Court Opinion

ID: 9491607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:18:45.978893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:50.739081
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the majority’s decision to reverse Counts One through Four and Fifteen through Nineteen. I agree with the majority that the prosecutor’s comments in this case were improper and amounted to a denial of *452due process of law. I disagree with the majority only with respect to how far the taint of the prosecutor’s comments extended. While the majority holds that the comments prejudiced the defendant only with respect to Counts One through Four, I would reverse as to Counts Five through Fourteen as well.1
While prosecutors are entitled to “prosecute with earnestness and vigor,” they must “refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction.” United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 7, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). In this case, the prosecutor told the jury that “Mr. Neal has tried to deceive you from the start in this case about what this ease is really about.” The prosecutor also stated that “Mr. Neal has tried to pretend that his case is about kickbacks and about bribery.... I’ve never said either of those words.” In short, as the majority states, the prosecutor cast the defense counsel as a “liar.” (Opinion at 451). The prosecutor, moreover, implied to the jury that defense counsel had lied about the very nature of the case.2 These comments were clearly improper.
A court reviewing improper prosecutorial remarks must determine whether the prosecutor’s comments “infected the trial with unfairness” and thereby “ma[de] the resulting conviction[s] a denial of due process.” Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986). As the majority correctly notes, the last thing the jurors heard before beginning their deliberations was that “the representative of the United States held defense counsel to be a liar.” (Opinion at 451). The majority captures the import of this fact perfectly. It determines that “the trial process [was] distorted.” (Opinion at 451).
Having determined that the prosecutor’s comments were in fact improper and that the trial process was distorted as a result, the majority then concludes, however, that Rod-rigues was denied a fair trial only as to counts One through Four, the counts the majority describes as the bribery counts proper. While the majority admits that the “extent of the distortion” caused by the prosecutor’s remarks is “difficult to measure,” (Opinion at 451), it draws the line at Count Four.
The extent of the distortion caused by the prosecutor’s allegation that defense counsel was a liar may be difficult to measure in some respects because, as is commonly understood, “liars” are invariably untrustworthy. That is, while a liar clearly cannot be trusted about the specific lie he has told, once someone is deemed a liar, he cannot be trusted on matters generally. By accusing defense counsel of lying about “what this case is about” — that is, of lying about the very nature of the case — the prosecutor prompted the jury to disbelieve everything defense counsel had argued. Accordingly, the prosecutor’s comments may well have prejudiced Rodrigues with respect to every count charged, whether or not related to the “bribery” and “kickback” charges.
What should be beyond dispute, however, is that the accusation prejudiced Rodrigues’ defense at least on those counts related to the government’s allegations of bribery and kickbacks. By arguing to the jury that defense counsel lied about the “bribery” and “kickback” charges, the prosecutor unquestionably encouraged the jury to distrust the defense counsel on any count related to those misdeeds, and thereby tainted the jury’s deliberations on those counts. Counts One through Four were quite clearly “bribery” counts, as the majority acknowledges: they alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 215,-which requires that the defendant accept money or property with the intent to be influenced or rewarded. Counts Five through Eight are fairly indistinguishable from those counts. Counts Five through Eight alleged “fraudu*453lent receipt of money and property” from the real estate transactions involved in Counts One through Four. A jury admittedly prejudiced against a defendant with respect to counts alleging that he “corruptly accepted or agreed to accept something of value,” with the “inten[t] to be rewarded,” from a set a real estate transactions would undoubtedly harbor prejudice against that same defendant on counts, which by their very terms, allege the “fraudulent receipt of money or property” from the same set of transactions. The distrust engendered by the prosecutor’s improper comments surely extended to such closely related charges. The same is true, moreover, with respect to Counts Nine through Fourteen, counts that alleged various acts taken to conceal the bribery transactions set forth in Counts One through Four. Again, I fail to understand how a jury convinced that defense counsel lied to them about the “bribery” and “kickback” charges would be inclined to trust that same attorney on charges that the defendant attempted to conceal the bribery transactions.3 The distrust, and hence the prejudice, clearly extended to these counts as well.
By easting defense counsel as a liar, the prosecutor tainted the jury’s deliberations on all counts related to the government’s allegations of bribery. Accordingly, I would reverse Rodrigues’ conviction Counts One through Fourteen on account of the prosecutor’s improper remarks.

. I also concur in the majority's decision to reverse Counts Fifteen through Nineteen.

. As the majority points out, the prosecutor's charges were patently untrue. In fact, defense counsel had every reason to believe that the prosecution’s theory of the case was that Rodri-gues had engaged in “kickbacks” and "bribes.” The prosecutor's charge was especially inappropriate given the fact that the prosecutor himself had drafted the Indictment and the Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Indictment, two documents which repeatedly employ the terms “kickbacks” and "bribes.”

. It is undoubtedly because Counts One through Fourteen are so closely and clearly related that the government collected all these counts under the heading "Kickback Transactions” in the Indictment.