably tailored to Mr. Taylor’s articulated concern. The

jury’s duty to consider only the evidence before it and its proper role in assessing

guilt or innocence are, after all, closely intertwined. As the Supreme Court has

said, “the jury’s constitutional responsibility is not merely to determine the facts,

but to apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate conclusion of guilt or

innocence.” United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 514 (1995). Instructions that

properly describe what constitutes evidence are directly aimed at helping the jury

reach “the ultimate conclusion of guilt or innocence.” They do so by delimiting

the universe of possible facts to which the jury may apply the law in reaching its

verdict. Here, the district court properly instructed the members of the jury at the

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outset of the trial that, in determining guilt or innocence, they were only to

consider evidence. The court also forewarned the jury that the attorneys’ opening

statements should not be considered as evidence. Following the remark in

controversy, the district court reiterated and underscored that the prosecutor’s

remark was not to be taken as evidence, and thus, was not the basis for assigning

guilt or innocence. The district court’s course was therefore reasonably designed

to address Mr. Taylor’s concern and we cannot say its failure, on its own motion,

to offer a more fulsome instruction rose to the level of plain error.

* * *

The judgment of the district court is

 Affirmed.

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1

 The majority mischaracterizes my argument here as allowing “an

appellant whose objection was overruled and who subsequently moved for a

mistrial [to] simply omit reference to the mistrial motion in its opening brief . . .

(continued...)

06-1449, United States v. Johnson Kenneth Taylor

BRISCOE, Circuit Judge, concurring:

I, too, would affirm the conviction of Defendant Johnson Kenneth Taylor

(“Defendant”). I write separately, however, because I would apply a different

standard of review to Defendant’s prosecutorial misconduct claims.

The appropriate standard of review

I perceive our differences regarding the appropriate standard of review

arise from our different reading of the issue presented on appeal. The majority

identifies the issue raised by Defendant as follows: “Mr. Taylor now contends for

the first time on appeal that the prosecutor’s remark was insufficiently addressed

by the district court’s instruction.” Majority Op. at 2. However, this issue does

not appear in Defendant’s opening appellate brief, which contains only three

pages of argument. In fact, no mention is made of the district court’s curative

instruction—or even the word “instruction.” Instead, Defendant challenges the

prosecutor’s alleged misconduct and frames the issue as whether “the

government’s appeal to the jury to ‘end the cycle of violence’ on the Southern Ute

Indian reservation, by convicting Mr. Taylor as charged, [was] improper and

prejudicial so as to require reversal of Mr. Taylor’s conviction[.]” Aplt’s

Opening Br. at 1.1

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1

(...continued)

and receive de novo review.” Majority Op. at 12-13. The majority is incorrect. 

My argument here simply points out that (1) once we know the facts of the case,

and (2) precedent provides us with the standard of review (as is the case here), we

should not shirk our obligation to follow precedent by allowing the appellee to reframe the issue that the appellant has raised. See infra.

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We have outlined the standard for appellate review of prosecutorial

misconduct claims where the defendant did not move for a mistrial before the

district court:

Where there has been no motion for a mistrial or new trial, the

district court has not exercised its discretion, and therefore it is

meaningless to look for an abuse of discretion. In such cases, we

merely review whether the conduct objected to was indeed improper. 

Whether prosecutorial misconduct occurred is a mixed question of

law and fact, which we review de novo. If we conclude that the

conduct was improper, we then evaluate whether it warrants reversal. 

We make this evaluation as follows:

“A prosecutor’s improper statement to the jury is harmless unless

there is reason to believe that it influenced the jury’s verdict. In

assessing whether the misconduct had such an impact, we consider

the trial as a whole, including the curative acts of the district court,

the extent of the misconduct, and the role of the misconduct within

the case . . . [T]o warrant reversal, the misconduct must have been

flagrant enough to influence the jury to convict on grounds other than

the evidence presented.”

United States v. Gabaldon, 91 F.3d 91, 94 (10th Cir. 1996) (citing and quoting

United States v. Ivy, 83 F.3d 1266, 1288 (10th Cir. 1996)) (alterations in

original); see also United States v. Caballero, 277 F.3d 1235, 1242 (10th Cir.

2002) (“[A]n allegation of prosecutorial misconduct for which there was a

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contemporaneous objection presents a mixed question of fact and law that we

review de novo.”).

Contrary to the majority’s contention, our prosecutorial misconduct

standard does not vary depending upon whether the district court sustained or

overruled the defendant’s objection, or whether the defendant objected to the

district court’s curative instructions. Compare United States v. Meienberg, 263

F.3d 1177, 1179-80 (10th Cir. 2001) (applying the Gabaldon standard where the

prosecutor made an improper closing argument, the defendant objected, the

district court sustained the objection, and the defendant “did not request a mistrial

or seek any further relief”), and United States v. Lonedog, 929 F.2d 568, 572-74

(10th Cir. 1991) (applying the same prosecutorial misconduct standard, preGabaldon, where “Lonedog preserved [his claims] by properly objecting,” the

objection “was sustained and the question was never answered,” and “Lonedog

did not move for a mistrial” or “even request a curative instruction”), with United

States v. Pulido-Jacobo, 377 F.3d 1124, 1134 (10th Cir. 2004) (applying the same

standard where the defendant objected to improper questioning and the district

court overruled the objection), United States v. Toles, 297 F.3d 959, 971-72 (10th

Cir. 2002) (applying the same standard where the defendant objected to an

improper closing argument and the district court overruled the objection), and

Ivy, 83 F.3d at 1287-88 (same). To be sure, if Defendant had moved for a

mistrial, the district court had denied the motion, and Defendant were appealing

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2

 The majority is correct that this affords a criminal defendant a

comparatively broad scope of review if he or she does not move for a mistrial or

new trial, but our precedent is clear that this is the rule. See Meienberg, 263 F.3d

at 1179-80; Gabaldon, 91 F.3d at 93-94. Moreover, given the number of

defendants who move for mistrials based on allegations of prosecutorial

misconduct, this rule has hardly “invite[d] litigants to sandbag opponents and the

district court,” as the majority contends. Majority Op. at 7. The majority’s

explication of the horrors that will result from following our current rule,

Majority Op. at 8 n.1, greatly overstates the effect of our rule on the incentives of

the litigants.

3

 The majority has allowed the government—rather than Defendant—to

frame the issue Defendant has appealed. The government states the issue as

follows:

Whether the failure of the district court to declare a mistrial, sua

sponte, following Defendant’s objection to an eight-word statement

made by the prosecutor during the government’s opening statement

to the jury, where Defendant neither moved for a mistrial nor

objected to the sufficiency of a curative instruction given by the

(continued...)

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the denial of the motion, we would then review the district court’s decision for an

abuse of discretion. See United States v. Harlow, 444 F.3d 1255, 1265-67 (10th

Cir. 2006); Gabaldon, 91 F.3d at 93-94.2

 In the instant case, though, where the

district court has not exercised its discretion and Defendant is not challenging any

decision of the district court, our focus is solely on the prosecutor’s alleged

misconduct, and we review the alleged misconduct de novo, addressing its effect

on the trial as a whole.

The majority creates unnecessary confusion by re-framing the issue which

Defendant has set out in his brief to focus on the district court’s curative

instructions and failure to declare a mistrial sua sponte.

3

 The majority then

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3

(...continued)

court, constitutes plain error which should be noticed by this Court.

Aplee. Br. at 1. 

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purports to solve this confusion by applying the plain error standard. Our

precedent, however, demonstrates that we only review prosecutorial misconduct

claims for plain error where a defendant failed to object at trial to the alleged

misconduct. See, e.g, United States v. Oberle, 136 F.3d 1414, 1421 (10th Cir.

1998) (reviewing one allegedly inappropriate comment under a de novo standard

where defense counsel objected at trial, but then applying a plain error standard

where “defense counsel did not object to the remaining comments”). 

The majority’s decision also deviates from our usual analysis of a district

court’s curative instructions. Ordinarily, in considering prosecutorial misconduct

claims, we analyze curative instructions when determining whether the alleged

prosecutorial misconduct “influenced the jury’s verdict” and “warrants reversal.” 

Gabaldon, 91 F.3d at 94. The majority, though, suggests that these same curative

instructions now preclude any review of prosecutorial misconduct claims—except

for plain error—unless a defendant has objected both to the prosecutorial

misconduct and to the curative instructions (or moved for a mistrial). This is

inconsistent with our precedent. We address curative instructions as part of our

harmless error review, rather than as automatically precluding such review in the

first place. See id.

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4

 The defendant did move for a mistrial in Oberle, but only in response to

the testimony of an FBI agent—not in response to the alleged prosecutorial

misconduct. Oberle, 136 F.3d at 1417.

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The majority’s attempts to distinguish our precedent are unpersuasive. 

Even assuming that our language in Gabaldon is dicta, we explicitly adopted the

Gabaldon standard as part of our holding in Meienberg, and we reviewed the

prosecutorial misconduct claim de novo, using the exact method of analysis that

we had suggested in Gabaldon. Meienberg, 263 F.3d at 1180. The detail of the

Meienberg court’s analysis in adopting and applying this standard, moreover,

refutes any suggestion that “the court simply did not pass on the issue,” as the

majority suggests. Majority Op. at 14. Further, in Oberle, we analyzed several

instances of alleged prosecutorial misconduct and determined that plain error only

applied to those instances where defense counsel did not object to the

prosecutor’s comments:

Defense counsel objected to only one of the challenged comments,

one in which the prosecutor stated that Oberle tried to get Jensen a

“Fifth Amendment plea arrangement, showing some wherewithal,

some knowledge of the criminal system, I would say.” This

comment is reviewed de novo. Because defense counsel did not

object to the remaining comments, we review them for plain error.

Oberle, 136 F.3d at 1421 (emphasis added).4

 True, the Oberle court did not

specify whether the district court had sustained or overruled the defendant’s

objection to the one challenged comment, but this simply demonstrates that the

Oberle court was following our precedent and not altering its standard of review

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depending upon whether the district court sustained or overruled the defendant’s

objection. 

Indeed, in the only case from this circuit that the majority cites as support

for its plain error standard, we reviewed the prosecutorial misconduct claim for

plain error “[b]ecause defense counsel did not specifically object to the

prosecutor’s remarks about the reasonable person standard.” United States v.

Gonzalez-Montoya, 161 F.3d 643, 650 (10th Cir. 1998) (emphasis added). The

lack of precedent from our circuit which directly supports the majority’s position

is telling, particularly considering how frequently we review claims of

prosecutorial misconduct.

Application to Defendant’s trial

Under the appropriate standard of review applicable to the issues raised,

Defendant’s prosecutorial misconduct claim still fails. The two-step process for

evaluating claims of prosecutorial misconduct requires us first to “examine

whether the conduct was, in fact, improper.” Oberle, 136 F.3d at 1421. As

Defendant argues, and the government does not seriously contest, the prosecutor’s

appeal to the jury to assist in solving a pressing social problem by convicting

Defendant was improper. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 968 F.2d 768, 769-

70 (8th Cir. 1992) (reversing the defendant’s conviction and holding that “the

prosecutor’s remarks . . . were unduly inflammatory and improper” where the

prosecutor’s rebuttal closing argument included the following: “Your decision to

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uphold the law is very important to society. You’re the people that stand as a

bulwark against the continuation of what Mr. Johnson is doing on the street,

putting this poison on the street.”); United States v. Solivan, 937 F.2d 1146,

1148-55 (6th Cir. 1991) (reversing the defendant’s conviction where, during

closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury, “And I’m asking you to tell her

and all of the other drug dealers like her that we don’t want that stuff in Northern

Kentucky and that anybody who brings that stuff in Northern Kentucky . . . .”);

United States v. Monaghan, 741 F.2d 1434, 1442-43 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (holding

that the prosecutor’s remarks, in his rebuttal closing argument, that the defendant

was not an exemplary police officer and should be held to a higher standard of

conduct as a police officer, were improper).

Nevertheless, the prosecutor’s improper comment during opening argument

does not warrant reversal. “A prosecutor’s improper statement to the jury is

harmless unless there is reason to believe that it influenced the jury’s verdict. . . . 

To warrant reversal, the misconduct must have been flagrant enough to influence

the jury to convict on grounds other than the evidence presented.” Gabaldon, 91

F.3d at 94. In analyzing whether the prosecutor’s improper statement affected the

outcome of the trial, we must “consider the trial as a whole, including the curative

acts of the district court, the extent of the misconduct, and the role of the

misconduct within the case.” Id. “Thus, factors relevant to determining whether

the improper commentary affected the fairness of the trial include whether the

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instance was singular and isolated, whether the district court instructed the jury

that the attorneys’ argument was not evidence, and whether there was substantial

evidence of the defendant’s guilt.” Oberle, 136 F.3d at 1420.

Here, the prosecutor made the improper remark during the government’s

opening statement. The prosecutor made no further reference to the statement

during the remainder of the trial. In United States v. Gallegos, 738 F.2d 378, 383

(10th Cir. 1984) (citations omitted), we explained that allegedly improper remarks

during the opening statement were harmless, because

[t]he comments were made at the very beginning of the trial in

opening statement. The matter was not mentioned again before the

jury until the defendant brought it up himself. The evidence against

defendant was substantial, if not overwhelming. The comments were

not made by the government in closing argument and they were not

fresh in the minds of the jurors . . . .

See also United States v. Portillo-Quezada, 469 F.3d 1345, 1352 (10th Cir. 2006)

(“More importantly, after the incident [during voir dire] the prosecutor made no

further attempts at trial to capitalize on the remarks . . . .”); Ivy, 83 F.3d at 1288

(“We ordinarily will not reverse if the misconduct was merely ‘singular and

isolated.’” (quoting United States v. Pena, 930 F.2d 1486, 1491 (10th Cir.

1991))). The fact that the trial lasted only three days does not change the singular

and isolated nature of the prosecutor’s statement. See United States v. Gordon,

173 F.3d 761, 769 (10th Cir. 1999) (“[T]he purported misconduct is insignificant

when the trial is considered as a whole. It consisted of a single question in a twoAppellate Case: 06-1449 Document: 0101118628 Date Filed: 01/29/2008 Page: 27
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day proceeding that was not answered by Gordon nor commented on by the

prosecutor in closing argument.”).

Moreover, “[a] central assumption of our jurisprudence is that juries follow

the instructions they receive.” United States v. Castillo, 140 F.3d 874, 884 (10th

Cir. 1998); see also Gordon, 173 F.3d at 769 (“Absent evidence to the contrary,

we assume the jury follows a curative instruction.”). In this case, Defendant

immediately objected to the statement, and the district court instructed the jury to

“remember that what the lawyers tell you is not evidence, and the evidence in the

case is what you must decide.” Tr. at 161-62. Before opening statements began,

the court likewise instructed the jury that “[t]he opening statements are not

evidence,” id. at 143, and in the final jury instructions submitted before closing

arguments, the court reminded the jury to “consider only the evidence I have

admitted in the case” and that “any statements, objections, or arguments made by

the lawyers are not evidence in the case,” id. at 686.

Finally, contrary to Defendant’s contention, there was “substantial evidence

of [his] guilt.” Oberle, 136 F.3d at 1420. Mr. Boyd testified that Defendant

punched him twice in the face and dragged him out of the car, after which

someone immediately and repeatedly kicked Mr. Boyd in the face and ribs. Mr.

Howe testified that Defendant hit Mr. Boyd and pulled him out of the car; he did

not know if Defendant hit Mr. Boyd again. Even Ms. Echohawk testified that,

although she did not know if Defendant punched Mr. Boyd any additional times,

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thirty seconds elapsed between the time when Defendant audibly hit Mr. Boyd

and the time when Defendant returned to her side. Further, investigators found

Mr. Boyd’s blood on both the exterior and interior of the car, including the center

console and the passenger door.

Defendant is correct that Mr. Boyd’s testimony and Mr. Howe’s testimony

contained some inconsistencies when compared to their statements to the

investigator, Officer Koenig. Both Mr. Boyd and Mr. Howe, though, had

previously told Officer Koenig that defendant hit Mr. Boyd repeatedly, and most

of Mr. Boyd’s inconsistencies dealt with his conduct towards Ms. Echohawk, not

the details of the assault itself. As the district court stated, “depending on the

version the jury chooses to believe, . . . there is sufficient evidence . . . that would

support a conviction of the [D]efendant on Count 1 beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

Given the strength of the evidence against Defendant, the jury had more than

enough evidence to find Defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,

notwithstanding the improper statement by the prosecutor. 

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