closing argument, absent egregious misstatements, the failure to object during closing argument and opening statement is within the ‘wide range’ of permissible professional legal conduct.” Under Necoechea, Udovic and Bennett’s decision not to object to Wondries’s comments, possibly to avoid highlighting them, was a reasonable strategic decision. Under Strickland’s second prong, even if Udovic and Bennett should have objected, there is no reasonable likelihood that the outcome of Cunningham’s trial would have been different had Wondries’s statement been stricken from the record. The comments were a single paragraph of a twenty-page argument and the trial judge explained to the jury that closing arguments are not evidence. See Featherstone v. Estelle, 948 F.2d 1497, 1507 (9th Cir.1991) (<HOLDING>). Moreover, we have explained that “prosecutors
holding prosecutors argument that defense counsels goal was to keep evidence from the jury was improper holding on habeas review that counsels failure to object to improper argument at trial did not prejudice petitioner where other evidence supported a guilty verdict and the jury was told closing argument was not evidence holding that a defendant bears the burden of objecting to an allegedly improper closing argument at the time the improper argument is made holding argument that charge submitted improper measure of damages was waived by failure to object in trial court holding argument not waived for failure to object where party previously raised argument and district court considered and rejected it