Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 154

529US1

Unit: $U34

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

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

79

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

617. To be sure, defendants are not categorically exempt
from some costs associated with the assertion of their consti-
tutional prerogatives. The Court is correct to say that the
truth-seeking function of trials places demands on defend-
ants.
In a proper case, that central function could justify a
particular burden on the exercise of Sixth Amendment
rights. But the interests of truth are not advanced by
allowing a prosecutor, at a time when the defendant can-
not respond, to invite the jury to convict on the basis of con-
duct as consistent with innocence as with guilt. Where bur-
dening a constitutional right will not yield a compensating
beneﬁt, as in the present case, there is no justiﬁcation for
imposing the burden.

The truth-seeking function of trials may be served by per-
mitting prosecutors to make accusations of tailoring—even
wholly generic accusations of tailoring—as part of cross-
examination. Some defendants no doubt do give false testi-
mony calculated to ﬁt with the testimony they hear from
other witnesses.
If accused on cross-examination of having
tailored their testimony, those defendants might display sig-
nals of untrustworthiness that it is the province of the jury
to detect and interpret. But when a generic argument is
offered on summation, it cannot in the slightest degree dis-
tinguish the guilty from the innocent.
It undermines all de-
fendants equally and therefore does not help answer the
question that is the essence of a trial’s search for truth: Is
this particular defendant lying to cover his guilt or truthfully
narrating his innocence? 1

1 The prosecutor made the following comment on summation: “A lot of
what [the defendant] told you corroborates what the complaining wit-
nesses told you. The only thin[g] that doesn’t is the denials of the crimes.
Everything else ﬁts perfectly.” App. 46–47. That, according to the
prosecution, is reason for the jury to be suspicious that the defendant
falsely tailored his testimony. The implication of this argument seems to
be that the more a defendant’s story hangs together, the more likely it is
that he is lying. To claim that such an argument helps ﬁnd truth at trial
is to step completely through the looking glass.