Opinion ID: 2753815
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Salinas v. Texas

Text: In February 2013, we placed the case on hold pending the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Salinas v. Texas, which, inter alia, raised a claim regarding the use of pre-arrest silence as substantive evidence. As discussed below, the plurality decision of the High Court in that case did not resolve the issue, but instead affirmed the use of the defendant’s silence in a fractured decision. Salinas v. Texas, __ U.S. __, 133 S.Ct. 2174 (2013). Prior to hearing argument, we allowed the parties to submit supplemental briefing addressing Salinas. Salinas involved a defendant who was interviewed by police regarding a double murder in Houston. At the time of the interview, Salinas had not been arrested nor provided Miranda warnings. Initially, Salinas answered the officer’s questions. However, when the officers inquired whether the shotgun shell casings recovered from the scene would match Salinas’s gun, he “[l]ooked down at the floor, shuffled his feet, bit his bottom lip, cl[e]nched his hands in his lap, [and] began to tighten up.” Id. at 2178 (brackets in original). “After a few moments of silence, the officer asked additional questions, which petitioner answered.” Id. [J-55-2013] - 10 While the High Court had accepted review in Salinas to resolve the split between the lower courts regarding the applicability of the Fifth Amendment to the use of a nontestifying defendant’s precustodial silence as substantive evidence of guilt, it eventually divided on how to resolve the case. Three justices in the lead opinion did not speak to the use of pre-arrest silence as substantive evidence and instead dismissed Salina’s claims because “he did not expressly invoke the privilege against self-incrimination in