Opinion ID: 1907107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Send a Message Argument

Text: Zack next argues that the prosecutor's admonition to the jury to act on behalf of the community amounts to an inappropriate send-a-message argument. An example of a classic send-a-message argument is the prosecutor telling the jury to send a message to other drug dealers, and deter drug dealers from bringing drugs into our communities and into our homes. See, e.g., United States v. Sanchez-Sotelo, 8 F.3d 202, 211 (5th Cir.1993). The defendant in Sanchez-Sotelo argued that the admission of this evidence was reversible for three reasons: first, it influenced the jury to convict the defendant based on broad policies against drugs and not based on the evidence of the case; second, the court gave no cautionary instruction to curtail the effect of the argument; and third, the evidence of guilt was extremely thin. Id. at 211. The Fifth Circuit disagreed and held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion or commit plain error because: first, a prosecutor may appeal to the jury to act as the conscience of the community; second, the district court sufficiently instructed the jury to disregard the comments regarding women, children, and parents; and third, there was ample evidence produced at trial, so that the send-a-message comments did not cast serious doubt on the propriety of the jury's verdict. Id. In this case, the prosecutor did not tell the jury to send a message to other defendants. Rather, he told the jury to act on behalf of the community. Furthermore, in light of the ample evidence produced at trial, we conclude that there is no reasonable possibility that the objected-to comments contributed to the jury's verdict. Appellate counsel did not perform deficiently by failing to raise this claim. To the extent that the prosecutor's comment can be considered a conscience of the community argument, relief is also denied. In Smith v. State, 818 So.2d 707, 710-11 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002), the district court considered the same type of argument. The prosecutor told the jury: [Y]ou are citizens that speak on behalf of your community.... You are citizens that speak on behalf of your community in rendering a verdict in this case. Id. While the district court found that the prosecutor approached the line of propriety and may have gone beyond, it concluded that the trial court's refusal to grant a mistrial based on these comments was not an abuse of discretion. Id. The district court concluded that the reference to the jury speaking for the community did not permeate the closing argument, that it was near the end of the argument, and it was not repeated after the defense objected. Thus, the court concluded, this isolated and limited comment would not appear to be so prejudicial as to vitiate the entire trial and thus a mistrial was not warranted. See also Card v. State, 803 So.2d 613 (Fla.2001) (finding prosecutor's conscience of the community argument in penalty phase was not so prejudicial as to vitiate the entire trial and thus court did not abuse its discretion in denying request for mistrial; prosecutor's reference to the term was isolated and he did not continue with the argument after the defense objected); Otero v. State, 754 So.2d 765 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000) (concluding that impermissible conscience of the community argument did not warrant a reversal; argument was made at the very end of the State's rebuttal argument and did not otherwise permeate the State's closing argument). Appellate counsel is not ineffective for failing to raise an issue that is meritless.