How have the courts treated the prosecution in closing arguments?

Crowder contends that the prosecution erred by withholding its most powerful arguments until rebuttal. We disagree. In People v. Robinson (1995) 31 Cal.App.4th 494, the court held that the prosecutor committed misconduct by beginning closing arguments with a perfunctory argument of only three and one-half transcript pages, then making the vast majority of his argument, 35 transcript pages, in rebuttal, when the defense counsel could not respond. (Id. at p. 505.) Here, the prosecutor's initial argument and rebuttal were approximately the same length, and we see nothing to suggest that the prosecutor sandbagged the defense by waiting until rebuttal to make his strongest arguments.

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