Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 162

529US1

Unit: $U34

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

87

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

ceiving Miranda warnings, but the Court today shows no
readiness to say that juries may not draw that inference
themselves. See ante, at 74–75.
It therefore seems un-
problematic to hold that a prosecutor’s latitude for argument
is narrower than a jury’s latitude for assessment.

In its ﬁnal endeavor to distinguish the two inferences, the
Court maintains that the one in Grifﬁn goes to a defendant’s
guilt but the one now at issue goes merely to a defendant’s
credibility as a witness. See ante, at 69. But it is domi-
nantly in cases where the physical evidence is inconclusive
that prosecutors will concentrate all available ﬁrepower on
the credibility of a testifying defendant. Argument that
goes to the defendant’s credibility in such a case also goes to
guilt.
Indeed, the ﬁrst sentence of the Court’s account of
the trial in this case acknowledges that the questions of guilt
and credibility were coextensive. See ante, at 63 (Agard’s
trial “ultimately came down to a credibility determination.”).
The Court emphasizes that a prosecutor may make an
issue of a defendant’s credibility, and it points for support to
our decisions in Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U. S. 231 (1980),
and Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U. S. 605 (1972). See ante, at
69–70. But again, the distinction between cross-examination
and summation is critical. Cross-examination is the crimi-
nal trial’s primary means of contesting the credibility of any
witness, and a defendant who is also a witness may of course
be cross-examined. Jenkins supports the proposition that
cross-examination is of sufﬁcient value as an aid to ﬁnding
truth at trial that prosecutors may sometimes question de-
fendants even about matters that may touch on their consti-
tutional rights, and Brooks suggests that cross-examination
can expose a defendant who tailors his testimony. See Jen-
kins, 447 U. S., at 233, 238; Brooks, 406 U. S., at 609–612.
Thus the prosecutor’s tactics in Jenkins and our own counsel
in Brooks are entirely consistent with the moderate restric-
tion on prosecutorial license that the Court today rejects.