Opinion ID: 822903
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Inference of Guilt Stressed to the Jury

Text: The prosecutor’s initial comment clearly and strenuously — regardless of whether the comments were intentional or inartful — emphasized Gongora’s guilt to the jury based on his failure to testify: You listen to people inside there. Who else would you want to hear from, though? The shooter? We’re not going to talk to that person. . . . This person right here— [Pointing to Gongora’s name on a chart.] Nelson Gongora, the shooter. That’s the person on trial. That’s the person who deserves to be found guilty of capital murder. Who should we go ahead and talk to? Who should we go ahead and present to you? Should we talk to the shooter? Should we talk to— A principal focus of the prosecutor’s closing argument, and central to the State’s case, was the credibility of co-conspirators’ statements that Gongora was the shooter. It appears as though the prosecutor attempted to bolster the credibility of those statements by repeatedly stressing the fact that some co-conspirators took the stand, while persistently questioning Gongora’s claim of not-guilty by reference to his refusal to take the stand. The argument went to the core of the 36 Gongora III, 498 F. Supp. 2d at 926. 17 No. 07-70031 State’s case and aggressively prompted the jury to infer guilt based on Gongora’s failure to testify. Further, the comments came at the very end of the prosecution’s closing arguments. Examined in context, the prosecution’s subsequent comments on Gongora’s silence might be read, as the State and the dissent contend, as a product of a prosecutor tripping over his words as he inartfully attempted to correct his initial mistake. But their effect, coming as they did after the prosecutor’s initial statement stressing an inference of guilt, was to reinforce the impression of Gongora’s guilt from his failure to testify. It also matters not that the prosecutor’s later comment merely recited that Gongora “has a Fifth Amendment right not to testify.” As we have previously observed, a reference of this sort by the prosecutor “is far different” than a cautionary instruction about a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right not to testify given by the court.37 Even as the prosecutor noted Gongora’s Fifth Amendment right, the function of the prosecutor’s comment was to “focus[] the jury’s attention on the fact that the defendants did not testify.”38 While telling the jury of Gongora’s right, he commented on its exercise. This translated into a clear message: Gongora’s right not to testify is not a right to be free of the jury weighing the exercise of that right against him. This factor, too, thus weighs against a finding of harmless error. The Fifth Amendment violation here did not consist of an “isolated comment,” and whatever the prosecutor’s subjective intent, his manifest purpose was to “strike at the jugular of the defense.”39 37 Johnston, 127 F.3d at 398. 38 Id. 39 United States v. Griffith, 118 F.3d 318, 325 (5th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted) (finding that a Griffin violation did not affect the defendant’s substantial rights where “it was an isolated comment, which did not ‘strike at the jugular’ of the defense, and which the jury was immediately instructed to disregard” and the “spontaneous remark [was] intended 18 No. 07-70031