Opinion ID: 60360
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: All four of the prosecutor's statements were errors.

Text: We first turn to the question whether the statements at issue constituted error, defined as deviation from a legal rule. [5] When we do, we conclude that each remark highlighted by Gracia indisputably was an improper, or erroneous, deviation from a legal rule. The Supreme Court's decision in Berger v. United States makes clear that a personal assertion by a prosecutor of a government witness's credibility is impermissible. [6] The American Bar Association's standards for prosecutors echo this sentiment: The prosecutor should not express his or her personal belief or opinion as to the truth or falsity of any testimony or evidence or the guilt of the defendant. [7] The government may not cloak a witness in its protective mantle. [8] A prosecutor may argue fair inferences from the evidence that a witness has no motive to lie, but cannot express a personal opinion on the credibility of witnesses. [9] As the government concedes, it is impermissible per se for a prosecutor to offer personal assurances to the jury that government witnesses are telling the truth, as in Statement One, [10] or to tell the jury that law enforcement witnesses should be believed simply because they were doing their job, as in Statement Three. [11] Although the government does not concede that Statements Two and Four were errors, we cannot meaningfully distinguish the prosecutor's admittedly improper remarks and those that the government does not concede were errors. All four statements urge conviction based not on the objective evidence before the jury or its independent judgment of the witnesses' credibility, but on something uniquely within the prosecutor's knowledge. We have held it improper for a prosecutor to ask a jury the rhetorical question whether federal agents would risk their careers to commit perjury, as in Statement Two. [12] We have deemed improper an unequivocal statement by a prosecutor that, for the jurors to believe the defense's account, they would have to believe in a government conspiracy, as in Statement Four. [13] The subject remarks of Gracia's prosecutor share the same basic flaw: A prosecutor's impermissible assertion of his own credibility, or that of the government, to bolster the credibility of a witness. As we held in United States v. Gallardo-Trapero , it is particularly improper, indeed, pernicious, for a prosecutor to seek to invoke his personal status as the government's attorney or the sanction of the government itself as a basis for convicting a criminal defendant. [14] As the power and force of the government tend to impart an implicit stamp of believability to what the prosecutor says, [15]  here, that the agents were credible witnesses  all four of the prosecutor's statements constituted error.