When does a prosecutor go too far in a summation to the jury, thereby prejudicing the defendant’s right to a fair trial? That was the question addressed by the Supreme Court in the recent case of State v. Damon Williams (A-46-19), decided Jan. 19, 2021. The defendant had walked into a bank in Merchantville, New Jersey, carrying a bag, wearing a sweat shirt, dark pants, a New York Giants hat and sunglasses. He walked up to a teller’s window and presented a note to the teller that said, “Please, all the money, 100, 50, 20, 10. Thank you.” He was then given $4,600 (rejecting a pack of $20 bills containing a GPS tracker and a device that would trigger a silent alarm) and left the bank.

Williams was apprehended several weeks later, apparently as a result of fingerprint evidence that had been found on the note. He was indicted for second-degree robbery, a crime defined in N.J.S.A. 2C:15-1(a)(2) as theft using force or the threat of force. The principal legal issue at trial was whether Williams was guilty of second-degree robbery or the lesser included offense of third-degree theft (defined in N.J.S.A. 2C:20-3(a) as exercising unlawful control over the “movable property of another with purpose to deprive him thereof.”).