Opinion ID: 2974870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Impropriety

Text: In determining the impropriety of the prosecutor’s comment, we “view the conduct at issue within the context of the trial as a whole.” United States v. Beverly, 369 F.3d 516, 543 (6th Cir. 2004). “It is also appropriate to consider whether, and to what extent, a prosecutor’s improper argument is invited by defense counsel’s statements.” United States v. Jacobs, 244 F.3d 503, 508 (6th Cir. 2001). Edwards characterizes the prosecutor’s comments as improperly discussing additional evidence not introduced at trial. See Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 84 (1935). He contends that the government never introduced evidence that other people touched the firearm, as the prosecutor seems to imply; moreover, Edwards construes the statement “[w]e couldn’t get fingerprints” as an implicit admission that the government conducted a fingerprint test. This overstates the inferences which can be drawn from the prosecutor’s comment. Although the comment does imply that a number of people touched the gun, the inference that the government actually conducted a test that contained too many fingerprints to be useful is fairly attenuated. Nevertheless, to the extent the prosecutor’s comment introduced additional evidence about fingerprints on the weapon, they were arguably improper.