Douglas Pell v. Amy Nunez

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that a prosecutor engaged in vouching when directly telling the jury whether witnesses were being truthful
• finding that improper vouching presented a strong possibility of prejudice where the case was not particularly strong and there was no adequate curative jury instruction
• explaining that vouching is forbidden because a jury “may be inclined to give weight to the prosecutor’s opinion . . . instead of making the independent judgment of credibility to which the defendant is entitled”
• condemning “prosecutorial statements designed to appeal to the passions, fears and vulnerabilities of the jury”
• noting importance of the strength of the case against a defendant in measuring prejudi- cial effect of improper statements
• explaining prosecutorial misconduct is less likely to affect a case supported by strong evidence of guilt

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).