{"id":5933,"date":"2009-07-03T17:25:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T22:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5933"},"modified":"2009-07-03T17:27:34","modified_gmt":"2009-07-03T22:27:34","slug":"seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-another-questionable-statement-by-a-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/07\/seventh-circuit-criminal-case-of-the-week-another-questionable-statement-by-a-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Circuit Criminal Case of the Week: Another Questionable Statement by a Prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"seventh-circuit\"On several occasions recently, the Seventh Circuit has been critical of statements made by prosecutors to jurors.\u00a0 (See, for instance, my posts here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.)\u00a0\u00a0Another questionable comment by a prosecutor was the subject of\u00a0this week’s decision in\u00a0United States v. Myers<\/em> <\/a>(No. 07-3658) (Manion, J.).<\/p>\n

Myers was tried on arson charges.\u00a0 During closing arguments, defense counsel highlighted the fact that gasoline was not found by investigators on the floor of the building that Myers allegedly burned down.\u00a0 In response, the prosecutor stated:<\/p>\n

[A]ny speculation on the part of [defense counsel] about why or why there wasn’t gasoline can be easily explained by the fact that there were firefighters that were in there that night trying to extinguish that fire with water.\u00a0 Water has a tendency to sweep through and remove all sorts of different things that might have been on the ground.\u00a0 So, ladies and gentlemen, that’s an easy explainable different part of what [defense counsel] was trying to suggest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On appeal\u00a0following his conviction,\u00a0Myers challenged this statement as prosecutorial misconduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addressing Myers’ argument, the Seventh Circuit noted that the government was free to argue “the mere possibility that water could have cleaned or diluted the surface of the carpet.”\u00a0 The problem was that “the government did not couch its argument in such hypothetical terms.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The Seventh Circuit observed:<\/p>\n

[T]he government stated that the absence of gasoline was “easily explained” by the water from the fire hoses and that water “has a tendency” to “remove all sorts of different things” from the ground.\u00a0 In other words, the government may have crossed the line from suggesting <\/em>that such a hypothetical event occurred to vouching <\/em>for the fact that it did occur.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the court seemed uncomfortable with the prosecutor’s statement —\u00a0“this remark would have been better left unsaid” —\u00a0the court nonetheless affirmed Myers’ conviction because Myers was unable to demonstrate prejudice.\u00a0 The evidence against him was strong, the\u00a0questionable statement was only tangential to the government’s case, and Myers’ lawyer\u00a0invited the remark by arguing the absence-of-gasoline point — all of these considerations cut against him in the prejudice analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other new opinions in criminal cases this past week were:<\/p>\n

United States v. Huffstatler<\/em> <\/a>(No. 08-2622) (per curiam) (affirming sentence in child pornography case).<\/p>\n

United States v. Cole<\/em> <\/a>(No. 06-2547) (Sykes, J.) (affirming validity of appeal waiver and dismissing appeal).<\/p>\n

United States v. McGraw <\/a><\/em>(No. 08-2705) (Sykes, J.) (affirming decision that defendant voluntarily consented to search).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On several occasions recently, the Seventh Circuit has been critical of statements made by prosecutors to jurors.\u00a0 (See, for instance, my posts here, here, and here.)\u00a0\u00a0Another questionable comment by a prosecutor was the subject of\u00a0this week’s decision in\u00a0United States v. Myers (No. 07-3658) (Manion, J.). Myers was tried on arson charges.\u00a0 During closing arguments, defense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,74,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}