Sanchez

I. INTRODUCTION

A jury convicted defendant and appellant Jose Cesar Sanchez of grand theft of copper wire. (Pen. Code, § 487, subd. (a).) He was sentenced to three years in county jail. On appeal, defendant contends that four statements made by the prosecutor during closing argument deprived him of his constitutional rights to due process and a fair trial in two respects. First, the prosecutor committed Griffin error by implicating defendant’s failure to testify. Second, the prosecutor made inflammatory statements about defendant and the jurors. We hold that one comment constituted Griffin error and another amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. We conclude, however, that the errors, individually and cumulatively, are harmless. We therefore affirm the judgment.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Around 3:00 a.m. on February 28, 2012, two Southern California Edison (SCE) employees drove to an SCE service center. The center, or yard, is surrounded by a brick wall topped with barbed wire; entry requires an electronic key card. As they pulled into the yard, one of the employees saw a person underneath a truck. The employee called the police.

Police officers arrived and found defendant…