Opinion ID: 1953866
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Other Prosecutorial Comments During Summation

Text: Finally, appellant contends that the prosecution flagrantly violated well-worn, unambiguous rules imposed by this court against articulating personal opinion in argument, vouching for the credibility of the most critical government witness (the complainant), and prohibiting aspersions on a defendant's character. Appellant quotes extensively from the prosecutor's closing argument and his rebuttal to appellant's summation, during which the prosecutor commented repeatedly on the absolutely overwhelming strength of the government's evidence and stated, there is no question that the defendant sexually abused [the complainant] back in mid-January of 2002. He also characterized the appellant's own assertions as incredible, ridiculous, laughable, and outrageous. Near the end of his rebuttal, the prosecutor further stated: Ladies and gentlemen, there's a maxim in the law that nobody is above the law, right? But you know what? Nobody is below it either. [The complainant] is not below the law because she makes bad choices and smokes marijuana. She's not. The child sexual abuse laws don't only protect perfect kids. They protect all kids, and kids like [the complainant] are the most vulnerable in our society. She's the kind of kid who is going to get sexually assaulted when she's making those unwise choices, and the laws are there to protect her, to protect her from people like that man who exploit children and rape Defense counsel thereupon objected, and the trial instructed the jury as follows: Ladies and gentlemen, you should not infer anything about the defendant's character. This is only about what happened on January 15. The only other objection to the prosecutor's purportedly improper expression of opinion came earlier during the prosecutor's rebuttal argument, when he stated: The notion that there is not sufficient evidence regarding penetration is laughable, ladies and gentlemen. It's ridiculous. That objection was overruled. In analyzing claims of so-called prosecutorial misconduct, we first determine whether the comments at issue were improper. Najafi v. United States, 886 A.2d 103, 107 (D.C.2005). If so, we will not reverse unless we also find that they caused the defendant substantial prejudice. Dyson, supra, 418 A.2d at 132. We must also bear in mind that [a] criminal conviction `is not to be lightly overturned on the basis of a prosecutor's comments standing alone, for the statements must be viewed in context.' ( Lamont R. ) Jones v. United States, 739 A.2d 348, 353 (D.C. 1999) (quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 11, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985)). When a defendant has properly preserved his objections, substantial prejudice is determined on the basis of the standard first articulated in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). See Washington v. United States, 884 A.2d 1080, 1088 (D.C. 2005). Reversal is required under this standard if one cannot say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Kotteakos, supra, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. The determinative factors are the gravity of the improper comments; their relationship to the issue of guilt; the effect of any corrective action by the trial judge; and the strength of the government's case. Najafi, supra, 886 A.2d at 107 (citing Dixon v. United States, 565 A.2d 72, 79 (D.C. 1989)). Where the objections have not been properly preserved, however, we will reverse only for plain error. Sherrod, supra, 478 A.2d at 655. [R]eversal for plain error in cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct should be confined to `particularly egregious' situations. Irick v. United States, 565 A.2d 26, 32 (D.C.1989) (quoting Young, supra, 470 U.S. at 15, 105 S.Ct. 1038). Because we review the record for legal error or abuse of discretion by the trial judge, not by counsel, we cannot ordinarily reverse a conviction in the absence of a judicial ruling. Id. at 33. Nevertheless, [s]uch error or abuse may . . . embrace not only incorrect rulings but also, on occasion, failure to intervene sua sponte when such intervention is called for . . . or to react with sufficient promptness and vigor to prosecutorial misdeeds. Id. (internal citations omitted). Here, we find nothing extraordinary enough in the comments to which appellant did not object to require us to consider whether the trial court nevertheless had a duty to intervene. Those claims are therefore waived. Appellant raises two other alleged instances of improper opinion argument, however, to which defense counsel did object. The first was the characterization of the defense's assertions that the evidence of penetration was insufficient as laughable and ridiculous. Considering this comment in context, we find no abuse of discretion in the court's overruling of the objection. Directly before making this comment, the prosecutor had recounted the government's evidence with respect to the element of sexual penetration, which included the testimony of the victim, medical evidence consistent with penetrating sexual trauma, and scientific findings that the semen found inside the victim's vagina and anus came from the appellant. Appellant cites Diaz v. United States, 716 A.2d 173, 179-80 (D.C.1998), for the proposition that a prosecutor's expression of personal opinion as to the witness's credibility or veracity is improper, especially when that occurs in the prosecution's rebuttal argument and thus cannot be answered by the defense. However, the key inquiry is whether the attorney is commenting on the evidence, which he may do, or expressing a personal opinion, which is taboo. A comment will be within the acceptable range as long as it is in the general nature of argument, and not an outright expression of opinion. Irick, supra, 565 A.2d at 36 (emphasis in original). Here, the prosecutor's comments were squarely within the category of commenting on the evidence and were delivered at a time when he was specifically focusing on the futility of appellant's attempt to deny the government's evidence on sexual penetration. Indeed, the comments are virtually indistinguishable from the argument that a witness's testimony is incredible, one which is permissible when that is a logical inference from the evidence and not merely the opinion of counsel. Washington, supra, 884 A.2d at 1093 (citing McGrier v. United States, 597 A.2d 36, 43 (D.C. 1991) (citing Irick, supra, 565 A.2d at 35)). Since his comments were directed at the evidence in the record, they were not improper. The second preserved objection came during the prosecution's rebuttal argument in which he described the complainant as among the most vulnerable [type of kids] in our society, and the kind of kid who is going to get sexually assaulted when she's making . . . unwise choices, and then added, the laws are there to protect her, to protect her from people like that man who exploit children and rape. At this point, defense counsel objected, and the court instructed the jury: Ladies and gentlemen, you should not infer anything about the defendant's character. This is only about what happened on January 15. While the statement would better have been left unsaid, we conclude that it had no substantial influence on the jury's verdict. See Kotteakos, supra, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. The court immediately gave a curative instruction, and the record provides no basis to rebut the presumption that the jury understood and followed it. See ( Raymond L. ) Smith v. United States, 315 A.2d 163, 167 (D.C.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 896, 95 S.Ct. 174, 42 L.Ed.2d 139 (1974). The prosecutor also immediately ceased this line of argument. Most importantly, these few words were but a brief occurrence in a five-day trial during which the government presented ample and convincing evidence of the appellant's guilt. In short, taken in context, the prosecution's questionable argument cannot be said to have substantially contributed to the outcome of a trial for child sexual abuse in which the 32-year-old defendant's only explanation for why his semen was recovered from inside a 14-year-old girl's torn vagina was that she found it and put it there herself. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is hereby Affirmed.