Does a prosecutor have authority to comment on a defendant's failure to testify?

We are not persuaded. As an initial matter, we can only speculate as to what the prosecutor would have said had she not been interrupted by defense counsel's objection. Even if the prosecutor had intended to comment on defendant's failure to testify, she never actually spoke the words. More importantly, there was no reasonable likelihood the jury would have interrupted the prosecutor's argument as a comment on defendant's failure to testify. We do not construe the prosecutor's statements as a suggestion that defendant needed to testify in order to establish he was not motivated by a lewd intent. Rather, the prosecutor appeared to be arguing the evidence did not support a finding that defendant's actions were a mistake or accident. At most, the prosecutor's remark was ambiguous, and we cannot infer that the prosecutor intended the remark "to have its most damaging meaning or that a jury, sitting through lengthy exhortation, will draw that meaning from the plethora of less damaging interpretations." (Donnelly v. DeChristoforo (1974) 416 U.S. 637, 647.)

Defendant's authority on this point is distinguishable. For example, in People v. Vargas (1973) 9 Cal.3d 470, Griffin error was found where the prosecutor argued the defendants had not denied they were at the scene of the crime. (Id. at p. 474.) Likewise, in People v. Crawford (1967) 253 Cal.App.2d 524, the prosecutor commented on

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