Prosecutors Including Prospective Jurors’ Comments in Closing Arguments

By Robert C. Phillips, Deputy District Attorney (Ret).
Prosecutors Including Prospective Jurors’ Comments in Closing Arguments: 

A trial attorney including a prospective juror’s comments in his or her closing arguments to a jury is impermissible.

Note to prosecutors (and to all trial attorneys):  Including comments in your closing arguments that were made by prospective jurors during the voir dire process is error, and could potentially get your “misconduct” reported to the state bar.  In People v. Lima (June 28, 2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 468, a gang-related murder case, the prosecutor attempted to demean the value of a defense expert’s testimony by including in her closing argument comments that had been made by several prospective jurors during voir dire. The prosecutor’s comments dealt with the jurors’ stated experiences with gang members they either personally knew or with whom they had had some association. Her apparent purpose in doing this was to convince the jury that it wasn’t tough to see that the defendant in this case was in fact a gang member, and that he committed the murder in issue here “for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in association with a criminal street gang with the specific intent to promote, further, and assist in criminal conduct by gang members.” (Elements of a gang allegation, pursuant to P.C. © 2026 Legal Updates, LLC.
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