Opinion ID: 360504
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect on the Jury.

Text: 65 We further find that the appellant has not shown that the jury necessarily construed the remark as a comment on his failure to testify. A review of this court's cases involving this issue reveals our reluctance to find the necessary improper understanding on the part of the jury. In United States v. Toler, 440 F.2d 1242 (5th Cir. 1971), we considered a government attorney's statement in a prosecution for filing a false medical claim for Social Security benefits. The prosecutor said at no time has he (the defendant) denied filing it, and we found it not a comment on the defendant's failure to take the stand, but rather on the uncontradicted state of the evidence. Again in Samuels v. United States, 398 F.2d 964 (5th Cir. 1968), we found that the jury did not necessarily construe improperly the remark G.L. Samuels does not want to talk about the facts, stating that it was very possible that the prosecutor's inadvertent use of the defendant's name instead of the defense counsel's name could have been interpreted by the jury as directed to the argument of counsel and not to the defendant's failure to testify. In United States v. Rochan, 563 F.2d 1246 (5th Cir. 1977), we found that the prosecutor's rhetorical question posed midway through his closing argument what did we hear from the defense in this case? was not necessarily interpreted by the jury as a comment on the defendant's failure to testify, but could have been understood as a transitional device. 8 66 In this case, we feel that the jury could have quite reasonably construed the prosecutor's remark as we have that is, as an inadvertent reference to the defendant when he intended to call on the defense counsel to explain in his closing argument the uncontradicted evidence concerning the presence of defendant Cole's fingerprints on objects seized by the FBI in connection with the arrests in this case. At the very least, it can be said that this contested statement, when read in context, represents a borderline case as to whether there was a comment on the defendant's failure to testify. As such, we feel that any potential impropriety of the prosecutorial comment was cured by the court's instructions both immediately after the remark was made and at the close of the trial. Although it is clear that in extreme cases it would be unrealistic to assume that instructions can remove the prejudicial effects of a constitutional error, we do not feel the mistake here was impossible of correction. The comment under attack was unexceptional, lacking in aggravation and emphasis. Further, we find that the evidence of appellant Cole's involvement in the conspiracy as an active participant was great. We thus hold that the prosecutor's comments were not of such a nature as to constitute reversible error. 67