In the case of Darden v. Wainwright, 1985, William Lloyd Darden was convicted for murder and sentenced to death in Florida state court. On appeal, he argued that his constitutional rights were violated due to improper comments made by the prosecutor during closing arguments which allegedly inflamed the jury against him. The U.S Supreme Court held that while these comments were inappropriate, they did not deprive Darden of a fair trial or violate his constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment because there was no evidence suggesting that they actually influenced the jury's decision. Furthermore, it ruled that even if such influence existed but could be considered harmless beyond reasonable doubt given other overwhelming evidence pointing towards guilt then it would still not warrant overturning conviction or sentence.

In the dissenting opinion for Darden v. Wainwright, Justice Brennan argued that the prosecutor's closing argument was so prejudicial that it denied Darden a fair trial. He believed that the majority had failed to properly apply established precedent regarding prosecutorial misconduct and instead created an unworkable standard which would allow prosecutors to make inflammatory comments without consequence as long as they did not manipulate or misstate evidence. Furthermore, he contended that even if this new standard were appropriate, the prosecutor's remarks in this case still exceeded its bounds by appealing to societal vengeance rather than focusing on Darden’s guilt or innocence based on presented evidence. Justice Brennan also disagreed with how harmless error analysis was applied in this case because he felt it ignored substantial prejudice caused by these improper arguments.