California Court of Appeal Finds No Error With Prosecutor Comparing a Crime to a “Hollywood Slasher Movie”
During closing arguments in a criminal case, the prosecutor cannot give the jury the impression that emotion may reign over reason. So, does a prosecutor do so by comparing the defendant’s crime to a “Hollywood slasher movie”? That was the question addressed by the Court of Appeal of California in its recent opinion in People v. Fernandez, 2025 WL 2813778 (Ca. App. 2nd 2025).
In Fernandez, Matthew Fernandez was charged with attempted murder after stabbing his girlfriend with a broken bottle. During closing arguments, the prosecutor thereafter characterized the crime as like something from a Hollywood slasher movie.
In finding no error on appeal, the court concluded as follows:
The prosecution began its closing argument by remarking it was “hard to imagine what the victim went through in this case. Trapped in a small bathroom to be butchered by the defendant with a piece of glass on the floor [and] stabbed 19 times in her neck, in her head, on her face. Truly—it honestly reminds me of something from a Hollywood slasher movie. It’s that violent[,] that[ ] bloody. Thankfully, the victim was able to escape.” Defendant contends these remarks gave the jury “the impression that ‘emotion may reign over reason[.]’ …”…
Any objection to the prosecution’s “Hollywood slasher movie” reference would have been meritless. It is a fair comment on the evidence of defendant’s criminal conduct, and it in no way provokes juror sympathy in a way that the evidence presented at trial alone would not. (See, e.g., Berger v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 78, 88 [a prosecutor “may strike hard blows … [but] is not at liberty to strike foul ones”]; People v. Nadey (2024) 16 Cal.5th 102, 186 [“The use of ‘colorful or hyperbolic language will not generally establish prosecutorial misconduct’ ”]; People v. Hamilton (2009) 45 Cal.4th 863, 928 [“A prosecutor engages in misconduct by misstating facts, but enjoys wide latitude in commenting on the evidence …”].)