Opinion ID: 2975681
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Prosecutor’s Statements Were Deliberate

Text: This Court also considers whether the prosecutor deliberately placed the improper comments before the jury. Carter, 236 F.3d at 790. Petitioner maintains that “[t]he very repetition of the improper comments reveals that such comments were not accidentally placed before the jury.” (Pet. Br. at 45) “[R]epeated comments [ ] demonstrate that the errors were not inadvertent” because “clearly, we are not dealing with a spontaneous comment that could be regretted but not retracted.” United States v. Smith, 962 F.2d 923, 935 (9th Cir. 1992). The prosecutor made repeated references to Petitioner’s silence and failure to testify in the closing argument. The statements were simply not a response to trial counsel’s arguments because trial counsel “never mentioned anything in his opening statement about [Petitioner] testifying or not testifying.” (Pet. Br. at 45) As the district court indicated, “the prosecutor intended to comment (especially with regard to the third statement) on [Petitioner’s] failure to testify and that the jury likely understood the comments to have been offered for that purpose.” (J.A. 1230) (citing Gall v. Parker, 231 F.3d 265 (6th Cir. 2000)). Therefore, we find that the prosecutor deliberately placed the statements before the jury. 4. The Strength of the Evidence Against Petitioner Was Not Overwhelming Last, the Court considers the strength of the evidence against Petitioner to assess the impropriety of the prosecutor’s comments. Carter, 236 F.3d at 791. In this case, the district court noted that the evidence against Petitioner was not overwhelming. The record shows that Petitioner was out of state when his wife died. The prosecutor also had little, if any, evidence concerning the alleged ingestion of cyanide. More specifically, during the first autopsy, the toxicology test for cyanide did not yield a positive result. Although the second toxicology test yielded a positive result for cyanide, Petitioner’s wife did not exhibit physical symptoms of cyanide poisoning. (J.A. 1281-82) The evidence in this case is insufficient to overcome the prosecutor’s improper comments. Given the facts in this case, there is a strong likelihood that the prosecutor strategically made the prejudicial statements at the end of the trial to focus the jury’s attention on Petitioner’s silence, and away from the limited evidence presented at trial. The improper statements in this case constitute flagrant prosecutorial misconduct and are grounds for reversal even if trial counsel did not raise an objection. Therefore, we grant Petitioner’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds of flagrant prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel. No. 05-4023 Girts v. Yanai Page 15