Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 141

529US1

Unit: $U34

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PORTUONDO v. AGARD

Opinion of the Court

criminal defendants were brought to justice in 1791 largely
obviated the need for comments of the type the prosecutor
made here. Defendants routinely were asked (and agreed)
to provide a pretrial statement to a justice of the peace de-
tailing the events in dispute. See Moglen, The Privilege in
British North America: The Colonial Period to the Fifth
in The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination
Amendment,
109, 112, 114 (R. Helmholz et al. eds. 1997).
If their story
at trial—where they typically spoke and conducted their
defense personally, without counsel, see J. Goebel & T.
Naughton, Law Enforcement in Colonial New York: A Study
in Criminal Procedure (1664–1776), p. 574 (1944); A. Scott,
Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia 79 (1930)—differed from
their pretrial statement, the contradiction could be noted.
See Levy, Origins of the Fifth Amendment and Its Critics,
19 Cardozo L. Rev. 821, 843 (1997). Moreover, what they
said at trial was not considered to be evidence, since they
were disqualiﬁed from testifying under oath. See 2 J. Wig-
more, Evidence § 579 (3d ed. 1940).

The pretrial statement did not begin to fall

into dis-
use until the 1830’s, see Alschuler, A Peculiar Privilege in
Historical Perspective,
in The Privilege Against Self-
Incrimination, supra, at 198, and the ﬁrst State to make
defendants competent witnesses was Maine, in 1864, see 2
In response to these devel-
Wigmore, supra, § 579, at 701.
opments, some States attempted to limit a defendant’s oppor-
tunity to tailor his sworn testimony by requiring him to tes-
tify prior to his own witnesses. See 3 J. Wigmore, Evidence
§§ 1841, 1869 (1904); Ky. Stat., ch. 45, § 1646 (1899); Tenn.
Code Ann., ch. 4, § 5601 (1896). Although the majority of
States did not impose such a restriction, there is no evidence
to suggest they also took the afﬁrmative step of forbidding
comment upon the defendant’s opportunity to tailor his testi-
mony. The dissent faults us for “call[ing] up no instance of
an 18th- or 19th-century prosecutor’s urging that a defend-
ant’s presence at trial facilitated tailored testimony.” Post,