Washington Supreme Court
State v. Monday
June 9, 2011257 P.3d 551
Summary
The court held that the prosecutor committed misconduct by repeatedly asserting that African American witnesses followed a racialized code of silence and by using personal opinions to attack witness and defendant credibility. Because the intentional appeals to racial bias undermined the impartiality of the trial, the court applied constitutional harmless-error review and concluded that the State could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the misconduct did not affect the verdict. The court reversed the convictions and did not reach the firearm-enhancement issue.