People v. Marshall, 2013 IL App (5th) 110430

Marcus Marshall was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the August 22, 2010 shooting death of LaQuinn Hudson at a house party in Marion, Illinois.
Two prosecution witnesses, Jodie Lacy and Crystal Blye, initially gave statements implicating Marshall, later each sent recantation letters to defense counsel, but both testified at trial consistent with their original police statements.
At trial the prosecutor made repeated statements invoking the "black community" culture of mistrust toward police, arguing jurors should evaluate witness credibility in light of that racialized community context and contrasting it with "our white world."
Defense counsel did not object at trial or in a posttrial motion to the prosecutor’s race-based opening statement and closing argument.
The jury convicted Marshall of first-degree murder; the court later vacated one count and sentenced him to 85 years. Marshall appealed claiming the prosecutor’s racially prejudicial statements denied him a fair trial.
The State filed a confession of error; the appellate court found the prosecutor’s repeated race-based appeals constituted plain error and reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether prosecutor’s race-based statements were error	Prosecutor argued community context explained witness recantations and bore on credibility	Marshall argued remarks injected racial prejudice, lacked evidentiary foundation, denied fair trial	Court held remarks were erroneous, inflammatory, and unsupported by evidence; plain error requiring new trial
Whether error was preserved	State noted no contemporaneous objection by defense	Marshall acknowledged failure to object but invoked plain error review	Court applied second prong of plain error (fundamental fairness) and reversed
Whether prosecutor may argue inferences about community attitudes	State argued argument was inference explaining witness behavior	Marshall argued prosecutor argued facts not in evidence and appealed to bias	Court held prosecutor improperly argued facts without foundation and appealed to racial prejudice
Whether prosecutor’s "us vs. them" alignment with jury was permissible	State presented contrast to explain credibility standards	Marshall argued it made prosecutor an extra juror and inflamed bias	Court held alignment improper and reinforced prejudice; contributed to denial of fair trial

People v. Eddmonds, 101 Ill. 2d 44 (condemning appeals to racial prejudice in prosecutorial argument)
People v. Richardson, 49 Ill. App. 3d 170 (finding similar race-based argument an unmitigated appeal to prejudice and ordering new trial)
People v. Herron, 215 Ill. 2d 167 (plain error doctrine framework)
People v. Johnson, 208 Ill. 2d 53 (prosecutor may not argue facts not in evidence; limits on closing argument)
People v. Vasquez, 8 Ill. App. 3d 679 (prosecutor must not effectively serve as a thirteenth juror)