“The judge instructed the jury that closing arguments are not evidence, and that it was their duty to determine the facts and to apply the facts to the law as explained by the judge. The judge also properly instructed on the meaning of reasonable doubt. In light of these instructions, and the strength of the Commonwealth’s case, we are confident that the ill-advised comment would have had no effect on the jury’s verdict,” Justice Frank M. Gaziano wrote on behalf of the unanimous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed that some of a prosecutor’s comments made during closing arguments about opposing counsel were improper but it wasn’t enough to warrant a new trial for a criminally-convicted defendant.
In 2019, the defendant, Kieson Cuffee, was indicted on various charges of unlawful possession of a firearm, assault by means of a dangerous weapon, assault and battery, and resisting arrest, after the Springfield Police Department allegedly connected him to a ShotSpotter alert, a gunfire detection system, according to the court’s opinion filed May 15.
