United States v. Frank McKoy

How courts have described this case

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

• jury could have construed the testimony of former prosecutor, who testified as a witness at trial, “as ‘expert testimony’ based on his personal knowledge and his prior experience with other cases”
• prior transactions between defendant and co-conspirator admissible under Rule 404(b) where transactions provided background and development of conspiracy and revealed nature of relationship between co-conspirators
• “The rule that a prosecutor may not express his personal opinion of the defendant’s guilt or his belief in the credibility of witnesses is firmly established.”
• “We have often noted that the trial court may be able to ‘neutralize’ the effect of improper prosecutorial remarks by admonishing counsel to refrain from such remarks or by giving appropriate curative instructions to the jury.”
• “Even if the jury did not understand the prosecutor to refer to his knowledge of facts outside the record, the jury could have construed his statements of opinion as ‘expert testimony’ based on his personal knowledge and his prior experience with other cases.”
• instruction that jury consider only the evidence in reaching the verdict did not cure prejudice where former prosecutor’s remarks were evidence given that he was testifying as a witness when he noted the strength of the government’s case

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).