Opinion ID: 1201769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Prosecutorial Misconduct in Jury Argument

Text: Defendant contends that the prosecutor twice committed misconduct during closing argument to the jury at the guilt phase. According to defendant, the misconduct consisted in raising the issue of defendant's potential for rehabilitation and in appealing to racial prejudice.
(24) Defendant cites as misconduct this portion of the prosecutor's argument: You see, one of the things that's interesting is [defendant] has to portray himself in this case as the big wheeler dealer. [ถ] `Boy, before I went to jail for grand theft person, I was making eight hundred to $1,200 a week cash.' That's not after taxes, ladies and gentlemen โ or that is after taxes, because he doesn't pay taxes. [ถ] Imagine, 40 to $60,000 a week in your pocket โ a week, I'm sorry, a year in your pocket. I wonder when the last time you were able to tuck a $100 cash in your pocket and just go your way. If I understand what's going on in our society properly, most of us are not in that fortunate position, and then of course when he gets out of jail he's back making hundreds of dollars. Because the defense did not object to these statements at trial, the claim of misconduct is not reviewable on appeal unless the statement was so prejudicial that an admonition by the trial court could not have cured the harm. ( People v. Medina (1990) 51 Cal.3d 870, 895 [274 Cal. Rptr. 849, 799 P.2d 1282].) Here, we conclude that the argument was not prejudicial at all. Defendant maintains that in the statements quoted above the prosecutor argued without evidentiary support that [defendant] would not be rehabilitated by prison, thus improperly inviting the jury to convict him for what he might do in the future rather than for what he had allegedly done in the past. Defendant misapprehends the argument. He evidently thinks that the final words of the quoted passage โ ... when he gets out of jail he's back making hundreds of dollars โ constitute a prediction of future events. To the contrary, a reasonable juror would understand them as a description of past events as related in defendant's testimony. Defendant had testified that he had earned substantial profits, both before and after an incarceration for grand theft from the person, by selling rock cocaine, the evident purpose of this testimony being to show that defendant would have no need to commit a robbery and that he could afford to trade cocaine for sex. The prosecutor was merely describing this testimony, before proceeding to challenge it. In the immediately following portion of the argument, not cited by defendant, the prosecutor maintained that defendant had testified inconsistently both about the amount of his earnings and about the location of the profits remaining at the time of his arrest, and that defendant is not a wheeler dealer. No reasonable juror would understand the argument as an adverse comment on defendant's potential for rehabilitation.
(25) To persuade the jury to reject defendant's testimony that the victim had consented to sexual intercourse, the prosecutor made this argument: And what [defendant] wants you to believe, and what I believe to be perhaps the most telling thing in this whole case, is that this woman who, from all appearances is a happily married mother of three trying to make ends meet living out there where they can have a house they can afford, taking in sewing to help meet the family budget, keeping that kind of a house, that this woman is going to have intercourse with a strange man โ frankly any man โ a black man, on her living room couch with her five year old in the house. Prosecutorial argument that includes racial references appealing to or likely to incite racial prejudice violates the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. ( U.S. v. Doe (D.C. Cir.1990) 903 F.2d 16, 24-25 [284 App.D.C. 199]; McFarland v. Smith (2d Cir.1979) 611 F.2d 414, 416-417; Miller v. State of N.C. (4th Cir.1978) 583 F.2d 701, 707; United States ex rel. Haynes v. McKendrick (2d Cir.1973) 481 F.2d 152, 159; United States v. Grey (6th Cir.1970) 422 F.2d 1043, 1045-1046; see also, McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) 481 U.S. 279, 309, fn. 30 [95 L.Ed.2d 262, 289-290, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 1776] [The Constitution prohibits racially biased prosecutorial arguments.].) Because racial prejudice can strongly compromise a juror's impartiality ( Miller v. State of N.C., supra, at p. 706; United States ex rel. Haynes v. McKendrick, supra, at p. 157; People v. Bain (1971) 5 Cal.3d 839, 849 [97 Cal. Rptr. 684, 489 P.2d 564]), even neutral, nonderogatory references to race are improper absent compelling justification. [8] ( U.S. v. Doe, supra, at p. 25, fn. 63; McFarland v. Smith, supra, at pp. 416-417, 419.) Although we do not find compelling justification for the prosecutor's racial reference in this case, neither do we find prejudice to defendant. The reference to race occurred in the course of an argument listing factors that undermined the credibility of defendant's testimony that the victim had consented to sexual intercourse. The racial reference added little to the force of the argument, which relied primarily on the implausibility of the victim engaging in intercourse with a virtual stranger in the presence of her five-year-old child. The racial reference was a brief and isolated remark; there was no continued effort by the prosecutor to call attention to defendant's race or to prejudice the jury against him on account of race. We are persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecutor's racial reference in argument did not affect the outcome.