Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 158.0

529US1

Unit: $U34

[09-26-01 08:14:00] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 61 (2000)

83

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

Second, it contends that respondent Agard’s case is readily
distinguishable from Grifﬁn. The Court’s historical excur-
sus does not even begin to prove that comments like those
in this case have ever been accepted as constitutional, and
the attempt to distinguish Grifﬁn relies on implausible prem-
ises that this Court has previously rejected.

The Court’s historical narrative proceeds as follows: In the
early days of the Republic, prosecutors had no “need” to
suggest that defendants might use their presence at trial to
tailor their testimony, because defendants’ (unsworn) state-
ments at trial could be compared with pretrial statements
that defendants gave as a matter of course. Later, some
States instituted rules requiring defendants to testify before
the other witnesses did,4 thus obviating once again any need
to make arguments about tailoring. There is no evidence,
the Court says, that any State ever prohibited the kind of
generic argument now at issue until recent times.5 So it
must be the case that generic tailoring arguments have tra-
ditionally been thought unproblematic. Ante, at 65–66.

4 In Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U. S. 605 (1972), we held this practice un-

constitutional under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

5 In recent years, several state courts have found it improper for prose-
cutors to make accusations of tailoring based on the defendant’s constant
attendance at trial. See, e. g., State v. Cassidy, 236 Conn. 112, 672 A. 2d
899 (1996); State v. Jones, 580 A. 2d 161, 163 (Me. 1990); Hart v. United
States, 538 A. 2d 1146, 1149 (D. C. 1988); State v. Hemingway, 148 Vt. 90,
91–92, 528 A. 2d 746, 747–748 (1987); Commonwealth v. Person, 400 Mass.
136, 138–142, 508 N. E. 2d 88, 90–92 (1987); State v. Johnson, 80 Wash.
In Commonwealth v. Elberry, 38 Mass.
App. 337, 908 P. 2d 900 (1996).
App. 912, 645 N. E. 2d 41 (1995), the trial judge sustained defense counsel’s
objection to a prosecutor’s tailoring argument that burdened the defend-
ant’s right to be present at trial and issued the following curative instruc-
tion: “Of course, the defendant, who was a witness in this case, was here
during the testimony of other witnesses, but he’s got every right to be
here, too. . . . [Y]ou should take everything into consideration in determin-
ing credibility, but there is nothing untoward about the defendant being
present when other witnesses are testifying.”
Id., at 913, 645 N. E. 2d,
at 43.