Opinion ID: 676919
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: yanez & alvarado (prosecutor's closing argument)

Text: 20 We reject both appellants' contentions that the prosecutor improperly commented upon their failure to testify and improperly shifted the burden of proof. Although the Fifth Amendment prohibits the prosecutor from commenting upon a defendant's decision not to testify, a prosecutor's statements are only impermissible if they are manifestly intended to call attention to the defendant's failure to testify, or are of such a character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take them to be a comment on the failure to testify. Mares, 940 F.2d at 461 (internal quotations and brackets omitted). 21 Appellants challenge several comments. When read in context, the first challenged statement cannot be fairly characterized as a comment on appellants' failure to testify. Rather, the prosecutor was responding to defense counsel's suggestion that the Government was asking the jury to do something un-American when she asked them to consider whether the defendants' post-arrest statements were lies. Furthermore, the prosecutor was clarifying that, despite defense counsel's suggestion to the contrary, she had not been referring to the defendants' failure to testify in her closing argument, but instead, was referring to their post-arrest statements. When fairly construed, the statements do not appear to have been manifestly intended to call attention to [appellants'] failure to testify; nor were they of such a character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take [them] to be a comment on the failure to testify. 4 See United States v. Hoac, 990 F.2d 1099, 1104 (9th Cir.1993) (internal quotations omitted), cert. denied, 114 S.Ct. 1075 (1994); see also United States v. Robinson, 485 U.S. 25, 26-32 (1988) (although it is impermissible for a prosecutor, on his or her own initiative, to ask the jury to draw an inference from a defendant's silence, there is no Fifth Amendment violation where the prosecutor's reference is a fair response to a claim by the defense). 22 The appellants next argue that the prosecutor improperly shifted the burden of proof when she first recounted a story about the Roman and Greek legal system in which all the defendant had to do was claim innocence and then analogized that situation to the present case. These challenged statements did not improperly shift the burden of proof. Moreover, in conjunction with these statements, the prosecutor cautioned the jurors that in our system, it's up to the Government to prove in fact [the defendants] did know. Defense counsel similarly emphasized to the jurors that the Government had the burden of proof: [T]he defendant starts out presumed by law to be innocent. It stays that way until the Government proves the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.; and, The Government, and only the Government has the burden of proof. The judge also instructed the jurors that the Government always has the burden to prove the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We find no prejudicial error. 23 AFFIRMED.