Opinion ID: 501762
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did Admission of Deering's Silent Refusal Violate Due Process?

Text: 27 The due process clause prohibits the use against a criminal defendant of silence maintained after receipt of government assurances such as Miranda warnings. Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 407-08, 100 S.Ct. 2180, 2181-82, 65 L.Ed.2d 222 (1980); see also Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 617-19, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2244-45, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976); cf. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 468 n. 37, 86 S.Ct. at 1624-25 n. 37. Deering suggests that admitting evidence of his silent refusal to submit to the breathalyzer test was equivalent to admitting evidence of silence occurring in the course of a post-arrest interrogation; we construe his arguments as a due process claim. 28 Again, in Neville the Supreme Court has held that introduction at a trial for DWI of a defendant's refusal to take a breathalyzer test did not violate due process. Neville, 459 U.S. at 564-66, 103 S.Ct. at 923-24. The Court reasoned that evidence of such a refusal is admissible because a defendant has no legitimate expectation that the refusal will not be used in court. Id. at 565-66, 103 S.Ct. at 923-24. Again, the Court's reasoning is unaltered and equally applicable when the refusal is introduced at a trial for refusal to take a breathalyzer test. It is fanciful to presume that there arises some new expectation by a defendant that his refusal will not be used in court because it may be used to prove different conduct under a separate statute. 29 Furthermore, the fact that Deering refused by silence rather than by speech is of no legal consequence. See Neville, 459 U.S. at 562, 103 S.Ct. at 921-22. It is abundantly clear that Deering's silence was a refusal in this case; he did not, after all is said and done, take a breathalyzer test. His failure to do so is not rendered any more legitimate by cloaking it in the due process protections traditionally afforded a defendant's silence.