Opinion ID: 2972947
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Opinion on Guilt

Text: McCullough first challenges the following statement in the prosecution’s closing argument: You will be given a verdict sheet. On that verdict sheet, as the judge has instructed you, you have a choice. We seek a responsible verdict. Guilty or not guilty? I filled mine out. The one I have is a copy. We don’t put anything more on this sheet, and we don’t put anything less on this sheet. And I’m not asking you to mark anything more or less than I did in the beginning, and that is to mark “guilty.” As McCullough correctly notes, a prosecutor may not express his personal opinion regarding a defendant’s guilt. “[S]uch comments can convey the impression that evidence not presented to the jury, but known to the prosecutor, supports the charges against the defendant and can thus jeopardize the defendant's right to be tried solely on the basis of the evidence presented to the jury.” United -8- No. 03-3519 United States of America v. McCullough States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 18 (1985). But when nothing in a prosecutor’s statement suggests that he or she relies on information outside the evidence presented at trial, the risk of prejudice dissipates. Id. at 19. Such is the case here. The prosecutor’s statement, casting himself as a juror, was neutral on the question of outside evidence, and could even be read as his suggesting how he would decide based only on the evidence presented at trial. And the likelihood that the statement prejudiced McCullough was further reduced by the court’s directions to the jury to consider only the evidence presented at trial. Finding no plain error, we accordingly reject McCullough’s challenge. McCullough objects to other statements in the prosecutor’s closing argument—“apologiz[ing] for the defense’s cross-examination of [Battle],” and “indicating that [Battle] should not have had to endure such cross-examination.” McCullough’s cause for complaint is unclear, but we presume that he considers the prosecutor by such statements to have improperly vouched for Battle’s credibility. We again disagree. The prosecution hoped to focus the jury on the crime (and the defendant) at issue, and not on Battle’s own criminal record, the target of much of the defense’s cross-examination; the “apology”—which in fact was directed at Battle (“I apologize to that man”)—was a rhetorical aside designed to differentiate the two. We doubt that any prejudice resulted, let alone plain error.