Opinion ID: 177231
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Closing argumentbail-jumping trial

Text: Kinsella also accuses the prosecutor of misconduct during closing argument in the bail-jumping trial. As he sees things, the prosecutor talked about issues having nothing to do with his guilt or innocence, riling up the jurors by saying that this is an important case because our courts cannot function if criminal defendants can ignore promises made to judges, disregard court orders, and fail to appear as required. Kinsella's trial lawyer did not object, so we review for plain error, asking the usual questions, including whether Kinsella has shown both error and prejudice. See, e.g., United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-33, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). He has not. Prosecutors can talk about the importance of the case in summation. United States v. Cotter, 425 F.2d 450, 452 (1st Cir.1970) (emphasis added) (discussing the basic ground rules of closing arguments). But they cannot suggest that jurors have a civic duty to convict, see Viereck v. United States, 318 U.S. 236, 248, 63 S.Ct. 561, 87 L.Ed. 734 (1943), and the prosecutor skated perilously close to the edge with his courts-not-being-able-to-function comments. Troubled as we are by this, we conclude that Kinsella's plain-error claim still fails. We explain briefly. The prosecutor's isolated remarks were not part of a concerted effort to incite the jurythey were introductory only, setting up the litany of evidence against Kinsella that the prosecutor ticked off: Kinsella's repeated promises to return to court, his not calling the PSO as required, his staying in Canada on his re-arraignment day, his dogged attempts to avoid extradition, etc. Kinsella's guilt of bail-jumping is so clear that the prosecutor's passing remarks could not have swayed the trial's outcome. Also, defense counsel played down Kinsella's conduct throughout the trialfor example, counsel got PSO Maddox to admit on cross that he did not turn Kinsella in the second Kinsella stopped calling the PSO office, which suggested that the matter was not really importantand the prosecutor had the right to respond. See generally United States v. Paradis, 802 F.2d 553, 561 (1st Cir.1986). Consequently, none of the challenged statements constitutes plain error in the context of this case. Cf. Taylor, 54 F.3d at 972 (emphasizing that the plain-error doctrine focuses on `blockbuster[]' errors, not on routine miscues that may tarnish the trial record); United States v. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d 1161, 1188 (1st Cir.1993) (similar).