Opinion ID: 3065829
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Curative instructions

Text: The prosecutor’s “send a memo” statement that an acquittal would encourage future lawbreaking throughout the United States and Mexico was the last part of his closing rebuttal argument. The defense counsel raised no objection, and the district court made no comment about the prosecutor’s statement. Instead, the court declared closing arguments concluded and sent the jury to the jury room to deliberate. Thus, there was no curative instruction to mitigate the prejudice of the “send a memo” statement. UNITED STATES v. SANCHEZ 19815 The government argues that because the district court instructed the jury on two occasions before the “send a memo” statement that “what the lawyers say is not evidence,” the “potential effect of [the] prosecutor’s misstatements” was neutralized. Appellee’s Br. at 23. This argument is unavailing. We have held that curative instructions fail to “neutralize the harm” of improper statements by a prosecutor when “ ‘[t]hey [do] not mention the specific statements of the prosecutor and [are] not given immediately after the damage [is] done.’ ” Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d at 1151 (quoting United States v. Kerr, 981 F.2d 1050, 1054 (9th Cir. 1992)). [5] The district court’s jury instructions do not meet the Weatherspoon test. Before closing arguments, the district court gave an instruction that arguments, statements, questions, and objections by lawyers are not evidence. Then, immediately before the prosecutor’s “send a memo” statement, the district court responded to an objection by the defense by reminding the jury to follow the jury instruction on the legal requirements of duress, and not to consider the lawyers’ statements as evidence. Advising a jury that lawyers’ statements are not evidence is not equivalent to advising it to consider only the facts of the immediate case, rather than the possible societal consequences of its ruling. Morever, once the “send a memo” statement was made, the district court did not address that specific statement, and gave no curative instruction. Thus, under Weatherspoon, the district court failed to neutralize the harm caused by the prosecutor’s “send a memo” statement. We acknowledge that Sanchez’s counsel bears some responsibility for the error. Had the defense objected to the prosecutor’s rebuttal, we have no doubt the district court would have issued a strongly worded curative instruction. But “even in the absence of objections by defense counsel, a ‘trial judge should be alert to deviations from proper argument and take prompt corrective action as appropriate.’ ” Id. 19816 UNITED STATES v. SANCHEZ [6] The government cites to various cases for the proposition that a general jury instruction can “neutralize the effect of a prosecutor’s misstatements,” but these cases are distinguishable. In United States v. Bracy, the prosecutor in closing argument suggested that the demeanor of two of the defendants during their cross-examinations indicated that they were afraid of their third co-defendant, “the imminent source of evil in this courtroom.” 67 F.3d at 1431. On appeal, we found these statements to be “a reasonable inference from the evidence presented.” Id. Specifically, the jury had already heard evidence of the co-defendant’s “violent conduct” and “intimidation tactics,” and the fact that witnesses were afraid of him. Id. Moreover, it was not improper for the jury “to weigh a witness’s credibility based on his manner and demeanor on the stand.” Id. We held that, under these circumstances, a general jury instruction declaring that “questions, objections, statements, and arguments of counsel are not evidence” was sufficient to neutralize any prejudice. Id. (alteration omitted) [7] Unlike in Bracy, the “send a memo” statement in the instant case was not a reasonable inference from the evidence, nor did it relate to matters the jury was entitled to consider. A defendant’s demeanor in the courtroom is arguably relevant to determining his guilt or innocence, and in determining his credibility. Thus, the statements in Bracy were not clearly improper. In Sanchez’s case, however, the prosecutor was not commenting on the defendant, but on the potential adverse consequences of an acquittal, namely that the acquittal would encourage and facilitate lawbreaking. The “send a memo” rhetoric was designed to arouse and inflame the jury to return a guilty verdict based on passion and prejudice. Bracy does not compel the conclusion that a generalized jury instruction that the statements of counsel are not evidence is sufficient to dispel the level and type of prejudice generated by the prosecutor in this case. In United States v. Amlani, the prosecutor at the beginning of his closing argument referred to the Seventh CommandUNITED STATES v. SANCHEZ 19817 ment as the source of the law against stealing. 111 F.3d 705, 714 (9th Cir. 1997). The defendant argued that this was an “appeal to religious prejudice.” Id. We held that this “arguable appeal to the parochial inclinations of [a] jury” was harmless. Id. The biblical reference was logically connected to humorous statements made by the defendant regarding an imaginary Eleventh Commandment, and the prosecutor also linked the Seventh Commandment back to the specific federal statutes under which the defendant was charged. Id. In this context, a general jury instruction was adequate to address any prejudice from the biblical reference. Id. Whereas the reference to the Seventh Commandment in Amlani was a minor point made at the beginning of the prosecutor’s closing argument, the “send a memo” rhetoric in Sanchez’s case was invoked by the prosecutor at the end of his closing rebuttal argument, after which the jury commenced its deliberations. See United States v. Carter, 236 F.3d 777, 788 (6th Cir. 2001) (finding it significant that “[t]he prosecutor’s improper comments occurred during his rebuttal argument and therefore were the last words from an attorney that were heard by the jury before deliberations.”). Given the timing, the impact was likely to be significant, and the court did not intervene. Moreover, unlike in Amlani, the “send a memo” statement was not logically connected to the testimony of Sanchez, or to the elements of duress; instead, it was a policy argument against acquittal. The statement in Amlani was not even an argument in and of itself, but an effort to emphasize that stealing is wrong, something of which the jury did not need to be reminded. The “send a memo” statement, in contrast, was a fully developed argument raising the specter of future lawbreaking to divert the jury from its obligation to reach a verdict based only on the evidence. Thus, the challenged 19818 UNITED STATES v. SANCHEZ statement in Amlani was far less prejudicial than the “send a memo” statement.1 [8] Therefore, we hold that the general instructions the district court gave to the jury were insufficient to mitigate the prejudice of the “send a memo” statement.