Can a prosecutor make an argument that imploring the jury to consider the impact of the crime's impact on the victim's family?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Grant, B280057 (Cal. App. 2018):

In People v. Vance, supra, 188 Cal.App.4th 1182, the First District reversed a first degree murder conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct of the type at issue here - imploring the jury to consider the crime's impact on the victim and the victim's family. Justice Richman, writing for the court, described this form of argument in this manner: "There is a tactic of advocacy, universally condemned across the nation, commonly known as 'The Golden Rule' argument. In its criminal variation, a prosecutor invites the jury to put itself in the victim's position and imagine what the victim experienced. This is misconduct, because it is a blatant appeal to the jury's natural sympathy for the victim." (Id., at p. 1188.) The rule prohibits equally an appeal to the jury's sympathy for the victim and for the victim's family. (Id. at p. 1193.)

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