Opinion ID: 3013496
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: In opening statements, the prosecutor set forth the evidence the government planned to introduce to corroborate Sylvester’s testimony regarding the Gambones’ plot to skim cash from the company and to hide that cash by purchasing savings bonds: 19 And later, based on . . . information [provided by Sylvester], search warrants were executed, . . . and guess what, they corroborated what Mr. Sylvester said. A year later in ‘95 . . . over $65,000 cash and almost a million dollars face value savings bonds were found in a safe in Jack Gambone’s house. And you’ll hear how many of those savings bonds were purchased with cash from a bank representative. J.A. at 184. Later in the trial, however, the court excluded evidence of the bonds because the government was unable to lay a foundation for admission of any but a small fraction of the bonds ($62,750, as discussed above) by showing that they were purchased with cash. In his closing, Thomas A. Bergstrom, counsel for Tony Gambone, after reviewing impeachment evidence concerning Sylvester’s incentive to lie to obtain a lesser sentence for a drug conviction, raised the bond issue: And I’m going to tell you this because part of me says stay away from it, Bergstrom, but part of me says you’ve got to know, because you heard it in the Government’s opening argument. They came in front of you and argued to you, three and a half weeks ago, that there’s a million dollars in bonds. Well, guess what? There isn’t a million dollars in bonds. They didn’t show you a million dollars in bonds at all. They showed you some bonds that were purchased between June of ‘94 and July of ‘95. My recollection tells me those bonds totaled about $65,000. . . . So, you know, the Government had their moment here. They . . . opened with, the million dollars in bonds that they opened with, and that they haven’t been able to prove . . . . Id. at 3143-44. In rebuttal, the prosecutor, discussing the cash-skimming allegation, responded: It’s all the money over all those other years. And again, they want to hide behind the fact that there’s not a paper trail of cash. And they want to point their finger at Mr. Sylvester and they want to bring up that whole thing about the bonds. Well, you know, ladies and gentlemen, Judge Padova told you before Ms. Winters’ 20 opening that openings were about what the Government expected the evidence to show. And you saw that throughout this trial, various objections were made and Judge Padova would rule on them as he saw fit and you saw that evidence was excluded. So, if there’s things we’ve said we were going to prove that we didn’t, don’t hold it against us. You heard the objections they made. Id. at 3163-64. At that point, Bergstrom objected. The court overruled the objection, stating that he would charge the juryon that subject. The jury instructions, however, included only general statements as to the burden of proof, the fact that the defendants need not produce any evidence, the manner of ruling on objections according to the rules of evidence, and the fact that statements and arguments of counsel are not evidence. The court did not give a specific curative instruction with respect to the prosecutor’s remarks. The parties do not dispute that the prosecutor’s remarks were improper.11 In United States v. Mastrangelo, we outlined three factors to consider in determining whether improper comments are prejudicial: the scope of the comments within the context of the entire trial, the effect of any curative instructions given, and the strength of the evidence against the defendant. 172 F.3d 288, 297 (3d Cir. 1999); see also United States v. Zehrbach, 47 F.3d at 1265. _________________________________________________________________ 11. The government appears to have abandoned an argument it raised in the district court, that the invited error doctrine should apply. That doctrine teaches that where a prosecutorial argument has been made in reasonable response to improper attacks by defense counsel, the unfair prejudice flowing from the two arguments may balance each other out, thus obviating the need for a new trial. United States v. Pungitore, 910 F.2d 1084, 1126 (3d Cir. 1990) (citing United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 12-13, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1045 (1985)). The doctrine does not apply, however, where defense counsel’s attacks are proper,vigorous advocacy. Molina-Guevara, 96 F.3d at 705. As the district court found, defense counsel did nothing improper by pointing out that the government did not prove every fact alleged in the indictment or raised in opening statements. The government has not advanced the invited error theory on appeal. 21 The third factor, the strength of the evidence against the Gambones, weighs in favor of the government. It should be noted at the outset that the substance of the prosecutor’s remarks establishes at most the purchase of bonds, not illegal bond acquisition. Nevertheless, any prejudicial effect from the prosecutor’s remarks would go to evidence of cash-skimming, the first prong of the conspiracy count. The government needed to prove only one prong in order to establish a conspiracy, and the district court found that two other prongs were proven. Further, the jury had the witness testimony of Robert Sylvester upon which to base a prong one verdict, and we have held that probative evidence on the same issue as improper remarks may mitigate prejudice stemming from those remarks. Gambone, 167 F. Supp.2d at 827; see United States v. Helbling, 209 F.3d 226, 242 (3d Cir. 2000) ([A]lthough the prosecutor’s comments may have been a pointed assertion of Helbling’s guilt, the characterizations were related to the charges contained in the indictment which the evidence presented later did in fact establish. Accordingly, we find prejudice to be lacking.). Similarly, the first factor, the scope of the improper comments within the context of the whole trial, weighs in favor of the government. Not only was the Sylvester testimony presented as evidence of cash-skimming, the government successfully introduced evidence concerning approximately $65,000 in bonds to corroborate Sylvester’s testimony.12 Although this amount falls short of a million, _________________________________________________________________ 12. The Gambones argue that the effects of the prosecutor’s comments seeped well beyond the confines of the cash-skimming prong, infecting the entire trial with unsupported, jury-arousing allegations. They argue that the prosecutor’s use of the word objections was meant to refer to the over 200 defense objections sustained during the trial: [T]he jury simply could not have understood the government’s egregious remarks as restricted to the prong 1 conspiracy. The explicit references to other excluded evidence could only lead the jury to conclude that there was all sorts of evidence of the defendant’s guilt which was being kept from them by the defense objections. Joint Br. of Appellants at 42-43. We reject this argument, which makes ambitious use of the prosecutor’s pluralization of the word objection when we consider it in the context of the rebuttal argument as a whole. Defense counsel only mentioned the bonds when discussing Sylvester’s credibility and testimony concerning the cash-skimming scheme, and the government only referred to defense objections while discussing this same point. 22 as a legal matter the value of the bonds is not a critical factor in determining whether there was an unlawful conspiracy. Further, the prosecutor’s objectionable comment amounts to less than half of a page out of over 3200 pages of trial transcript prior to jury deliberations. It represented only a fleeting moment in a four-week trial, in which the court sustained more than 200 objections by the defendant. Thus, the district court was correct to distinguish this case from United States v. Mastrangelo, 172 F.3d 288, and Molina-Guevara. In Mastrangelo, the parties had stipulated that the defendant had the chemical background to know the ingredients and equipment necessary to make methamphetamine, although the defendant had refused to stipulate that he knew how to make the drug. Id . at 295. In his closing, the prosecutor remarked both that the stipulation suggested that the defendant knew . . . how to make methamphetamine and that there was no evidence of anyone else in the conspiracy knowing how to make methamphetamine. Id. at 296. We held that these statements were improper because they mischaracterized the evidence in the record and impermissibly shifted the burden to the defendant to produce exculpatory evidence, influencing the case outcome. Id. at 296-97. The Gambones argue that the prosecutor’s statements impermissibly shifted the burden of proof by telling the jury to hold any gaps in the evidence against the defendants. Joint Br. of Appellants at 41. We reject this argument as the court made clear in its charge that the burden of proof throughout the case remained with the government and, in any event, even without the court’s charge we are satisfied that the prosecutor’s statements would not have had the effect that the Gambones suggest. In this regard, we point out that Mastrangelo is distinguishable as the prosecutor’s remarks here at most explained the reason for the government’s failure of proof and thus did not imply that the Gambones had any obligation to produce exculpatory evidence. Moreover, there was substantial evidence to support all the prongs of the conspiracy count including witness testimony about cashskimming to which the prosecutor’s statements did not relate. 23 Similarily, Molina-Guevara is distinguishable from this case. In Molina-Guevara the government called one customs agent to testify to the defendant’s involvement in a drug conspiracy but chose not to call a second agent who also had questioned the defendant. After counsel for the defendant challenged the witness’ credibility during his closing argument, the prosecutor suggested during rebuttal that counsel for the defendant did not call the second agent to testify because that agent would have corroborated the testimony of the first agent. 96 F.3d at 703. In MolinaGuevara, the prosecutor’s comments about the credibility of government agents was influential of case outcome, as it determined the crucial issue of whether defendant was involved in a drug conspiracy. Id. at 705. In this case, other evidence established the conspiracy. Thus, the first and third factors weigh very strongly in the government’s favor. As a result, even though no specific curative instruction was provided to the jury, we hold that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and the Gambones are not entitled to a new trial by reason of the prosecutor’s comments. Accordingly, we need not determine whether the comments constituted constitutional or nonconstitutional error, as the higher standard is met.