Opinion ID: 3064941
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appeals to the Passions of the Jury

Text: [4] The defendants allege that the prosecution improperly “inflamed the jury’s passions and fears,” in violation of due process, on five occasions. As the defendants point out, “[w]e have consistently cautioned against prosecutorial statements designed to appeal to the passions, fears and vulnerabilities of the jury.” United States v. Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d 1142, 1149 (9th Cir. 2005). Statements “clearly designed to encourage the jury to enter a verdict on the basis of emotion rather than fact” are “irrelevant and improper.” Id. at 1150. In particular, prosecutors “ ‘may not urge jurors to convict a criminal defendant in order to protect community values, preserve civil order, or deter future lawbreaking. The evil lurking in such prosecutorial appeals is that the defendant will be convicted for reasons wholly irrelevant to his own guilt or innocence.’ ” United States v. Koon, 34 F.3d 1416, 1443 (9th Cir. 1994) (quoting United States v. Monaghan, 741 F.2d 1434, 1441 (D.C. Cir. 1984)), aff’d in part, rev’d in part on other grounds, 518 U.S. 81 (1996). [5] The defendants begin by claiming that the prosecution violated this rule through “improperly appeal[ing] to biases and fears about people from the Middle East” by eliciting ethnic generalization testimony and discussing it in closing argu9668 UNITED STATES v. NOBARI ment, as described in the preceding section. Although we hold that the prosecution violated the defendants’ rights to a fair trial by presenting this testimony, we do not likewise conclude that the same conduct improperly appealed to the passions of the jury. The testimony and argument were improper for introducing ethnic-based stereotypes that the jury could use to infer that individual defendants were guilty, but it did not cross another line by, for instance, pointing to a crisis of Middle Eastern drug dealing in Turlock and “ask[ing] the jury to make a statement.” United States v. Leon-Reyes, 177 F.3d 816, 823 (9th Cir. 1999). The government’s appeal was not prejudicial by way of “comments calculated to arouse the passions or prejudices of the jury.” Id. at 822. Second, according to the defendants, the government impermissibly presented evidence at trial about “Operation Mountain Express,” a DEA operation to combat international trade in pseudoephedrine pills. Over defense objections, a government witness described this large-scale investigation and testified that the current case was a spin-off. The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the testimony, as it arguably was responsive to earlier defense questions that revealed that the DEA investigation in this case was initiated in 2001, two years before the offense conduct occurred in late 2003. Third, the defendants challenge the prosecution’s reference in closing argument to a “little boy” who was leaving McDonald’s right as the defendants were arrested in the restaurant’s parking lot. The prosecutor stated: “Had these agents not been out there, this would have been another drug rip and who knows what would have happened to the little boy that was coming out of that McDonald’s.” The court sustained a defense objection and gave the following instruction: “The jury will determine what bearing any testimony or evidence has on the issues to be decided.” The prosecution’s comment was an improper appeal to jurors’ emotions and fears. See Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d at 1149-50. Because the prosecutor UNITED STATES v. NOBARI 9669 never indicated that she was rebutting any claim by the defense, we are not persuaded by the government’s argument on appeal that the comment was properly responsive to the suggestion by George’s attorney in closing argument that the government showed a lack of concern for other human beings. While the district court sustained an objection to the prosecutor’s comment, it did not instruct the jury to disregard the statement, as it should have. The prosecution’s reference to the “little boy,” therefore, was an improper statement that was not sufficiently neutralized by the court. Fourth, the defense claims that the prosecution also sought to appeal to the jury’s emotions and fears by emphasizing “the concern in the voice of [the Agent]” on the tape of the drug bust. In the prosecutor’s words, the Agent expressed “concern for another human being as Mr. Nuttall [George’s attorney] would say, genuine concern. Because he knew this was a volatile situation . . . . These drug traffickers pose a real and viable threat. Had it not been for the intervention of these law enforcement officers, it was a volatile situation. There was a real danger.” Unlike the prosecution’s reference to the boy in the McDonald’s parking lot, this statement was directly responsive to a suggestion made by George’s attorney that the government failed to exhibit “genuine concern” for other people. Even if we viewed this statement, in part, as calculated to appeal to jurors’ emotions, it was a permissible “invited response” to the defense’s argument. See United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 11 (1985). No error was committed here. Finally, right after making these comments, the prosecutor continued with the following statement, to which the defense did not object at trial but cites now as improper: “The City of Turlock should be thankful to law enforcement for their efforts in diffusing a volatile situation, for finding these drug traffickers and you, ladies and gentlemen, should not let the City of Turlock down.” These comments, which came at the end of the prosecution’s closing argument, appear designed to encourage the jury to view the government’s case more favor9670 UNITED STATES v. NOBARI ably by appealing to positive emotion for the law enforcement officers involved in the drug bust. See Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d at 1149. This was improper commentary and should have been struck from the record, as a prosecutor may not “tell[ ] the jury it had any obligation other than weighing the evidence.” United States v. Polizzi, 801 F.2d 1543, 1558 (9th Cir. 1986); cf. Koon, 34 F.3d at 1443 (barring prosecutors from urging a conviction “to protect community values” (internal quotation marks omitted)). [6] In sum, we have identified two errors at trial that involved the introduction of argument designed to appeal “to the passions, fears and vulnerabilities of the jury,” Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d at 1149: the district court’s failure to instruct the jury to disregard, first, the prosecution’s reference to the “little boy” exiting the McDonald’s as the defendants were arrested and, second, the prosecution’s appeal to the jury to “not let the City of Turlock down.” The defendants raise a number of additional arguments, but none of the arguments breaks new ground, and, with one exception, we find no further error. Accordingly, we will discuss the remaining claims in abbreviated fashion, providing limited factual and legal background for each.