Opinion ID: 797777
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Prosecutor's Closing Statements to the Jury

Text: 24 Wood argues first that the district court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial given statements made by the prosecutor during closing arguments. Specifically, Wood stresses that [a] remark by the prosecutor in the course of his closing argument to the jury to the effect that if the jurors make a mistake in the verdict, some other tribunal will correct it, is improper as tending to influence them to shift the burden of their responsibility from themselves to an appellate court. Appellant's br. at 12 (internal citation omitted). 25 We review a district court's decision to deny a motion for mistrial predicated on the grounds that the prosecutor made improper remarks in a closing argument for abuse of discretion. United States v. Gambino, 926 F.2d 1355, 1365 (3d Cir.1991). To find that the court abused its discretion in failing to order a mistrial for prosecutorial misconduct, we must first be convinced that the prosecution did in fact misconduct itself. United States v. Rivas, 479 F.3d 259, 266 (3d Cir.2007). Though, as we shall explain, the point is debatable, we are treating the prosecutor's comment as inappropriate and thus as misconduct. 26 Initially, we recognize that comments tending to lead a jury to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of a defendant's sentence lies with an authority other than the jury are inappropriate. See Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 328-29, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 2639, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985); Riley v. Taylor, 277 F.3d 261, 298 (3d Cir.2001) (en banc). Even though arguments regarding the shifting of responsibility for the outcome in a criminal case appear to arise most often on appeals of sentences in capital cases, state-induced suggestions that the sentencing jury may shift its sense of responsibility to an appellate court similarly have no place in cases where a defendant may be sentenced to a punishment other than death. See Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 330, 105 S.Ct. at 2640. The reason for this rule is clear inasmuch as the jury should not regard itself as advisory when it is not, or . . . be comforted by a belief that its decision will not have effect unless others make the same decision, because that approach would be a frustration of the essence of the jury function. Riley, 277 F.3d at 297 (quoting Sawyer v. Butler, 881 F.2d 1273, 1282 (5th Cir.1989) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 27 It is also important to consider that inasmuch as it may be difficult to glean from an appellate record those intangibles that a jury considers with respect to its determinations, it is essential that the presumption of correctness we attach to a verdict not be destroyed by comments from the prosecutor misstating the jury's role in the judicial process. See Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 330-31, 105 S.Ct. at 2640-41. Here, arguably the prosecutor's remarks that [g]overnment agents make mistakes, police officers make mistakes, citizens make mistakes, judges make mistakes, that's why we have courts of appeals, app. at 53, were improper to the extent that they might have suggested to the jury that a court of appeals would correct any error on its part. Clearly, the principle that the prosecution should not attempt to defeat the jury's sense of responsibility, though usually set forth when juries make sentencing determinations, is applicable with respect to a jury's determination of whether or not the defendant is guilty. 28 Yet, that being said, it is by no means clear that the prosecutor's comment tended to deflect a sense of responsibility for its verdict from the jury. In this regard, we point out that the prosecutor's comment with respect to courts of appeals immediately followed his comment that judges make mistakes. This sequence makes it logical to believe that the jury would have understood the prosecutor's comment as relating to the functions of the trial judge and not the jury, an approach bolstered by the fact that the prosecutor did not mention that juries make mistakes. Furthermore, the possible sting of this comment was reduced by the circumstance that the prosecutor's reference to citizens [making] mistakes following [g]overnment agents and police officers making mistakes, if related to the functioning of courts of appeals beyond reviewing actions of district judges, seems to refer to the actions of other persons as witnesses and not jurors. In this regard we point out that the prosecutor called an FBI agent, police officers, and civilians as witnesses. Thus, what the prosecutor said here was very different than the prosecutors' overreaching remarks in two cases on which Wood relies, Johnson v. Maryland, 325 Md. 511, 601 A.2d 1093 (1992), and People v. Rutledge, 179 A.D.2d 404, 578 N.Y.S.2d 162 (1992). Nevertheless, it would have been better if the prosecutor here had not made his borderline comment regarding courts of appeals and we will treat the remarks as being inappropriate. 29 Treating the prosecutor's remarks as inappropriate, the government invokes the invited response doctrine. But we find that the government's reliance on the invited response doctrine is not justified. The invited response doctrine protects comments made in reasonable response to improper attacks by defense counsel. United States v. Walker, 155 F.3d 180, 186 n. 5 (3d Cir.1998) (internal quotations and citation omitted); see also United States v. Dispoz-O-Plastics, Inc., 172 F.3d 275, 284 (3d Cir.1999). The premise underlying the doctrine's rationale is that the unfair prejudice flowing from the two arguments may balance each other out, thus obviating the need for a new trial. Walker, 155 F.3d at 186 n. 5 (internal quotations and citation omitted); see also Dispoz-O-Plastics, Inc., 172 F.3d at 284. 30 But though a prosecutor may use the doctrine defensively, he may not do so offensively. Dispoz-O-Plastics, Inc., 172 F.3d at 284-85 (noting the doctrine may not be used as a springboard to launch [] affirmative attacks upon defendants) (internal quotation and citation omitted); United States v. Pelullo, 964 F.2d 193, 218 (3d Cir.1992). Notably, [w]e have generally found the invited response doctrine to be applicable only in instances where the prosecution team was attacked for reasons unsupported by the evidence at trial. Dispoz-O-Plastics, Inc., 172 F.3d at 285. For example, we have upheld use of the doctrine where the defense has asserted that the prosecutor suborned perjury, Gambino, 926 F.2d at 1364-66, and where the defense has made personal attacks on the integrity of prosecutors and law enforcement officers, Pungitore, 910 F.2d at 1126-27. 31 Here, the government protests that defense counsel invited the jury to consider the results in unrelated cases in which defendants were exonerated after trial due to later review of DNA findings and clearly intended for the jury to decide to acquit based on uncertain[ty] caused by the results in different cases. Appellee's br. at 21. But the government's interpretation of defense counsel's remarks is unduly broad. Read in context, defense counsel merely was emphasizing the importance of gathering corroborative evidence at the outset of an investigation for purposes of determining whether a particular suspect is in fact responsible for a particular crime for, as we set forth above, he said: 32 I say to you, members of the jury, that no one saw Shaheed Wood drive that car to that location, that no one saw Mr. Wood get out of that car. We know that the car was held for fingerprints but that there were no fingerprints in that car that connected Mr. Wood at that date to that car. . . . [T]hat's why this corroborative evidence is important. And, that's why it is the lack of the evidence in this case that creates the reasonable doubt. I mean the Agent got up here and had the gumption to tell you that we didn't have to examine evidence because we had a case against this man. We didn't have to look — examine the evidence because we will wait for the guys to get caught before we examine the evidence. Well, that belies common sense. You know, members of the jury, how many people on death row have been let off with the discovery of DNA evidence that says that they are innocent? Surely, the cops in that case thought they had the right guy. 33 App. at 50-51. 34 More pertinently for present purposes, there is no way in which we can view the defense attorney's comments as constituting an attack on the prosecutor's case predicated on arguments that are unsupported by the evidence at trial as, in fact, has happened in other cases. See Dispoz-O-Plastics, Inc., 172 F.3d at 284-86; Gambino, 926 F.2d at 1364-66; Pungitore, 910 F.2d at 1126-27. Accordingly, we find that treating the prosecutor's remarks as inappropriate, the invited response doctrine is not applicable in this case. 35 But notwithstanding the inapplicability of the invited response doctrine and treating the prosecutor's remark as improper, we still will not reverse for [a] mistrial is not required where improper remarks were harmless, considering their scope, their relation to the context of the trial, the ameliorative effect of any curative instructions and the strength of the evidence supporting the conviction. Rivas, 479 F.3d at 267; see also United States v. Gambone, 314 F.3d 163, 179 (3d Cir.2003); United States v. Zehrbach, 47 F.3d 1252, 1265 (3d Cir.1995). Here, as the government points out, the challenged comment was only a single sentence in the prosecutor's entire closing argument, which continued at some length after he made his comment. Though it is true that the district court did not charge the jury with an expressly curative instruction, it did state to the jury that opening and closing statements made by counsel were not considered evidence, and that the jury must base its verdict on only the evidence presented. 4 Moreover, we have made an intensive review of the case and based on that review we are satisfied that there is convincing evidence, including, but not limited to Demota's testimony, supporting Wood's convictions on the charges listed in the indictment. In short, we are certain beyond any possible doubt that the prosecutor's comment could not have affected the verdict and thus if there was an error in the district court, whether by the prosecutor or the court, it was harmless. There is simply no doubt that Wood is guilty. See Gambone, 314 F.3d at 177. 36 We close our section on the review of the trial aspect of the case with the following caution. In this case the prosecutor's comment did not lead to reversal. But we emphasize that reference in an argument to the review function of the courts of appeals may be dangerous territory into which a prosecutor should venture with care. 37