Title: PEOPLE OF MI V ERIC D BOYD
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 118021
State: Michigan
Issuer: Michigan Supreme Court
Date: July 1, 2004

_______________________________ 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
Chief Justice  
Justices 
Maura D. Corrigan  
Michael F. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Marilyn Kelly 
Clifford W. Taylor 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
Stephen J. Markman 
Opinion 
FILED JULY 1, 2004 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 118021 
ERIC BOYD, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH 
CORRIGAN, C.J.   
In this case, we consider whether a defendant must 
testify in order to preserve for appellate review a 
challenge to a trial court’s ruling in limine allowing 
evidence that the defendant exercised his Miranda1 right to 
remain silent. In Luce v United States, 469 US 38, 43; 105 
S Ct 460; 83 L Ed 2d 443 (1984), the United States Supreme 
Court held that a defendant must testify to preserve for 
appeal a challenge to a ruling in limine involving 
1 Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed
2d 694 (1966). 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
impeachment with prior convictions. 
We adopted the Luce 
rule in People v Finley, 431 Mich 506; 431 NW2d 19 (1988) 
(opinions by RILEY, C.J., and by BRICKLEY, J., concurring in 
part),2 
which 
also 
involved 
impeachment 
by 
prior 
convictions. 
Because the same reasons for requiring a defendant to 
testify to preserve a challenge to pretrial evidentiary 
rulings in Luce and Finley apply in the circumstances of 
this case, we extend the rule from Luce and Finley to the 
errors alleged here. 
We hold that defendant was required 
to testify to preserve for review his challenge to the 
trial court’s ruling in limine allowing the prosecutor to 
admit evidence of defendant’s exercise of his Miranda right 
to remain silent. 
Because the statement at issue in this 
case would have been properly admissible in one context, 
defendant’s failure to testify precludes us from being able 
2 
Despite 
the 
dissent’s 
contention 
that 
we 
mischaracterize the holding of the Finley Court, post at 1­
3, a majority of this Court in Finley adopted the rule
announced in Luce. 
Justices BOYLE and GRIFFIN joined Chief
Justice RILEY’s lead opinion, and Justice BRICKLEY concurred 
in the lead opinion’s adoption of the Luce rule, as the
dissent correctly recognizes.  Finley, supra at 526 
(opinion by BRICKLEY, J.). 
Contrary to the dissent’s 
assertion, we do not contend that Justice BRICKLEY agreed
with every aspect of the lead opinion, but rather, that he
“concurred with the adoption of the rule as defined in
Luce.” Post at 2. 
2  
 
 
 
 
 
 
to determine whether the trial court’s ruling was erroneous 
and, if so, whether the error requires reversal. 
We thus 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals holding that 
defendant was required to testify to preserve his challenge 
for appellate review. 
I. UNDERLYING FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
On June 14, 1997, the twelve-year-old victim attended 
a barbeque at a neighbor’s apartment in the building where 
defendant lived. 
The victim testified that defendant 
grabbed her at the barbeque, took her to his apartment, and 
had sexual intercourse with her. 
She told her friend, an 
eleven-year-old 
girl, 
about 
the 
assault 
immediately 
thereafter, but did not tell her father about it until a 
week later. Her father then called the police and took her 
for a medical examination. 
The results of the examination 
were inconclusive regarding penetration because of the 
interval 
between 
the 
alleged 
penetration 
and 
the 
examination. 
Police arrested defendant shortly after the victim’s 
father reported the incident. 
Defendant furnished a 
statement to police after being advised of his Miranda 
rights. 
After defendant answered five or six questions, 
the police officer asked him, “When you last saw her [the 
victim], how many times did you have sex with her?” 
3  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Defendant responded, “I am taking the fifth on that one.” 
The officer immediately ended the interrogation. 
The prosecutor charged defendant with first-degree 
criminal 
sexual 
conduct, 
MCL 
750.520b(1)(a) 
(sexual 
penetration of victim under thirteen years of age). 
Immediately before trial, defendant moved in limine to 
exclude that portion of his statement in which he asserted 
his Miranda right to remain silent. The prosecutor opposed 
the 
motion, 
arguing 
that 
the 
entire 
statement 
was 
admissible. 
The trial court ruled that defendant’s entire 
statement was admissible. 
Despite this ruling, the prosecutor never sought to 
admit defendant’s statement into evidence and did not refer 
to the statement during opening or closing argument. 
Defendant elected not to testify, but the record does not 
reflect the reason for his decision. 
Defendant’s brother 
testified that defendant had been with him at the apartment 
at the time of the alleged assault and that no assault 
occurred. 
The young female friend of the complainant 
testified that the victim told her about the assault 
immediately after it had occurred. 
The friend also 
testified that the victim was crying, her clothes were 
“messed up,” and she was missing a pair of shorts. 
4  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
                                                 
 
 
The jury convicted defendant of second-degree criminal 
sexual conduct, MCL 750.520c, and the trial court sentenced 
him to a ten- to fifteen-year term of imprisonment. 
The Court of Appeals affirmed.3
 Defendant argued, 
inter alia, that his decision not to testify at trial was 
based on the trial court’s erroneous ruling in limine 
allowing the prosecutor to use the assertion of his Miranda 
right to remain silent against him. 
The Court of Appeals 
agreed that the trial court’s ruling was erroneous, but, 
citing Finley, held that reversal was not required because 
defendant did not testify and the evidence was never 
admitted. 
The Court declined to assume that defendant 
chose not to testify “out of fear of impeachment.” It also 
concluded 
that 
the 
evidence 
against 
defendant 
was 
overwhelming and that any error was harmless beyond a 
reasonable doubt. 
We granted defendant’s application for leave to 
appeal.4 
3 Unpublished opinion per curiam, issued September 15,
2000 (Docket No. 214097). 
4 467 Mich 920 (2002). 
5  
 
 
 
 
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 
This case requires us to determine whether a defendant 
must testify in order to preserve for appellate review a 
challenge to a ruling in limine allowing admission of his 
exercise of his silence. 
We review de novo this question 
of law. People v Mendoza, 468 Mich 527, 531; 664 NW2d 685 
(2003). 
III. ANALYSIS 
A. Luce and Finley 
In circumstances analogous to the instant factual 
scenario, the United States Supreme Court held that a 
defendant must testify to preserve for appeal the issue of 
improper impeachment by prior convictions. 
Luce, supra at 
43. 
In Luce, the petitioner sought to preclude the use of 
a prior conviction to impeach his testimony. 
The trial 
court ruled that the prior conviction was admissible under 
FRE 609(a). 
The petitioner did not testify and was 
convicted. Luce, supra at 39-40. 
The Supreme Court upheld the convictions, citing 
numerous reasons for requiring the petitioner to testify to 
preserve his challenge to the pretrial evidentiary ruling. 
First, the Court reasoned that if the petitioner had 
testified and been impeached with the prior conviction, the 
trial court’s decision admitting the evidence would have 
6  
 
 
 
 
been reviewable on appeal. 
Id. at 41. 
The Court 
recognized 
the 
difficulty 
inherent 
in 
reviewing 
an 
evidentiary ruling outside a factual context, particularly 
because FRE 609(a)(1) required a reviewing court to weigh 
the probative value of a prior conviction against its 
prejudicial effect. 
To perform this balancing test, the 
Court opined, a reviewing court must know the precise 
nature of the defendant’s testimony, which is unknown 
unless he testifies. 
Luce, supra at 41. 
The Court 
rejected the notion that an offer of proof would be 
sufficient because a defendant’s trial testimony could 
differ from the proffer. Id. at n 5. 
Second, the Court recognized that any possible harm 
from a trial court’s ruling in limine allowing impeachment 
with prior convictions is wholly speculative in the absence 
of the defendant’s testimony. The Court opined that such a 
ruling is subject to change depending on how the case 
unfolds at trial and that a court, exercising sound 
judicial discretion, could modify a previous ruling in 
limine. 
The Court also stated that without a defendant’s 
testimony, a reviewing court has no way of knowing whether 
the prosecutor would have sought to introduce the prior 
conviction 
for 
impeachment. 
For 
example, 
if 
the 
prosecutor’s case is strong and other means of impeachment 
7  
 
 
 
 
are available, the prosecutor may choose not to use an 
arguably inadmissible prior conviction. Id. at 41-42. 
Third, the Court reasoned that appellate courts cannot 
assume 
that 
an 
adverse 
pretrial 
ruling 
motivated 
a 
defendant’s decision not to testify. 
The Court rejected 
the notion that a defendant could commit to testifying if 
his motion is granted because such a commitment is 
relatively risk-free and difficult to enforce. Id. at 42. 
In addition, the Court acknowledged the problem 
involving application of a harmless error analysis because 
“the appellate court could not logically term ‘harmless’ an 
error 
that 
presumptively 
kept 
the 
defendant 
from 
testifying.” 
Id. 
Thus, 
nearly 
every 
error 
would 
automatically require reversal. 
Finally, the Court opined 
that requiring defendants to testify enables reviewing 
courts to assess the effect of any erroneous impeachment in 
light of the entire record and tends to discourage 
gamesmanship whereby a defendant’s motion operates solely 
to “plant” error requiring reversal on appeal. Id. 
In Finley, a majority of this Court adopted the Luce 
rule. 
We observed that the purpose of the rule is to 
provide for meaningful appellate review of a ruling in 
limine allowing impeachment by prior convictions. 
Finley, 
supra at 512 (opinion of RILEY, C.J.). 
The lead opinion 
8  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
stated that “error does not occur until error occurs; that 
is, until the evidence is admitted.” 
Id. 
It further 
stated that even if an offer of proof is made and evidence 
is erroneously deemed admissible, error requiring reversal 
does not arise until the evidence is actually introduced. 
The lead opinion then reiterated the reasons stated in Luce 
favoring the rule requiring a defendant’s testimony to 
preserve the issue for appellate review. Id. at 512-513. 
B. Extension of the Luce and Finley Rule 
Many courts have extended the rule announced in Luce 
and adopted in Finley to contexts other than those 
involving impeachment by prior convictions.5
 In United 
5 Many of these cases involve federal rules of evidence
other than FRE 609(a), the rule at issue in Luce. 
See, 
e.g., United States v Sanderson, 966 F2d 184, 190 (CA 6,
1992) (“[A]n appeal of a Rule 608(b) ruling is precluded
where the defendant did not testify at trial.”); United 
States v Ortiz, 857 F2d 900, 906 (CA 2, 1988) (the 
defendant waived his challenge to the trial court’s adverse
ruling in limine on Rule 404(b) motion by failing to insist
on right to fully present “personal use” argument at 
trial); United States v Griffin, 818 F2d 97, 103-105 (CA 1,
1987) (“[T]o raise and preserve for review the claim of
improperly constructing the Rule 403 balance, a party must
obtain the order admitting or excluding the controversial
evidence in the actual setting of the trial” and may not
rely on a trial court’s mere ruling in limine.); United 
States v Weichert, 783 F2d 23, 25 (CA 2, 1986) (By failing
to testify at trial, challenge to the trial court’s ruling
in limine under Rule 608(b) was not preserved for review.);
United States v Johnson, 767 F2d 1259, 1270 (CA 8, 1985)
(“Although Luce was decided under Fed. R. Evid. 609(a)(1),
Footnotes continued on following page. 
9  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
its logic applies with equal force to motions under Rule
404.”). 
In addition, the dissent cites Professor Duane for the
proposition that the United States Supreme Court has been
“reluctant to give Luce any precedential value,” post at 
11. 
To the contrary, the Court has rather recently
accorded such value to Luce in Ohler v United States, 529
US 753, 759; 120 S Ct 1851; 146 L Ed 2d 826 (2000), a case
in which the Court held that once a defendant―not the 
government―introduces evidence of a prior conviction, the
defendant waives any right to appeal the trial court’s
ruling in limine permitting the government to admit that
conviction for purposes of impeachment. Moreover, although
four 
justices 
dissented, 
concluding 
that 
Luce 
was 
inapplicable because the defendant had testified and thus
the harm was not “wholly speculative,” Luce, supra at 41,
those justices also appeared implicitly to recognize the 
importance of Luce: 
An appellate court can neither determine why
a defendant refused to testify, nor compare the
actual trial with the one that would have 
occurred if the accused had taken the stand. 
With unavoidable uncertainty about whether and
how 
much 
the 
in 
limine 
ruling 
harmed 
the 
defendant, and whether it affected the trial at
all, a rule allowing a silent defendant to appeal
would require courts either to attempt wholly
speculative harmless-error analysis, or to grant
new trials to some defendants who were not harmed 
by the ruling, and to some who never even 
intended to testify. 
Ohler, supra at 760-761. 
(Souter, J., dissenting). 
Although the dissent states that the United States
Supreme Court in Ohler “begrudgingly” cited Luce, post at 
14, nothing in Ohler’s majority or dissenting opinion 
supports that assertion. Further, our reliance on Ohler is 
not “misplaced.” Post at 14. Neither the majority nor the
dissent in Ohler questioned Luce’s continuing validity.
Rather, the Court decided that Luce was inapplicable.
Ohler simply does not state that the United States Supreme
Court has been reluctant to accord Luce precedential
effect. 
10  
 
 
 
 
 
 
States v Wilson, 307 F3d 596, 598 (CA 7, 2002), the 
defendant moved in limine to preclude the prosecutor from 
introducing evidence of his postarrest “selective silence.” 
After waiving his Miranda rights, the defendant answered a 
series of questions, but expressly refused to provide the 
name of his associate. 
Id.
 The trial court granted the 
motion in part, ruling that the prosecution could not use 
the defendant’s silence against him in its case-in-chief. 
During trial, the defendant sought to admit evidence 
regarding the associate, but the court ruled that if 
defendant raised the matter, the prosecutor would be 
permitted to introduce evidence of the defendant’s refusal 
to name the associate during questioning. 
The defendant 
opted not to raise the issue. Id. at 598-600. 
On appeal, the defendant argued that the trial court’s 
ruling allowing the prosecutor to introduce evidence of his 
“selective silence” violated his Fifth Amendment privilege 
against self-incrimination. 
Id. at 599. 
Relying on Luce 
and the line of cases extending the Luce holding beyond FRE 
609, the court declined to review the defendant’s claim on 
the merits. 
The court stated that because the defendant 
exercised his right to refrain from introducing certain 
evidence at trial, he “cannot now attack a potential 
11  
 
 
 
 
 
 
introduction of evidence by the government in response to 
his potential testimony.” Id. at 601. 
United States v Bond, 87 F3d 695 (CA 5, 1996), also 
involved a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against 
self-incrimination. In that case, the defendant challenged 
the magistrate’s ruling that if he testified regarding the 
terms of a plea bargain, he would waive his privilege 
against self-incrimination regarding all grounds asserted 
in his motion to withdraw his guilty plea. 
The appellate 
court determined that the same practical considerations as 
in Luce were present, including the difficulty inherent in 
determining whether the defendant’s testimony could be 
limited in accordance with his motion without actually 
hearing the testimony. 
The court recognized that other 
courts have refused to limit the Luce rule to Rule 609(a) 
situations and have instead applied the Luce rule in 
analogous contexts. Id. at 700-701. 
C. Application of the Luce Rule to the Facts in this 
Case 
As in Wilson and Bond, we must determine here whether 
to extend the Luce rule to defendant’s invocation of his 
Miranda right to remain silent. 
Defendant and the dissent 
contend that the logic of Luce and Finley does not apply 
because the alleged error has constitutional implications. 
12  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
The alleged errors in Wilson and Bond, however, also had 
constitutional implications. In fact, the purported errors 
in those cases involved the same constitutional right at 
issue in this case, i.e., the Fifth Amendment privilege 
against self-incrimination. 
The dissent and defendant further fail to appreciate 
the constitutional implications present in Luce, Finley, 
and every case in which a defendant alleges that a trial 
court’s ruling effectively prevented him from testifying. 
A defendant’s right to testify in his own defense stems 
from the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth amendments of the 
United States Constitution. 
Rock v Arkansas, 483 US 44, 
51-52; 107 S Ct 2704; 97 L Ed 2d 37 (1987). Thus, a trial 
court’s ruling affecting a defendant’s right to testify 
necessarily has constitutional implications.6
 The lead 
opinion in Finley correctly stated, “A ruling in limine on 
impeachment 
by 
prior 
convictions 
does 
not 
present 
constitutional implications.” 
Finley, supra at 514. 
The 
effect of such a ruling on a defendant’s right to testify, 
however, 
does 
present 
constitutional 
implications. 
6 While the United States Supreme Court did not decide
Rock until after it decided Luce, its decision in Rock made 
clear that a defendant’s challenge involving his right to
testify in his own defense is one of constitutional 
magnitude. 
13  
 
 
 
Therefore, the distinction that the dissent attempts to 
draw between this case and Finley is illusory. Any ruling, 
even if on a mere evidentiary issue, necessarily affects a 
defendant’s constitutional rights if it has a chilling 
effect on the exercise of the right to testify. 
Defendant further asserts that, because his invocation 
of his Miranda right to remain silent could never be 
admitted at trial, the trial court’s ruling in limine that 
his statement was admissible constituted error that could 
never be harmless. Defendant’s argument is premised on the 
erroneous assumption that his invocation of his privilege 
against 
self-incrimination 
could 
never 
be 
admissible. 
Under Doyle v Ohio, 426 US 610, 619; 96 S Ct 2240; 49 L Ed 
2d 91 (1976), and People v Bobo, 390 Mich 355, 359; 212 
NW2d 190 (1973), however, defendant’s “taking the fifth” 
statement would have been properly admissible in one 
context. 
The United States Supreme Court held in Doyle, 
supra at 619, “that the use for impeachment purposes of 
petitioners’ silence at the time of arrest and after 
receiving Miranda warnings, violate[s] the Due Process 
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Court recognized, 
however, that “the fact of post-arrest silence could be 
used by the prosecution to contradict a defendant who 
testifies to an exculpatory version of events and claims to 
14  
 
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
have told the police the same version upon arrest.” Id. at 
619 n 11. 
Similarly, 
in 
Bobo, 
this 
Court 
held 
that 
the 
prosecution could not introduce a defendant’s postarrest 
silence to impeach his exculpatory testimony at trial. 
Bobo, supra at 359. 
We cautioned, however, that this rule 
was not an absolute ban on the use of post-Miranda silence 
and stated that “[t]he fact that a witness did not make a 
statement may be shown only to contradict his assertion 
that he did.”7 
Id.; see also People v Dennis, 464 Mich 567, 
573 n 5; 628 NW2d 502 (2001), citing Doyle, supra at 619 n 
11. 
If defendant had offered exculpatory testimony at 
trial and claimed to have told his exculpatory story to the 
police in response to questioning, his silence would have 
been admissible for impeachment purposes. 
As this Court 
recently stated in Dennis, Doyle does not apply where “a 
defendant 
testifies 
to 
having 
earlier 
provided 
an 
exculpatory version of events to the police and the 
prosecution offers evidence of defendant’s silence to rebut 
7 In People v Collier, 426 Mich 23, 39; 393 NW2d 346
(1986), this Court confined Bobo “to impeachment for and
comment on silence at the time of arrest in the face of 
accusation.” 
See also People v Hackett, 460 Mich 202, 215
n 6; 596 NW2d 107 (1999). 
15  
 
 
 
 
  
 
                                                 
 
 
such a claim.” 
Dennis, supra at 573 n 5.8
 Thus, 
defendant’s 
contention 
that 
his 
“taking 
the 
fifth” 
statement would never have been admissible is incorrect.9 
Rather, the statement’s admissibility would depend on the 
context in which the prosecutor had sought to admit it.10 
Because the admissibility of post-Miranda silence 
depends on the factual setting in which the prosecutor 
seeks to admit it, we are faced with the same problem 
encountered in Luce and Finley, i.e., that defendant’s 
8 See also People v Sutton (After Remand), 436 Mich
575, 579; 464 NW2d 276 (1990) (“Where a defendant claims
that he gave an exculpatory statement to the police after
arrest 
and 
warnings, 
neither 
Bobo 
nor 
any 
federal 
constitutional authority would preclude impeachment with
prior inconsistent conduct, including silence.”). 
9 We are not presented with a situation in which
defendant’s statement would never have been admissible, and
we express no opinion regarding whether a claim of error
would be reviewable in that instance absent a defendant’s 
testimony at trial. 
10 For this reason, the dissent’s contention that our
holding 
“requires 
the 
defendant 
to 
choose 
which 
constitutional right to give up, his Fifth Amendment right
to post-Miranda silence or his Fifth Amendment right not to
testify,” is misleading. 
Post at 16-17. 
Because a 
defendant may, in a certain circumstance, testify and 
properly be impeached with his post-Miranda silence without 
offending constitutional protections, he is not necessarily
forced to give up either his Fifth Amendment privilege
against self-incrimination or his Miranda right to remain
silent. 
In fact, this argument supports the notion that a
defendant must testify in order to determine whether any
error occurred at all. 
16  
 
 
 
 
 
 
claim of error is wholly speculative. 
Not only could the 
statement have been admitted to contradict a defendant who 
testified about an exculpatory version of events and claims 
to have told the police that version upon his arrest, but, 
as Luce suggests, it might not have been admitted at all, 
even if defendant had testified. 
As the Luce Court 
recognized, the trial court could have ultimately concluded 
that the statement was inadmissible, or the prosecution 
could have changed its trial strategy and not sought to 
admit the statement. 
In addition, as Luce recognized, we cannot assume that 
the possible introduction of the “taking the fifth” 
statement motivated defendant’s decision not to testify. 
The Luce Court rejected the notion that appellate courts 
can properly discern the effect of a ruling in limine on a 
defendant’s trial strategy. 
Luce, supra at 42. 
Thus, it 
is equally possible that defendant simply chose to present 
his 
defense 
through 
his 
brother’s 
testimony, 
which 
contradicted the complainant’s allegations, rather than to 
testify himself and be subject to cross-examination. 
Because 
numerous 
factors 
undoubtedly 
influence 
a 
defendant’s decision whether to testify, we refuse to 
speculate regarding what effect, if any, a ruling in limine 
may have had on this decision. 
17  
 
 
 
 
 
Defendant cites State v Lamb, 84 NC App 569, 580-581; 
353 SE2d 857 (1987), quoting United States v Lipscomb, 226 
US App DC 312, 332; 702 F2d 1049 (1983), for the 
proposition that “when a defendant seeks an advance ruling 
on admission of a prior conviction, it is reasonable to 
presume that the ruling will be an important factor in his 
decision whether to testify.” 
The Lamb court, however, 
failed to acknowledge that a rule allowing appeals based on 
evidence contested in limine but never introduced at trial 
is subject to abuse. 
For example, a defendant could move 
in limine to exclude a number of prior statements, all the 
while 
never 
intending 
to 
testify. 
The 
Luce 
Court 
recognized this potential for abuse, stating that its rule 
“will also tend to discourage making [motions] solely to 
‘plant’ 
[error 
requiring 
reversal] 
in 
the 
event 
of 
conviction.” Luce, supra at 42. Thus, we find defendant’s 
reliance on Lamb unpersuasive. 
Further, 
unlike 
the 
dissent, 
we 
appreciate 
the 
difficulty inherent in evaluating a trial court’s ruling on 
a motion in limine when the evidence is never actually 
admitted. 
The dissent would have us review defendant’s 
claim of error in a vacuum and engage in speculation 
regarding whether the statement would have been properly 
admissible. 
The speculative exercise that the dissent 
18  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
offers, post at 23-24, is exactly what we are seeking to 
avoid. 
Often, a factual record is necessary to determine 
the soundness of the trial court’s ruling if for no other 
reason 
than 
to 
conduct 
a 
harmless 
error 
analysis. 
Extension of the Luce and Finley rule to the instant 
circumstance ensures that appellate courts are not forced 
to entertain abstract allegations of error. 
Because the practical considerations extant in Luce 
and Finley of evaluating theoretical error in the absence 
of a defendant’s testimony are also present in this case, 
we follow the lead of Wilson and Bond and extend the Luce 
rule to encompass alleged error implicating a defendant’s 
Fifth 
Amendment 
privilege 
against 
self-incrimination. 
Thus, to preserve for appellate review a challenge to a 
trial court’s ruling in limine allowing into evidence a 
defendant’s exercise of his Fifth Amendment privilege, the 
defendant must testify at trial. 
Because the statement at 
issue in this case would have been properly admissible in 
one context, it is impossible to determine whether the 
trial court’s ruling was erroneous.11
 Accordingly, we are 
unable to review defendant’s allegation of error. 
11 
Although we review claims of error under the 
standard announced in People v Carines, 460 Mich 750, 763;
Footnotes continued on following page. 
19  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
IV. CONCLUSION  
We conclude that defendant was required to testify to 
preserve for review his challenge to the trial court’s 
ruling in limine allowing the prosecutor to admit evidence 
of defendant’s exercise of his Miranda right to remain 
silent. 
Because the statement at issue in this case would 
have been properly admissible in one context, defendant’s 
failure to testify precludes us from being able to 
determine whether the trial court’s ruling was erroneous 
and, 
if 
so, 
whether 
the 
error 
requires 
reversal. 
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals.12 
Maura D. Corrigan
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Clifford W. Taylor
Robert P. Young, Jr.
Stephen J. Markman 
597 NW2d 130 (1999), that standard applies only when an
error exists. 
Because defendant’s decision not to testify
prevents us from being able to determine whether the trial
court’s ruling was erroneous, the Carines plain error 
standard is inapplicable. 
12 The dissent criticizes our opinion for declining to
review the sentencing issue that defendant raised in his
application for leave to appeal. Post at 26-27. Defendant 
has abandoned that issue by failing to address it in his
brief on appeal in this Court. 
Steward v Panek, 251 Mich
App 546, 558; 652 NW2d 232 (2002). 
20  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
v 
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N  
SUPREME COURT  
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
No. 118021 
ERIC BOYD, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
KELLY, J. (dissenting). 
I would not extend the ruling in Luce v United States1 
and People v Finley2 to this case. 
I find that the trial 
court's error here was plain enough to require reversal, 
despite defendant's decision not to testify. Therefore, I 
would reverse the Court of Appeals decision and remand this 
case for a new trial. 
The Majority Mischaracterizes Finley 
Finley does not stand for anything more than a 
specific application of Luce. It holds that, to preserve a 
claim of error concerning improper impeachment by prior 
1Luce v United States, 469 US 38; 105 S Ct 460; 83 L Ed
2d 443 (1984). 
2People v Finley, 431 Mich 506; 431 NW2d 19 (1988). 
 
 
 
 
 
convictions under MRE 609, a defendant must testify. 
Although Justices Boyle and Griffin joined Chief Justice 
Riley's lead opinion, Justice Brickley joined only part of 
it. 
Finley, supra at 526-531. 
He concurred with the 
adoption of the rule as defined in Luce. However, he 
disagreed with certain elements of the opinion. Finley, 
supra at 526. 
One of his specific concerns was that it 
used overly broad language in obiter dictum. Id. at 530. 
He wrote that the lead opinion had no authority for its 
statement that 
“the straightforward logic of Luce . . . is that 
as to evidentiary rulings, error does not occur
until error occurs; that is, until the evidence
is admitted. Obviously, in other contexts, if an
offer of proof is made and the court erroneously
permits the introduction of hearsay, character
evidence, similar acts, or the myriad of evidence
objectionable under the MRE, there is no error
requiring reversal unless the evidence actually
is introduced.” [Id., quoting lead opinion at
512.] 
He also noted that “the notion that reviewable error 
does not occur until admission of the challenged evidence 
does not square with actual practice.” Id. at 531. 
Interlocutory appeals are regularly taken on
evidentiary questions and pretrial rulings are
often deemed erroneous in spite of the fact that
their effect has not yet been felt at trial.
[Id.] 
He cautioned that “[e]rror can also occur at
trial in varying forms, and the Court should not
be so quick to define a universal principle, 
2  
 
 
 
 
 
particularly since the specific grounds for the
adoption of the Luce requirement are so clearly
explained by the Chief Justice.” Id. 
Thus, although Justice Brickley supported the adoption 
of Luce, he agreed to only a limited adoption of its 
principle. He left no doubt that he would not apply Finley 
beyond its specific grounds. 
Justice 
Cavanagh 
concurred 
in 
the 
result, 
but 
dissented from the rationale of the lead opinion with one 
exception noted below. Id. at 531-544. Justices Levin and 
Archer concurred in Justice Brickley's opinion, "except for 
the language of his opinion concurring in the language of 
the plurality opinion that fails to recognize that a 
defendant who wishes to preserve for appeal an adverse 
ruling on the admission of a prior conviction record may do 
so by testifying outside the presence of the jury." Id. at 
557-558 (Levin, J.). 
Therefore, the majority in this case incorrectly cites 
the Finley lead opinion for the proposition that "’error 
does not occur until . . . the evidence is admitted.’" 
Ante at 9 quoting id., p 512 (Riley, C.J.). 
Finley does 
not hold that if an offer of proof is made and the evidence 
is erroneously deemed admissible, there is no error 
requiring 
reversal 
unless 
the 
evidence 
is 
actually 
introduced. Ante at 8. 
3  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
Contrary to the majority's citation here, four Finley 
justices rejected the lead opinion's sweeping premise. See 
id. at 530-531 (Brickley, J.); 537-538 (Cavanagh, J.); 557­
558 (Levin, J.). 
The "majority" of the Finley Court was 
composed of only three justices who in obiter dictum saw 
an application of Luce beyond MRE 609. 
Hence, the 
rationale in the lead opinion in Finley giving an expanded 
view of Luce is erroneously based. 
Luce and Finley are Inapplicable 
Defendant 
seeks 
review 
of 
an 
incorrect 
ruling 
involving his right to remain silent after receiving 
Miranda warnings. 
Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 
1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966). 
The majority “extends” the 
holding of Luce to this case. 
This extension ignores 
language in both Luce and Finley specifically limiting 
their holdings to cases involving a subtle evidentiary 
balancing test of nonconstitutional dimensions concerning 
impeachment with prior convictions. Luce, 469 US 43; 
Finley, 431 Mich 514 (Riley, C.J.), 553-554 (Levin, J.). 
Indeed, Chief Justice Burger's opinion for the Court 
in 
Luce 
carefully 
distinguished 
Luce 
from 
Brooks 
v 
Tennessee and New Jersey v Portash. 
Brooks v Tennessee, 
406 US 605; 92 S Ct 1891; 32 L Ed 2d 358 (1972); New Jersey 
v Portash, 440 US 450; 99 S Ct 1292; 59 L Ed 2d 501 (1979). 
4  
 
 
 
Brooks and Portash involved “Fifth Amendment challenges to 
state court rulings that operated to dissuade defendants 
from testifying.” 
Justice Burger wrote that they did not 
involve “a federal court's preliminary ruling on a question 
that did not reach constitutional dimensions, such as a 
decision under [FRE 609(a)]." Luce, 469 US 42-43. 
The Luce Court was primarily concerned about the 
practical problem of trial courts being forced to make FRE 
609 evidentiary rulings in a factual vacuum: 
A reviewing court is handicapped in any
effort to rule on subtle evidentiary questions
outside a factual context. This is particularly
true under Rule 609(a)(1), which directs the 
court to weigh the probative value of a prior
conviction against the prejudicial effect to the
defendant. To perform this balancing, the court
must know the precise nature of the defendant's
testimony, which is unknowable when, as here, the
defendant does not testify. [Luce, 469 US 41.] 
I agree with the dissent in Finley that the above 
rationale from Luce is unpersuasive even in the limited 
context of a ruling in limine on an FRE 609 motion. Finley, 
431 Mich 537 (Cavanagh, J.). 
In any event, the review of 
prior conviction evidence under FRE 609(a) involves both a 
nonconstitutional question and a subtle balancing test. 
The test is heavily dependent on the precise scope of the 
defendant’s testimony. 
However, the claimed error in this 
case involves solely a legal question and is one of 
constitutional dimensions. 
5  
 
 
 
                                                 
The majority presents case law from federal circuit 
courts of appeals that have expanded Luce to claims other 
than those involving FRE 609 determinations. 
Included are 
opinions from two jurisdictions that have extended the Luce 
rule to questions involving constitutional claims of error. 
However, the majority places too much reliance on the warm 
reception of these courts to the unwarranted expansion of 
Luce by federal circuit courts. "It is only understandable 
that our extremely overworked judges will display a natural 
fondness for any strict preservation of error rule, which 
necessarily lightens the often crushing case load of both 
trial and appeals court judges." Duane, Appellate review of 
in limine rulings, 182 FRD 666, 682 (1999). 
Various 
federal 
and 
state 
court 
opinions 
have 
recognized the inapplicability of Luce to Fifth Amendment 
and Sixth Amendment violations, as well as other similar 
questions of constitutional error.3 I find these opinions 
persuasive. 
3See, e.g., United States ex rel Adkins v Greer, 791
F2d 590, 593-594 (CA 7, 1986)(a confession elicited in
violation of the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights can be
reviewed despite the defendant’s election not to testify);
United States v Chischilly, 30 F3d 1144, 1150-1151 (CA 9,
1994) 
(a 
defendant 
was 
permitted 
to 
challenge 
the 
admissibility of a confession, despite the fact that it was
not introduced, because the trial court's ruling that the
confession could be used prevented the defendant from 
Footnotes continued on following page. 
6  
 
 
 
                                                 
There are a number of important reasons for the 
differentiation they recognize. 
First, as aptly noted by 
Justice Cavanagh in Finley, Luce's requirement that a 
defendant testify to preserve the impeachment issue was 
“inconsistent with the spirit, if not the precise holding,” 
of two of the United States Supreme Court's own decisions, 
Brooks and Potash. 
Both specifically dealt with questions 
of Fifth Amendment challenges to state court rulings. 
Finley, 431 Mich 535-536 (Cavanagh, J.). 
Justice Brennan 
in his Luce concurrence specifically recognized the factual 
differences of such a claim. 
He noted, also, that a 
different “calculus of interests” sets the types of claims 
raising an insanity defense); Biller v Lopes, 834 F2d 41,
43-45 (CA 2, 1987) (a habeas corpus petitioner was 
permitted to raise a claim that the denial of a motion in
limine unfairly kept him from testifying, when the motion
was 
based 
on 
the 
unconstitutionality 
of 
a 
prior
conviction); United States v Jenkins, 785 F2d 1387 (CA 9,
1986) (the use of grand jury testimony for impeachment was
moot because the government did not introduce it at trial);
Pillotti v Superintendent, 759 F Supp 1031 (SD NY, 1991) (a
challenge 
to 
impeachment 
evidence 
obtained 
with 
a 
fraudulently obtained guilty plea in a prior case). 
See 
also State v Greve, 67 Wash App 166; 834 P2d 656 (1992);
State v Brings Plenty, 459 NW2d 390 (SD, 1990); State v 
Brunelle
 148 Vt 347; 534 A2d 198 (1987); People v 
Henderson, 745 P2d 265 (Colo App, 1987); State v Lamb, 84
NC App 569, 580-581; 353 SE2d 857 (1983); People v Brown,
42 
Cal 
App 
4th 
461; 
49 
Cal 
Rptr 
2d 
652 
(1996).
Interestingly, the court in United States v Wilson, 307 F3d
596 (CA 7, 2002), failed to address the precedent of its
own circuit in reaching its decision. 
7  
 
 
 
of error apart from one another. Luce, 469 US 44 (Brennan, 
J., concurring). 
I 
agree 
with 
Justice 
Brennan 
that 
a 
different 
“calculus of interests” is present when the alleged claim 
of error is a constitutional one. 
I find that, even more 
than in a review of an FRE 609 ruling, the calculus of 
interests 
involved 
where 
the 
alleged 
error 
is 
constitutional in nature requires appellate court review. 
This is true even if the defendant does not testify at 
trial and the evidence is not provided to the jury. As 
Justice Cavanagh so eloquently stated in his dissent in 
Finley: 
Let us start with the language of the Fifth
Amendment itself, which states in part: 
No person . . . shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself
. . . . [US Const, Am V.] 
Implicit in this constitutional guarantee is
that no penalty, no sanction, no disadvantage to
the defendant shall flow from his decision not to 
testify at trial. 
Griffin v California, 380 US 609; 85 S Ct
1229; 14 L Ed 2d 106 (1965), reh den 381 US 957
(1965), 
held 
unconstitutional 
a 
statute 
permitting the prosecution to comment on the 
failure of the defendant to testify at his 
criminal trial. Carter v Kentucky, 450 US 288;
101 S Ct 1112; 67 L Ed 2d 241 (1981), held that
the Fifth Amendment required the court, upon the
request of a nontestifying defendant, to instruct
the jury not to draw an adverse inference from
the failure of the defendant to testify. The
central theme of both cases was "that a defendant 
must pay no court-imposed price for the exercise 
8  
 
 
 
  
of his constitutional privilege not to testify." 
450 US 301. (Emphasis added.) 
Similarly, 
the 
Court 
in 
Lefkowitz 
v 
Cunningham, 431 US 801, 805; 97 S Ct 2132; 53 L
Ed 2d 1 (1977), observed: 
“[Our] cases have established that a State
may not impose substantial penalties because a
witness elects to exercise his Fifth Amendment 
right not to give incriminating testimony against
himself.” 
The Luce rule exacts a heavy price from the
defendant for electing not to testify at his
trial. He is denied the right on appeal to raise
what may be a substantial issue. [Finley, 431
Mich 533-534 (Cavanagh, J.).] 
Here, the majority's decision exacts an even heavier 
price on defendant’s decision not to testify at trial. 
An 
accused in the position of the defendant in Finley must 
testify or give up the right to raise a substantial issue. 
In this case, however, the claim of error surrendered is a 
constitutional one, not simply an evidentiary one. 
Luce Did Not Invoke Constitutional Questions 
In an attempt to justify why retroactive application 
is unwarranted in this case, the majority chooses to find 
constitutional implications present in Luce and Finley. 
However, both the majority and the concurrence in Luce and 
the lead opinion in Finley took pains to distinguish Rule 
609 questions from those involving constitutional claims of 
error. In direct response to Justice Cavanagh's dissent in 
Finley, the lead opinion stated: 
9  
 
 
 
[D]espite 
the 
suggestions 
in 
Justice 
Cavanagh's 
opinion, 
it 
cannot 
be 
seriously
claimed that the Fifth Amendment bars adoption of
Luce. Whatever one's views of the philosophy of
particular justices, in Luce, all eight justices
agreed that the issue did not involve a Fifth
Amendment challenge. The issue presented is what
procedural steps are necessary to preserve an
issue for appeal, a matter that no more levies a
"court-imposed price" for the exercise of a 
constitutional privilege than procedural rules 
requiring 
the 
timely 
assertion 
of 
other 
constitutional rights. [Finley, 431 Mich 520 
(Riley, J.).] 
The majority’s recognition that "[a] defendant's right 
to testify in his own defense stems from the Fifth, Sixth, 
and 
Fourteenth 
amendments 
of 
the 
United 
States 
Constitution", ante at 12, arises from its reading of Rock 
v Arkansas, 483 US 44, 46-47; 107 S Ct 2704; 97 L Ed 37 
(1987). 
However, Rock was not published until after Luce 
had been decided and was not mentioned in Finley, which was 
released soon after Rock. 
As noted by Professor Duane, 
there is no indication that the defendant in Luce raised, 
or that the Luce Court saw itself as deciding, any 
constitutional claim whatsoever. 
At the time Luce was 
decided: 
Chief Justice Burger and a majority of the
Court still regarded it as an open question 
whether a criminal accused had a constitutional 
right to testify in his own trial. 
Two years
after Luce, Chief Justice Burger wrote for the 
majority in Nix v Whiteside that "this Court has 
never explicitly held that a criminal defendant
has a due process right to testify in his own 
10  
 
 
 
 
 
behalf . . . ." [Nix v Whiteside, 475 US 157,
164; 106 S Ct 988; 89 L Ed 2d 123 (1986)]. This
comment provoked a response by a minority of four
justices 
who 
were 
"puzzled 
by 
the 
Court's 
implicit suggestion that whether a defendant has
a constitutional right to testify in his own
defense remains an open question." [Id. at 186 n 
5 (Blackmun, J., concurring).] 
Since the time Burger wrote for the Court in
Luce and Nix, however, the Supreme Court has
formally 
settled 
that 
an 
accused 
has 
a 
constitutional right to testify at his trial 
[e.g., Rock, supra at 49-51]. 
That being the
case, there is now a plausible basis for a 
criminal appellant to claim—unlike the appellant
in 
Luce—that 
an 
erroneous 
ruling 
to 
allow 
impeachment amounted to an impermissible burden
on the exercise of his constitutional rights.
[Duane, supra at 686.] 
Professor Duane used this observation to show why Luce 
was out of step with previous Supreme Court decisions. 
He 
theorized that this was the reason that the Supreme Court 
apparently has been highly reluctant to give Luce any 
precedential value in the years since it was issued. Also, 
he believes that the Supreme Court would not rule as it did 
in Luce were it again presented with the same issue. 
The Majority’s Reliance on Ohler is Misplaced 
The majority reads too much into the decision in Ohler 
v United States, 529 US 753; 120 SCt 1851; 146 L Ed 2d 826 
(2000). There, defendant was confronted with the potential 
introduction of evidence of a prior conviction. 
The 
defendant sought in limine to preclude the evidence under 
11  
 
 
 
 
 
FRE 609, and the trial court denied the motion. 
The 
defendant then elected to testify and explain the earlier 
conviction before he could be impeached with it. 
After 
being convicted, he asserted on appeal that the trial 
court’s ruling infringed his right to testify. 
The United 
States Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, affirmed 
the conviction. 
The 
majority, 
in 
an 
opinion 
by 
Chief 
Justice 
Rehnquist, found that the defendant “runs into the position 
taken by the Court in a similar, but not identical, 
situation in Luce” that any possible harm from the decision 
whether to testify is wholly speculative. 
Ohler, 529 US 
759. 
This is the only mention of Luce in the majority 
opinion. 
The Court’s holding was based primarily on a 
waiver analysis: 
“We conclude that a defendant who 
preemptively introduces evidence of a prior conviction on 
direct examination may not on appeal claim that the 
admission of such evidence was error.” Id. at 760. 
The dissent, authored by Justice Souter, disagreed 
with the waiver analysis. 
It discussed Luce in three 
paragraphs. 
The majority here has quoted the second 
paragraph, yet conveniently omitted the first and third. 
The relevant text, id. at 760-761, is as follows: 
12  
 
 
 
The only case of this Court that the 
majority claims as even tangential support for
its waiver rule is Luce v United States, 469 US
38; 105 S Ct 460; 83 L Ed 2d 443 (1984). Ante at 
[759]. 
We held there that a criminal defendant 
who remained off the stand could not appeal an in 
limine ruling to admit prior convictions as 
impeachment 
evidence 
under 
Federal 
Rule 
of 
Evidence 609(a). Since the defendant had not 
testified, he had never suffered the impeachment,
and the question was whether he should be allowed
to appeal the in limine ruling anyway, on the
rationale that the threatened impeachment had 
discouraged the exercise of his right to defend
by his own testimony. The answer turned on the
practical realities of appellate review. 
An appellate court can neither determine why
a defendant refused to testify, nor compare the
actual trial with the one that would have 
occurred if the accused had taken the stand. With 
unavoidable uncertainty about whether and how 
much the in limine ruling harmed the defendant,
and whether it affected the trial at all, a rule
allowing a silent defendant to appeal would 
require 
courts 
either 
to 
attempt 
wholly
speculative harmless-error analysis, or to grant
new trials to some defendants who were not harmed 
by the ruling, and to some who never even 
intended to testify. 
In requiring testimony and
actual 
impeachment 
before 
a 
defendant 
could 
appeal an in limine ruling to admit prior
convictions, therefore, Luce did not derive a 
waiver rule from some general notion of fairness;
it merely acknowledged the incapacity of an 
appellate court to assess the significance of the
ruling for a defendant who remains silent. 
This case is different, there being a 
factual record on which Ohler's claim can be 
reviewed. She testified, and there is no question
that 
the 
in 
limine 
ruling 
controlled 
her 
counsel's decision to enquire about the earlier
conviction; defense lawyers do not set out to
impeach their own witnesses, much less their 
clients. 
Since analysis for harmless error is
made no more difficult by the fact that the
convictions came out on direct examination, not 
13  
 
 
__________________________________________________________________________ 
 
_________________________________________________ 
 
 
cross-examination, the case raises none of the
practical difficulties on which Luce turned, and
Luce does not dictate today's result.1 
1 The Luce Court anticipated as much: “It is 
clear, of course, that had petitioner testified
and been impeached by evidence of a prior
conviction, the District Court's decision to 
admit the impeachment evidence would have been
reviewable on appeal along with any other claims
of error. 
The Court of Appeals would then have
had a complete record detailing the nature of
petitioner's testimony, the scope of the cross­
examination, 
and 
the 
possible 
impact 
of 
impeachment on the jury's verdict." 
469 US at 
41. 
There are, of course, practical issues that
may arise in these cases; for example, the trial
court may feel unable to render a final and
definitive in limine ruling. 
The majority does
not focus on these potential difficulties, and
neither do I, though some lower courts have 
addressed them. 
See, e.g., Wilson v Williams,
182 F.3d 562 (CA 7, 1999) (en banc). 
For the 
purposes of this case, we need consider only the
circumstance in which a district court makes a 
ruling that is plainly final. 
It is manifest that the majority's reliance on Ohler 
in the instant case is misplaced. 
The United States 
Supreme Court only begrudgingly cited Luce in Ohler. 
Additionally, Ohler is the only United States Supreme Court 
decision to even mention Luce in passing. 
Finally, Ohler 
and Luce, unlike the instant case, involved alleged error 
stemming from the introduction of prior conviction evidence 
under FRE 609. 
For all practical matters, Ohler is yet 
another decision indicating that Luce should be confined to 
14  
 
 
 
 
prior conviction evidence and should not be extended to 
claims of constitutional error. 
The Holding in Luce Should Not Be Extended 
The majority has found no case law holding that Luce 
involved 
a 
constitutional 
claim 
of 
error. 
I 
have 
discovered none. 
Most certainly, the lead opinion in 
Finley did not do so. 
In my view, the majority's acknowledgment today of the 
implication of an FRE 609 ruling on a defendant's Fifth 
Amendment right to testify proves the correctness of 
Justice 
Cavanagh's 
position 
in 
Finley. 
Such 
an 
acknowledgment also strengthens, rather than detracts from, 
the arguments against extending Finley to claims outside 
its narrow holding. 
Even if Luce can be read to distinguish evidentiary 
"questions not reaching constitutional dimensions" from 
claims of error that involve direct constitutional error, 
the Luce holding presents little support for expansion 
beyond its borders. 
The trial court’s decision in this 
case fully implicates both a defendant’s Fifth Amendment 
right to testify and his Fifth Amendment right to remain 
silent in the face of post-Miranda accusations. 
These 
rights come into play even when the trial court's ruling 
restricts the admission of evidence of a prior conviction 
15  
 
 
 
 
to rebuttal, in contrast to the trial court’s more 
expansive ruling here. 
The magnitude of the choice that the ruling places on 
the defendant far outweighs that to be made under an FRE or 
MRE 609 ruling. In a rule 609 question, the defendant must 
choose between testifying and not testifying. 
If he does 
not testify, he relinquishes his opportunity to present his 
account 
of 
the 
incident. 
If 
he 
does 
testify, 
the 
prosecution may use improperly admitted prior convictions 
to impeach his credibility. 
In this case, by contrast, if the defendant chooses 
not to testify, he will forgo the opportunity to present 
his account of the incident and lose all chance to appeal. 
If he testifies, he risks being impeached with improperly 
admitted substantive statements that the jury is certain to 
use as evidence of his guilt of the instant offense. 
The risk that this damaging impeachment evidence will 
destroy defendant’s credibility in the jury’s eyes produces 
a chilling effect on defendant’s exercise of the right to 
testify. 
That risk acts as an impermissible "penalty 
imposed 
by 
courts 
for 
exercising 
a 
constitutional 
privilege." 
Griffin, 
380 
US 
614. 
In 
essence, 
the 
majority’s holding here requires the defendant to choose 
which constitutional right to give up, his Fifth Amendment 
16  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
right to post-Miranda silence or his Fifth Amendment right 
not to testify.4 
Even if one believes that Luce gave due deference to 
the chilling effect on a defendant's right to testify, the 
instant case brings into sharp focus the observation by 
Justice Brennan: 
the "calculus of interests” may be much 
different in a matter involving a simple evidentiary ruling 
than in one involving a claimed error of constitutional 
magnitude. 
No Weighing of Evidence Is Appropriate 
As noted by Justice Brennan,5 concerns about ruling in 
a factual vacuum are not present to the same extent when 
the court’s ruling turns on legal, rather than factual, 
considerations. 
See, e.g., United States ex rel Adkins v 
Greer, 791 F2d 590, 594 (CA 7, 1986). The majority implies 
4 The majority calls this statement "misleading." When 
attempting to substantiate its dismissive characterization
of the statement, it ignores the fact that defendant in
this case was confronted with an erroneous trial court 
ruling. 
It ignores, in addition, that no facts suggest
that, had he taken the stand, defendant would have claimed
to have made an exculpatory statement to the police.
Hence, the impeachment he faced would have had to be
improper 
and, 
contrary 
to 
the 
majority's 
reasoning,
defendant could not properly have been impeached with his
post-Miranda silence. 
5Luce, 469 US 43-44 (Brennan, J.). 
17  
 
 
                                                 
that the question presented here involves a factual, rather 
than legal, question. It is incorrect. 
The prosecution's threatened use as a confession of 
defendant's post-Miranda affirmative assertion of his right 
to remain silent would violate the Constitution in all but 
extremely limited circumstances. Doyle v Ohio, 426 US 610, 
619 n 11; 96 S Ct 2240; 49 L Ed 2d 91 (1976). 
It is 
important to realize that the exception in Doyle is not as 
broad as the majority's quotation implies. 
Postarrest 
silence can be used to contradict a defendant who testifies 
that he made an exculpatory statement to the police. 
It 
cannot be used to impeach the substance of a defendant's 
testimony. 
Doyle, 426 US 619 n 11. 
See also People v 
Dennis, 464 Mich 567, 573 n 5; 628 NW2d 502 (2001). 
As recognized in People v Bobo,6 the only use of post-
Miranda silence is to contradict a specific assertion that 
a defendant provided a statement to the police. 
Id. at 
359. 
Any remaining validity for the rationale of Luce and 
later evidentiary decisions examining evidentiary rulings, 
such as those involving MRE 403 and MRE 404(b), does not 
apply here. 
6People v Bobo, 390 Mich 355; 212 NW2d 190 (1973). 
18  
 
 
 
The Luce Court opined that a reviewing court's 
weighing of the probative value and prejudicial effect of a 
prior conviction under Rule 609 depends on the nature of 
the defendant’s testimony. No such weighing was necessary 
in this case. 
At the time of the ruling in limine, the 
trial court was not required to determine the extent of 
defendant’s actual testimony. 
It was required merely to 
conclude that the invocation of silence could not be used 
as substantive evidence in the prosecution’s case-in-chief 
or to rebut the substance of defendant’s testimony. 
Moreover, the trial court should have held that 
defendant’s statement was admissible only if defendant took 
the stand and asserted that he made an exculpatory 
statement to the police when arrested. 
Appellate review 
does not depend on knowledge of the exact extent of 
defendant's later trial testimony or a weighing of factors 
such as those present in a Rule 609 analysis. 
Defendant’s Claim of Error is Not Speculative 
Nor do I agree with the majority's determination that 
defendant's 
claim 
of 
error 
is 
"speculative" 
because 
defendant did not testify and his earlier statement was not 
given to the jury. 
That determination ignores the plain 
error present in this case. 
It disregards the chilling 
effect on defendant's decision not to testify and the 
19  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
   
important distinction Michigan recognizes between reviewing 
constitutional 
error 
and 
nonconstitutional 
evidentiary 
error. 
The majority's assertion that "it is impossible to 
determine whether the trial court's ruling was erroneous,"7 
overlooks the content of the ruling that it is reviewing. 
The majority places much emphasis on the fact that the 
admissibility of a defendant's post-Miranda silence depends 
on the context in which the prosecutor sought to admit it. 
Ante at 13. 
The context here, judging from the substance 
of the prosecutor's arguments and the trial court's actual 
ruling, 
confirms 
that 
the 
trial 
court 
admitted 
the 
statement for any and all purposes. 
The ruling was based 
on an entirely flawed view of the scope of the Fifth 
Amendment. It was premised on the erroneous conclusion that 
the challenged statement was not protected by the Fifth 
Amendment: 
[Defendant] agrees that he's going to give a
statement and he starts. 
The law says that you
can't stop in the middle and say, well, now I
want to assert my Fifth Amendment rights. 
You 
don’t have any further Fifth Amendment rights
once you start to give a statement. 
You can’t 
say what you want said and not say anything else. 
7Ante at 18. 
20  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
As previously recognized by our Court, in a situation 
where "a defendant answered several questions and then 
invoked his right to remain silent, Doyle, supra at 618­
619, would prevent the prosecutor from commenting on this 
silence." 
People v McReavy, 436 Mich 197, 219 n 23; 462 
NW2d 1 (1990). 
See also 218-219. 
Such silence includes 
"not only 'muteness; [but] includes the statement of [the 
defendant's] desire to remain silent, as well as of a 
desire to remain silent until an attorney has been 
consulted,'" Id., 218 n 21, citing Wainwright v Greenfield, 
474 US 284, 295, n 13; 106 S Ct 634; 88 L Ed 2d 623 (1986). 
Despite this basic principle, the trial court here did 
not limit in any way the use of defendant's statement. 
It 
did not recognize the specific limitations in Doyle v Ohio,8 
or this Court's majority opinion in People v Dennis, 464 
Mich 567, 573 n 5; 628 NW2d 508 (2001). 
In Dennis, the 
erroneously 
admitted 
evidence 
involved 
inadvertently 
elicited trial testimony about the defendant's refusal to 
submit to a police interview. Id. at 578. 
This Court 
recognized the error in the introduction of the evidence, 
but found the evidence harmless. 
It relied in large part 
on the fact that, because the trial court specifically 
8Supra at 619 n 11. 
21  
 
 
 
 
found error in the admission, it gave a "forceful curative 
instruction" to the jury that the evidence "'cannot be used 
by you in any way and is not an indication of anything.'" 
Id. 
The trial court’s ruling here placed no restriction on 
the prosecution's use of the statement, either during 
direct testimony or in rebuttal. 
The court found simply 
that the Fifth Amendment did not apply at all. 
Not only 
was the trial court's ruling erroneous, the error was 
plain. The problems of “ruling in a vacuum” are simply not 
applicable here. 
The Error is Not Harmless 
The majority's analysis of the error also fails to 
note that the trial court’s ruling was clearly erroneous. 
Moreover, it fails to recognize the important distinction 
between the error in Luce and the error in the instant 
case. The ruling in Luce, upon which the defendant's claim 
of error was predicated, involved a nonconstitutional 
evidentiary issue. 
In Michigan today, it is the defendant who bears the 
burden of demonstrating that a nonconstitutional error 
harmed him by causing him not to testify. People v Lukity, 
460 Mich 484, 495-496; 596 NW2d 607 (1999). If, instead, 
the error were a preserved constitutional one, the burden 
22  
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
would be on the prosecution to "prove beyond a reasonable 
doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to 
the verdict obtained." People v Anderson (After Remand), 
446 Mich 392, 406 n 36; 521 NW2d 538 (1994), quoting 
Chapman v California, 386 US 18, 23; 87 S Ct 824; 17 L Ed 
2d 705 (1967). 
Thus, concerns about the "speculative" effect of an 
erroneous FRE or MRE 609 ruling on a defendant's decision 
not to testify are not present in the instant case. 
The 
effect is presumed to be prejudicial. Indeed, given the 
clear 
error 
in 
the 
trial 
court's 
broad 
ruling 
of 
admissibility, I question the truth of the majority's 
assertion that it cannot determine whether the 
ruling was 
erroneous. 
In 
addition, 
I 
would 
find 
that 
the 
prosecution's choice not to elicit defendant's statement on 
direct examination did not remove from the flawed ruling 
its chilling effect. 
The majority's assertion that the evidence "might not 
have been admitted at all" even if defendant had testified9 
ignores the realities of the trial court's misunderstanding 
about 
the 
limited 
admissibility 
of 
the 
statement. 
Statements made at the hearing in limine demonstrate that 
9Ante at 17. 
23  
 
 
 
the prosecution intended to introduce defendant’s statement 
if he testified about having provided an exculpatory 
statement to the police. 
However, even if he had not, the 
prosecution would have introduced the statement to rebut 
other parts of his testimony. 
The trial court's ruling 
made clear that it would have admitted the statement for an 
improper purpose, because the court was under the mistaken 
impression that the Fifth Amendment did not apply. 
At the time of the decision to testify, defendant was 
faced with an erroneous ruling involving substantive 
evidence of guilt. Unlike the majority, I would not expect 
defendant 
to 
forecast 
that 
the 
court 
would 
have 
a 
revelation about the impropriety of its ruling, especially 
because it immediately predated the trial. 
Nothing in the 
record suggests that such a revelation would occur and, 
given the rationale used by the trial court in making the 
ruling, I find such a result highly unlikely. Whatever 
validity that argument may have in different circumstances, 
it is inapplicable here. 
The Challenge In Limine was Appropriate 
Nor do I find persuasive the majority's assertion that 
a reversal based on the admission of evidence contested in 
limine, but never introduced at trial, will invite abuse. 
This argument fails to recognize that appellate courts will 
24  
 
 
 
review claims of error, even when they are not preserved at 
all. 
People v Carines, 460 Mich 750, 763; 597 NW2d 130 
(1999). 
Moreover it has little merit in the setting where 
claims of constitutional error are raised, and none in the 
instant case. 
A defendant does not abuse the system by seeking 
before trial to suppress evidence obtained in violation of 
his constitutional rights and directly bearing on the 
analysis of guilt. To the contrary, as this Court has 
noted, a contemporaneous objection provides the trial court 
"'an opportunity to correct the error, which could thereby 
obviate the necessity of further legal proceedings and 
would be by far the best time to address a defendant's 
constitutional and nonconstitutional rights.'" Carines, 
supra at 764-765 (citations omitted). 
As recognized by a 
majority of the justices in Finley, preliminary evidentiary 
rulings are valid, important, and logical ways to review 
questions of evidentiary error. Finley, supra at 531 
(Brickley, J.), at 537 (Cavanagh, J.), and at 557-558 
(Levin, J.). 
Conclusion 
The error in this case was preserved by timely 
objection. 
Also, the trial court's specific ruling on the 
motion in limine was erroneous. 
Therefore, defendant's 
25  
 
 
conviction must be reversed unless the prosecution can 
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not 
contribute to the verdict. Anderson (After Remand), supra. 
The prosecution has failed to do this. 
The conviction in this case was dependent almost 
entirely 
on 
the 
testimony 
of 
the 
twelve-year-old 
complainant, about whose honesty the jury obviously had 
doubts. 
Had defendant testified, the case would have been 
a credibility contest. 
But, because of the trial court’s 
erroneous ruling, defendant did not testify. 
Hence, the 
verdict was influenced by the trial court's error. 
The 
prosecution has not shown that the evidence at trial so 
overwhelmingly proved defendant’s guilt that his testimony 
would not have made a difference. 
Therefore, the trial court erred and the prosecution 
cannot show that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable 
doubt. 
I would reverse defendant's conviction and remand 
this case for a new trial. Because of this conclusion, I 
need not review defendant’s additional claim that the trial 
court improperly exceeded the sentencing guidelines for his 
conviction. 
However, I note that the sentence seems to 
have been influenced by the trial court’s view that 
defendant committed first-degree criminal sexual conduct, 
notwithstanding his acquittal of that charge. The issue is 
26  
 
 
 
 
 
hardly frivolous, yet the majority makes no mention of it, 
merely alluding to the lower court’s decisions to justify 
not reaching the matter. 
Marilyn Kelly
Michael F. Cavanagh 
27