United States Ninth Circuit

Defendant's sentence and conviction for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. section 841(a)(1), are affirmed where: 1) the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defense surrebuttal summation, because the prosecution's rebuttal summation addressed the arguments made in defense counsel's closing arguments and were based on permissible inferences from the record; 2) district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to excuse a prospective juror for cause because finding a prospective juror to be impartial is proper if the prospective juror ultimately asserts an ability to be fair and impartial; and 3) the district court did not err in denying defendant's proposed jury instruction because instructions that indicate that the jury may consider character evidence along with all other evidence upon the issue of guilt sufficiently instruct the jury that character evidence may create reasonable doubt of guilt.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/14/2012
• Published 11/14/2012

Judges

• Smith

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel