Opinion ID: 745088
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Closing argument interruption

Text: 11 Barocio claims that the district court's interruption of and comment upon his closing argument denied him a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel. This contention has no merit. 12 For a conviction to be overturned on the basis of denial of a fair trial through the interruption of a closing argument, the record must  'disclose[ ] actual bias on the part of the trial judge or leave[ ] the reviewing court with an abiding impression that the judge's remarks ... projected to the jury an appearance of advocacy or partiality.'  United States v. Mares, 940 F.2d 455, 464 (9th Cir.1991) (quoting United States v. Mostella, 802 F.2d 358, 361 (9th Cir.1986)). 13 Barocio cites no case from this or any other circuit in which the district court's interruption of a closing argument, and subsequent striking of a portion of that argument, rises to the level of a constitutional violation. 14 The record in this case does not indicate any actual bias on the part of the district court, nor has Barocio pointed to any. The record also does not show an appearance of advocacy or partiality on the part of the district court in favor of the government. First of all, the district court cautioned the jury to disregard any comments it made to the attorneys during the trial: 15 During the trial I may occasionally make comments to the lawyers.... Do not assume from anything I may have said that I have any opinion concerning any of the issues in this case. Except for my instructions to you on the law, you should disregard anything I may have said during the trial in arriving at your own findings as to the facts. 16 Moreover, Barocio's counsel objected to a portion of the government's closing argument, and the court struck that portion of the argument from the record. 3 Thus, there is no indication that the interruption of Barocio's counsel's closing argument created an appearance of partiality on the part of the court in favor of the government. See Mares, 940 F.2d at 464 (holding that the court's interruption of defense counsel's closing argument did not create an appearance of partiality on the part of the court towards the government). 4 17