Opinion ID: 168367
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements at closing argument

Text: 16 Defendant objects to the prosecutor's use of I and we in closing arguments. We have held, and the defendant acknowledges, that the use of personal pronouns in closing argument is not a per se due process violation. United States v. Carleo, 576 F.2d 846, 851-52 (10th Cir. 1978). The key issue is not the form but the content of such statements. A prosecutor may not express his personal opinion, United States v. Rios, 611 F.2d 1335, 1343 (10th Cir.1979), or place his own integrity and credibility at issue, United States v. Latimer, 511 F.2d 498, 503 (10th Cir.1975). But if such statements are merely mannerism, or a verbal tic, they are improper but not actionable. Carleo, 576 F.2d at 852. The prosecutor's occasional use of the first person in this case does not cross the line. 17 Mr. Jones also finds prosecutorial misconduct in the government's references in closing arguments to drugs as poison and the defendant as a shark. The Supreme Court noted in United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 9 n. 7, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985), that it is improper to use closing argument to inflame the passions and prejudices of the jury. See also United States v. Pena, 930 F.2d 1486, 1490-91 (10th Cir.1991). That is balanced, however, by the acknowledgment that in an emotionally charged trial, the prosecutor's closing argument need not be confined to such detached exposition as would be appropriate in a lecture. United States v. Lotspeich, 796 F.2d 1268 (10th Cir.1986); United States v. Bishop, 534 F.2d 214, 220 (10th Cir.1976) (quoting United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124, 1164 (7th Cir.1974)). 18 The language used by the government here is less problematic than language we have previously deemed permissible. We have upheld references to the defendant as a monster, Malicoat v. Mullin, 426 F.3d 1241, 1256 (10th Cir.2005), and other circuits have held it is not plain error when the defendant is referred to as a lizard, a nine-headed hydra monster, or a predator. See United States v. Rewald, 889 F.2d 836, 862 (9th Cir.1989); Byrd v. Collins, 209 F.3d 486, 536 (6th Cir.2000). Although we have never specifically addressed the propriety of labeling drugs as poison, we have upheld their depiction as destructive and dangerous. United States v. Dickey, 736 F.2d 571, 592 (10th Cir.1984). The Fourth Circuit wrote in an unpublished opinion that referring to drugs as poison is within the proper bounds of closing arguments. United States v. McKoy, 129 Fed.Appx. 815, 828 (4th Cir.2005). 19 Moreover, when reviewing on a plain-error standard, prosecutorial misstatements, even if inappropriate and amounting to error, must be so severe as to undermine the fundamental fairness of the trial and contribute to a miscarriage of justice, in order to amount to a due process violation. Young, 470 U.S. at 16, 105 S.Ct. 1038. The prosecutor's statements may not have been ideal trial practice, but they were not plain error, and we find no grounds for reversal.