The following excerpt is from United States v. Velazquez, 1 F.4th 1132 (9th Cir. 2021):
As an initial matter, the majority acknowledges that the district court properly instructed the jury on the reasonable doubt standard, but it ignores the rest of the court's instructions. This is a crucial omission because we "assume[ ] that the jury listened to and followed the trial judge's instructions." United States v. Wells , 879 F.3d 900, 937 (9th Cir. 2018) (citations omitted). And "[t]he jury is regularly presumed to accept the law as stated by the court, not as stated by counsel." United States v. Medina Casteneda , 511 F.3d 1246, 1250 (9th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). Therefore, we cannot conclude that the prosecutor's statements were prejudicial without considering the district court's instructions to the jury.
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