Court Opinion

ID: 9447124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:26:18.147426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:54.461933
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Chief Judge
(concurring specially) .
I do not think that the argument quoted in footnote 2 to the majority opinion should be commended. For the prosecuting attorney to express his personal opinion or belief in the guilt of the accused seems to me unfairly to add on the Government’s side of the scales the weight of the professional opinion and the influence of the official position of Government counsel who, in most cases, is properly and highly respected by the members of the jury for his integrity, fairness, and impartiality. Such an argument should not, in my opinion, be made, and I think that in many cases it would call for a reversal whether or not there was any intimation that the prosecutor based his belief on evidence not in the record. The views expressed in the able dissenting opinion of judge McAl-lister in Henderson v. United States, 6 Cir., 1955, 218 F.2d 14, 20, et seq., are impressive and are amply supported by many cases contained in the annotation appended to that case in 50 A.L.R.2d at pages 766-868, on “Propriety and effect of prosecuting attorney’s argument to jury indicating his belief or knowledge as to guilt of accused.” See also 53 Am. Jur., Trial, Section 486; 23 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1104.
In this case, however, the entire argument appears in the record. It is a logical and reasoned argument containing nothing else subject to criticism and no appeals to passion or prejudice. The one improper argument is not, in my opinion, so serious as to require a reversal of the judgment. As said in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 1940, 310 U.S. 150, 240, 60 S.Ct. 811, 852, 84 L.Ed. 1129,
“But each case necessarily turns on its own facts. And where, as here, the record convinces us that these statements were minor aberrations in a prolonged trial and not cumulative evidence of a proceeding dominated by passion and prejudice, reversal would not promote the ends of justice.”
I, therefore, concur in the affirmance of the judgment.