Opinion ID: 1035557
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Challenge III

Text: The following is a third statement that the prosecutor made during the rebuttal phase of closing argument, this time pertaining to CS2: Ladies and gentlemen, confidential informants, yes, they get paid. This isn’t Crime Stoppers, an anonymous tip and you collect a little something. This is more involved. You heard [CS2,] as a result of his involvement in another investigation, he and his entire family had to be relocated for his safety and security. This isn’t easy coming in here. ... 32 Case: 11-41376 Document: 00512323905 Page: 33 Date Filed: 07/29/2013 Nos. 11-41376 c/w 11-41392 (emphasis added). Salas did not contemporaneously object. Presently, Salas pursues two challenges on appeal concerning this statement. We review his challenges for plain error. Gracia, 522 F.3d at 600 n.2. Salas first contends that the prosecutor’s statement amounted to improper bolstering. To determine “whether a prosecutor’s comment was improper, it is necessary to look at the comment in context.” United States v. Insaulgarat, 378 F.3d 456, 461 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). Here, two other statements at trial preceded the prosecutor’s statement during closing rebuttal. On direct examination, CS2 testified to exactly what the prosecutor later summarized during closing argument: that due to his involvement as a DEA informant in an unrelated investigation, the government had needed to relocate him and his family for their safety and security. Salas did not contemporaneously object to that testimony either. Subsequently, during his closing argument, Salas’s trial counsel implied that CS2’s prior testimony had been colored by the approximately $300,000 that CS2 had earned over his approximately six and one-half years as a DEA informant. In context, we conclude that it was reasonable for the prosecutor to rebut defense counsel’s closing argument by summarizing CS2’s earlier testimony with the statement that it “isn’t easy coming in here.” After all, a prosecutor may “present what amounts to be a bolstering argument if it is specifically done in rebuttal to assertions made by defense counsel in order to remove any stigma cast upon [her] witnesses.” United States v. Munoz, 150 F.3d 401, 415 (5th Cir. 1998) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover, in making her rebuttal argument, the prosecutor “may argue fair inferences from the evidence that a witness has no motive to lie.” Gracia, 522 F.3d at 601 (citation omitted). We therefore reject Salas’s first contention. Salas also contends that the prosecutor’s statement amounted to an impermissible appeal to passion or prejudice. See United States v. Crooks, 83 33 Case: 11-41376 Document: 00512323905 Page: 34 Date Filed: 07/29/2013 Nos. 11-41376 c/w 11-41392 F.3d 103, 107 n.15 (5th Cir. 1996) (citations omitted) (“Counsel is not permitted to make an appeal to passion or prejudice calculated to inflame the jury.”). This contention cannot stand. Here, rather than appealing to passion or prejudice, the prosecutor simply was stating the obvious—that Laredo (where the jurors themselves lived) is an epicenter of drug violence. Especially within the context of cleansing the stigma upon CS2 cast by Salas’s counsel, the prosecutor’s statement was permissible. At a minimum, the district court’s failure to strike it sua sponte was not plain error. We therefore reject Salas’s second contention.