California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Garcia, H039212 (Cal. App. 2014):
First, the jury was instructed that the attorney's statements were not evidence and that it should decide the case based only on the evidence presented at trial. At the beginning of trial, the jury was instructed, "You must decide what the facts are in this case. You must use only the evidence that is presented in the courtroom. Evidence is the sworn testimony of witnesses, the exhibits admitted into evidence and anything else I tell you to consider as evidence. [] . . . [] Nothing that the attorneys say is evidence." (See CALCRIM No. 104.) At the end of trial, the jury was instructed, "You must decide what the facts are. It is up to all of you and you alone to decide what happened based only on the evidence that has been presented to you in this trial." (See CALCRIM No. 200.) The jury was also instructed, "Nothing that the attorneys say is evidence." (See CALCRIM No. 222.) "In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume the jury understood and followed the court's instructions" and did not base its verdicts on any misstatement by the prosecutor. (People v. Williams (2009) 170 Cal.App.4th 587, 635.)
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