State v. Harris, 562 P.3d 1215

Rickey Scott Harris was charged with multiple offenses after violently assaulting his wife, including aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated assault, and assault with bodily injury.
During trial, the prosecution argued in closing that, due to the State's evidence, the presumption of Harris's innocence was now “gone.”
Harris was convicted by a jury of aggravated kidnapping and lesser included offenses of attempted aggravated assault and assault with bodily injury.
On appeal, Harris claimed ineffective assistance of his counsel for not objecting to the prosecutor's statement about the presumption of innocence and argued the district court should have corrected the statement on its own.
The trial court had instructed the jury, both before and after trial, on the presumption of innocence and the State's burden of proof.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Ineffective assistance—failure to object to prosecutor's presumption of innocence comment	Counsel was deficient for not objecting to prosecutor's claim presumption was "gone."	No deficiency; law unsettled; not clearly erroneous not to object.	No ineffective assistance; reasonable for counsel not to object and to address in closing.
Plain error—district court's duty to sua sponte correct	Court plainly erred by not correcting the prosecutor’s statement on its own.	No controlling precedent on court’s duty here; error not obvious.	No plain error; law was unsettled so error was not obvious.

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (standard for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Price v. Turner, 502 P.2d 121 (Utah 1972) (presumption of innocence applies until conviction)
Stewart v. State, 830 P.2d 306 (Utah Ct. App. 1992) (presumption of innocence before conviction)
State v. Houston, 353 P.3d 55 (Utah 2015) (improper prosecutor comments in closing—standard for objection)
State v. Ames, 546 P.3d 356 (Utah Ct. App. 2024) (ineffective assistance claims require showing of deficiency and prejudice)