Martinez v. People

The defendant, Arthur Martinez, appeals his conviction for second degree assault and conspiracy to commit second degree assault. During closing rebuttal argument, the prosecutor twice accused the defendant of tailoring his testimony to meet the facts testified to by *137prior witnesses. The prosecutor did not, however, tie these accusations of tailoring to evidence presented at trial. Rather, the prosecutor said that the defendant's mere presence at trial enabled him to tailor his testimony. Although Martinez objected on the general grounds that the argument was improper, his objection was…