Opinion ID: 1061054
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the improper evidence claim

Text: The next issue we address is whether the admission into evidence of the defendant's refusal to submit to the test violated either his due process rights, or his rights, either under the Fifth Amendment to the federal constitution or Article I, § 9 of the Tennessee Constitution, against self-incrimination. We first note that the defendant's arguments under the federal constitution can be rather quickly disposed of. In South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983), the United States Supreme Court addressed precisely the same factual situation and the same arguments; and the Court rejected both contentions. With regard to the due process claim, the Court acknowledged that it had held that a prosecutor could not use a defendant's silence after Miranda warnings were administered to impeach the defendant's testimony at trial. Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). However, it distinguished the State's use of silence in the context of a request for a blood alcohol test  a situation for which Miranda protection is unavailable [4]  from that presented in Doyle , stating that: We do not think it fundamentally unfair for South Dakota to use the refusal to take the test as evidence of guilt, even though respondent was not specifically warned that his refusal could be used against him at trial ... The Miranda warnings emphasize the dangers of choosing to speak (`whatever you say can and will be used as evidence against you in court'), but give no warning of adverse consequences from choosing to remain silent. This imbalance in the delivery of the Miranda warnings, we recognized in Doyle , implicitly assures the suspect that his silence will not be used against him. The warnings challenged here, by contrast, contained no such misleading implicit assurances as to the relative consequences of his choice ... [T]he officers specifically warned respondent that failure to take the test could lead to loss of driving privileges for one year. It is true the officers did not inform respondent of the further consequence that evidence of refusal could be used against him in court, but we think it unrealistic to say that the warnings given here implicitly assure a suspect that no consequences other than those mentioned will occur. Importantly, the warning that he could lose his driver's license made it clear that refusing the test was not a `safe harbor,' free of adverse consequences. While the State did not actually warn respondent that the test results could be used against him, we hold that such a failure to warn was not the sort of implicit promise to forego use of evidence that would unfairly `trick' respondent if the evidence were later offered against him at trial. We therefore conclude that the use of evidence of refusal after these warnings comported with the fundamental fairness required by due process. Neville, 459 U.S. at 565-66, 103 S.Ct. at 923-24. In its rationale as to the Fifth Amendment claim, the Court first noted that Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), clearly established that a State could compel a defendant to submit to a blood alcohol test without violating the Fifth Amendment. The Court then considered a defendant's refusal to take such a test: [T]he values behind the Fifth Amendment [being free of compulsory self-incrimination] are not hindered when the state offers a suspect the choice of submitting to the blood-alcohol test or having his refusal used against him. The simple blood-alcohol test is so safe, painless, and commonplace, that respondent concedes, as he must, that the State could legitimately compel the suspect against his will, to accede to the test. Given, then, that the offer of taking a blood-alcohol test is clearly legitimate, the action becomes no less legitimate when the State offers a second option of refusing the test, with the attendant penalties for making that choice. Nor is this a case where the State has subtly coerced respondent into choosing the option that it had no right to compel, rather than offering a true choice. To the contrary, the State wants respondent to choose to take the test, for the inference of intoxication arising from a positive blood-alcohol test is far stronger than a refusal to take the test. Neville, 459 U.S. at 563, 103 S.Ct. at 922 (emphasis in original). The rules enunciated in Neville have been followed many times by our Court of Criminal Appeals. State v. Morgan, 692 S.W.2d 428 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1985); State v. Wright, 691 S.W.2d 564 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1984); State v. Smith, 681 S.W.2d 569 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1984). Despite this, the defendant argues that the evidence of his refusal should be suppressed because the Tennessee Constitution affords criminal defendants broader protection against self-incrimination than the federal constitution. The defendant cites as support for this assertion the fact that Article I, § 9 of the Tennessee Constitution provides that the accused ... shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself, whereas the Fifth Amendment of the federal constitution provides that no person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. (emphasis added). The defendant admits that the Fifth Amendment has been construed to prohibit statements of only a testimonial or communicative nature, see Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. at 763-64, 86 S.Ct. at 1832, and not real evidence, such as blood, hair samples, and fingerprints. And he admits that Tennessee courts have followed the Schmerber distinction. Nevertheless, he argues that the word evidence in Art. I, § 9 is not limited to statements of a testimonial or communicative nature, but that it means whatever is submitted to the judge or jury to elucidate an issue, to prove a case, or to establish or disprove a fact in issue, State v. Harris, 839 S.W.2d 54, 79 (Tenn. 1993) (Reid, J. dissenting)  including evidence of a refusal to submit to the test. The defendant relies heavily upon the dissent in Harris, 839 S.W.2d at 78-81 (Tenn. 1992) to support his argument. Initially, while we stated in Delk v. State, 590 S.W.2d 435, 440 (Tenn. 1979), that Tennessee's prohibition against self-incrimination is no broader or different than its federal counterpart, it is true that this Court is not bound by the interpretations of the Fifth Amendment by the federal courts, except to the extent that they establish a floor of constitutional protection. Thus, this Court is free to construe Art. I, § 9 more broadly than the Fifth Amendment. The fact that we have this power, however, obviously does not mean that we are compelled to do so; and we have never construed the word evidence in Art. I, § 9 literally, as the defendant urges. Indeed, even Justice Reid's dissent in Harris , which simply suggested the possibility of such a literal interpretation, did not ultimately endorse that position in an unambiguous fashion. Rather, Justice Reid based the dissent on an entirely different ground, arguing that the defendant's refusal to provide a handwriting exemplar violated Art. I, § 9 because the act of giving a handwriting sample was communicative or testimonial in the Schmerber sense. In other words, Justice Reid argued that because the defendant had the choice of either intentionally altering his or her handwriting or providing a true sample, the act of providing a handwriting exemplar thus involved the veracity of the defendant, the heart of testimonial evidence. Harris, 839 S.W.2d at 80. Justice Reid carefully distinguished this type of evidence from real evidence, stating that it is not within the accused's power to change his fingerprints, hair, breath, or blood. Id. (emphasis added). Here, by contrast, the refusal to submit to the test did not involve the defendant's veracity in any way. His refusal of the test was functionally the same as if he had submitted to the test  in neither instance was the defendant forced to choose between participating truthfully or giving false testimony. Thus, the defendant's argument fails under the actual analysis employed by the Harris dissent. In summary, we decline to overrule a long line of Tennessee cases [5] by adopting a literal interpretation of the term evidence; and we formally announce our agreement with the principles enunciated in Neville . Because the refusal of the test did not violate the defendant's right against self-incrimination under Neville , we hereby affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals. ANDERSON, C.J., and BIRCH, J., concur. WHITE, J., Not Participating. REID, J., Dissenting.