Buckey Kirkley, Defendant Below, Appellant v. State of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee

Summary

The court held that the prosecutor committed misconduct by telling the jury that the State charged Kirkley with attempted robbery because that was exactly what he did, thereby improperly vouching for the State's case and undermining the presumption of innocence. Applying the harmless-error framework, the court found the misconduct prejudicial because the case was close, the comments addressed the central dispute between attempted robbery and attempted theft, and the pattern jury instruction was neither sufficiently specific nor immediate to cure the prejudice. The judgment was reversed and remanded for a new trial.