Opinion ID: 60360
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The prosecutor's statements affected Gracia's substantial rights.

Text: This case ultimately turns on the third step in our analysis  whether the prosecutor's improper statements affected Gracia's substantial rights. This step sets a high bar. [19] The determinative question is whether the prosecutor's remarks cast serious doubt on the correctness of the jury's verdict. [20] Gracia contends that the prosecutor's remarks did so by placing the government's weighty imprimatur on the only evidence linking him to a crime, i.e., the agents' testimony. The government counters that even if the prosecutor's statements were legally improper and thus erroneous, they were harmless, i.e., Gracia's substantial rights were not affected, thereby preventing the statements from rising to the level of reversible plain error. [21] To determine whether the prosecutor's errors affected Gracia's substantial rights, we first examine the effect of the court's cautionary instructions. The district court did help to mitigate the prejudicial effect of the prosecutor's violations somewhat by generically instructing the jury that it was their duty to base [their] verdict solely upon the evidence without sympathy or prejudice, that they must consider only the evidence presented during the trial, to [r]emember that any statements, objections or arguments made by the lawyers are not evidence ..., and to remember that [w]hat the lawyers say is not binding.... We presume that such instructions are followed unless there is an overwhelming probability that the jury will be unable to follow the instruction and there is a strong probability that the effect of the improper statement is devastating. [22] Gracia is correct, of course, that the court could have crafted more subjectively detailed instructions geared toward mitigating the prejudicial effect of these particular erroneous remarks, but we do not agree that it is invariably impossible to purge the taint of a prosecutor's prejudicial comments with merely generic cautionary instructions. The generalized instructions the court gave to the jury did serve, if only moderately, to reduce the degree of prejudice of the tainted remarks. This brings us to the next element of our consideration, i.e., the strength or weakness of the government's case against the defendant. Even crediting the district court's cautionary instructions, we are convinced that the prosecutor's statements, considered as a whole, prejudicially affected Gracia's substantial rights when viewed in comparison to the dearth of other evidence of Gracia's guilt. Simply put, other than the agents' testimony, there is none. Gracia's alleged confession was neither recorded nor transcribed. The sophisticated hidden compartment containing the drugs beneath the floor of the car would not have been apparent to an unknowing passenger. The $1,000 seized by the agents was taken from Valenzuela-Montoya, not from Gracia. Gracia's purported contact in Houston (Gerardo or Geraldo) was never located. Although Gracia did try to make himself gag by putting his fingers down his throat during the early stages of his detention at the B&M Bridge, guilty knowledge cannot be presumed, as the government urges, from such a tertiary circumstantial fact, especially given the fact of Gracia's serious health problems which require frequent dialysis treatments. Neither can guilty knowledge be inferred from the fact that Gracia did not appear surprised or upset when the agents told him that they had discovered drugs in the Impala. Indeed, if Gracia had appeared upset or surprised, the government would likely have urged us to infer guilty knowledge from that, too. [23] The simple reality of this case is that Gracia's conviction turned entirely on the jury's evaluation of the credibility of the agents who interviewed him at the B&M Bridge. Plainly put, absent the jury's crediting of the agents' testimony, Gracia could not have been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the paucity of other evidence. The prosecutor's imprudent statements unacceptably placed the government's weighty stamp of approval on the only evidence indicating Gracia knew of the cocaine in the Impala's floor, viz., the agents' testimony. The cumulative prejudice resulting from the prosecutor's four erroneous statements in quick succession clears the high bar necessary to affect Gracia's substantial rights and thus to constitute reversible plain error when viewed in the context of the minor mitigating effect of the generic cautionary instructions and the dearth of evidence of guilt other than the bolstered testimony of the agents. The prejudice resulting from the prosecutor's comments seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of Gracia's judicial proceeding. The case law is replete with examples of improper witness bolstering by prosecutors found to be reversible plain error. In United States v. Garza , for example, we held that a prosecutor's repeated vouching for the credibility of witnesses constituted reversible plain error. [24] In United States v. Corona, we held that a prosecutor's statement that he was proud of one of the government's witnesses affected the defendant's substantial rights and constituted reversible plain error. [25] In addition to this court, other circuit courts have held similar instances of witness bolstering to be reversible plain error. [26] We acknowledge that, more often than not, we have held instances of witness bolstering by prosecutors to be error but have gone on to find such error harmless rather than reversing the jury conviction of a defendant. [27] The instant matter is distinguishable from the cases in which we have refused to reverse convictions, however, because of the degree of the prosecutor's violations in comparison to the dearth of evidence of Gracia's guilty knowledge. As Gracia could not have been convicted without the agents' testimony, we cannot conclude that the prosecutor's bolstering constituted an unprofessional but harmless attempt to right the scale and rebut defense counsel's earlier veiled innuendo that the agents might be less than fully truthful. In this case, the jury's determination of guilt or innocence hinged entirely on whether Gracia had knowledge of the hidden drugs and that, in turn, hinged entirely on the credibility of the agents. The relative strength of the government's case is telling. The prosecutor's plainly erroneous statements led the jury to substitute the government's credibility assessment of its own agents for the jurors' independent credibility call, thereby casting serious doubt on Gracia's guilty verdict. We are convinced that, under the discrete facts of this case, the prosecutor's remarks affected Gracia's substantial rights and seriously affected the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of his trial.