Opinion ID: 18497
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Invocation of Right to Counsel

Text: Moreno alleges reversible error in the court’s refusal to grant a mistrial on the basis that the prosecutor improperly elicited testimony on her invocation of her right to counsel. See Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 618-19 (1976) (holding prosecution’s comments on defendant’s post-Miranda silence a constitutional violation). Moreno moved for a mistrial on this basis but the court denied her motions. We review the district court’s refusal to grant a mistrial for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Webster, 162 F.3d 308 345 (5th Cir. 1998); United States v. Willis, 6 F.3d 257, 263 (5th Cir. 1993). The government's use of a defendant's silence during its case-in-chief may constitute a constitutional violation. See United States v. Rodriguez, 43 F.3d 117, 121 (5th Cir. 1995); Chapman v. United States, 547 F.2d 1240, 1245 (5th Cir. 1977); see also Doyle, 426 U.S. at 618-19. If we find an error, we apply the doctrine of harmless constitutional error by reviewing the record to determine whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Carter, 953 F.2d 1449, 1462 (5th Cir. 1992); Chapman, 547 F.2d at 1247-48; see also Chapman v. California, 87 S. Ct. 824, 827-28 (1967) (explaining harmless constitutional error doctrine). We also seek to determine whether the remark was a spontaneous comment by the witness or a comment prompted by the prosecutor. See United States v. Smith, 635 F.2d 411, 413 (5th Cir. 1981); see Chapman, 547 surprise when contraband is discovered; (6) inconsistent statements; (7) implausible explanations; (8) possession of large amounts of cash; and (9) obvious or remarkable alterations to the [container], especially when the defendant has been in possession of [it] for a substantial period of time.” Ortega Reyna, 148 F.3d at 543 (footnotes omitted). 7 F.2d at 1248-50.4 Such an analysis requires us to examine the remarks in context to determine whether a violation has occurred. See Rodriquez, 43 F.3d at 121. At a pre-trial hearing, the court granted Moreno's motion to suppress the request for counsel at the end of the airport interrogation. The government was admonished not to elicit testimony about her request. During the prosecution's direct examination of Coffman, Coffman explained how the drugs were found and recounted his conversation with Moreno: A. After we talked about her luggage that was going to be given to her cousin, we went back into the little detention room and I explained to her that we knew there was cocaine in the briefcase as well. Q. And what did she say? A. She indicated that she wanted an attorney. While Coffman could comment on the fact that Moreno attributed ownership to Nicholas, he was expressly prohibited from mentioning Moreno’s invocation of her right to counsel. Defense counsel immediately requested a sidebar. During this conference at the bench, the prosecutor explained that she had anticipated a reference to Nicholas in response to her question. She acknowledged that Coffman was present at the suppression or pre-trial hearing but admitted that she did not inform him 4 The issue of prosecutors eliciting testimony pertaining to a defendant’s post arrest silence is not novel. In United States v. Impson, 531 F.2d 274, 275 (5th Cir. 1976), the prosecutor specifically asked a witness about the defendant’s post-arrest silence. The court found that the elicitation had an “intolerably prejudicial impact[,]” reversed the case, and remanded for a new trial. Impson, 531 F.2d at 279. Later, in United States v. Sklaroff, 552 F.2d 1156, 1161 (5th Cir. 1977), a witness spontaneously commented on the defendant’s silence. The court found that the comment was harmless because the expression of silence could not contradict the defendant’s exculpatory defense since the defendant did not offer any exculpatory explanation. See Sklaroff, 552 F.2d at 1162. However, we have permitted the introduction of such evidence after finding that it was pertinent to the defendant’s defense. See United States v. Johnson, 558 F.2d 1225, 1230 (5th Cir. 1977) (finding no error where the prosecutor elicited four separate comments on the defendant’s post-arrest statements concerning her wish to remain silent because it went to the heart of the sole defense, encouraging the jury to believe that the defense was fabricated after arrest). We have permitted the introduction of such testimony in another instance. See United States v. Whitaker, 592 F.2d 826, 830 (5th Cir. 1979). In Whitaker, the prosecutor inadvertently caused a witness to comment on a defendant’s silence. The court found that the prosecutor intended the witness to comment on actual statements made by the defendant and not on the defendant’s silence. Whitaker, 592 F.2d at 830. The court found that the remark was harmless because the witness’s testimony was a misstatement on the defendant’s silence; cautionary instructions were given; and the prosecutor did not “highlight” or “focus on” the remark in any way. See id. at 830-31. 8 of the court’s order. At the end of the government's case, Moreno pressed her motion for mistrial. After further discussions with the parties and Coffman, the court denied the motion. Agent Coffman’s remark calls for no construction; the violation of Moreno’s constitutional right is clear. By stating that Moreno requested counsel immediately after she was informed that the briefcase contained cocaine, Coffman raised the inference that she was caught in a lie rather than her explanation that there had been a misunderstanding concerning ownership of the briefcase. Moreover, we cannot excuse the conduct because, unlike the classic Doyle situation where the silence is used to impeach the defendant on cross-examination, it arose here on direct. The substantive use of such evidence also is prohibited. See Whitaker, 592 F.2d at 830 (5th Cir. 1979); Johnson, 558 F.2d at 1226-27; Chapman, 547 F.2d at 1244. Indeed, the substantive use of a defendant's invocation of counsel or silence before the defendant has the opportunity to offer her exculpatory story places her in an untenable position. “[I]f [s]he [does] not take the stand, an inference of guilt by the jury [is] a possible inference; if [s]he [does] take the stand, [her] credibility [will] already be in question and the jury might simply discount as fabricated a story the defendant neglected to tell the police on the scene.” Chapman, 547 F.2d at 1243 n.5 (explaining United States v. Impson, 531 F.2d 274, 279 (5th Cir. 1976)). Doyle governs where the “comments are ‘designed to draw meaning from silence.’” Pitts, 122 F.3d at 280 (quoting Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 409 (1980) (per curiam)). That was the case here. The timing of the question and answer regarding her silence, specifically related to her exculpatory story and challenged Moreno's credibility. Its natural consequence, if not purpose, was “to rebut the defense of no knowledge” by calling into question her account. See Johnson, 558 F.2d at 1229. Finally, the government emphasizes the minimal nature of the answer and the court's response, arguing it does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation. The government quotes from Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756 (1987), where the Supreme Court found no Doyle violation because: the court explicitly sustained an objection to the only question that touched upon Miller's [the defendant's] post-arrest silence. No further questioning or argument with respect to Miller's silence occurred, and the court specifically advised the jury that it should disregard any quest ions to which an objection was sustained. Unlike the 9 prosecutor in Doyle, the prosecutor in this case was not allowed to under take impeachment on, or permit[ted] . . . to call attention to, Miller's silence. The fact of Miller's post-arrest silence was not submitted to the jury as evidence from which it was allowed to draw any permissible inference, and thus no Doyle violation occurred in this case. Id. at 764 (internal citations and quotations omitted). The Court went on to hold that “the sequence of events at the trial, beginning with the single comment—but including particularly the proper and immediate action by the trial court, and the failure of defense counsel to request more specific instructions—indicates that Miller's post-arrest silence was not used against him within the meaning of Doyle.” Id. at 764 n.5. We recognize that this case also involves a single comment and that the court both sustained an objection and instructed the jury to disregard the answer. The prosecutor also made no further reference to it. Yet Greer does not control the outcome here. First, a single comment may constitute a Doyle violation, and Greer does not hold otherwise. See id. (rebutting dissent's contention that the Court held “a single comment cannot be sufficient to constitute a Doyle violation”); id. at 770 (Brennan, Blackmun and Marshall, JJ., dissenting). Indeed, the Court held that the lack of a violation stemmed from “the sequence of events,” id., a collocation of events taken together. The sequence here, although similar, is not the same. Second, we have interpreted Greer as limited to situations in which no answer is given to the improper question. See Carter, 953 F.2d at 1466 (interpreting Greer as holding “that an objection which was interposed before an improper question about post-arrest silence could be answered, and which was followed by an instruction to the jury to ignore the question, sufficed to prevent a Doyle violation from occurring). Here the prosecutor's question was in fact answered. Finally, a sust ained objection followed by a curative instruction is not a panacea. It may militate against finding a constitutional violation, see Greer, 483 U.S. at 764, or become central to the harmless error analysis. See Carter, 953 F.2d at 1466 (explaining impact of Greer respecting instructions as “at least effective to prevent the prosecutorial misconduct . . . from rendering the trial fundamentally unfair” and including instruction in plain error analysis for harm). But they do not 10 automatically mean no violation has occurred. See id. Here, the court sustained the objection and instructed the jury to disregard the answer. However, we must consider the effect of the answer. The answer necessarily used Moreno's invocation of counsel and subsequent silence to imply that her claim of an exculpatory story lacked credibility. Moreover, when considered in context, the error appears intentional. For these reasons, we find a constitutional violation. Our analysis, however, does not conclude here; we must determine whether the constitutional error was harmless. An error is harmless only if we can determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the improper testimony did not contribute to the jury's verdict. See Chapman, 386 U.S. at 26. In Chapman, we classified Doyle violations into three categories for purposes of harmless error review: When the prosecution uses defendant's post-arrest silence to impeach an exculpatory story offered by defendant at trial and the prosecution directly links the implausibility of the exculpatory story to the defendant's ostensibly inconsistent act of remaining silent, reversible error results even if the story is transparently frivolous. When the prosecutor does not directly tie the fact of defendant's silence to his exculpatory story, i.e., when the prosecutor elicits that fact on direct examination and refrains from commenting on it or adverting to it again, and the jury is never told that such silence can be used for impeachment purposes, reversible error results if the exculpatory story is not totally implausible or the indicia of guilt not overwhelming. When there is but a single reference at trial to the fact of defendant's silence, the reference is neither repeated nor linked with defendant's exculpatory story, and the exculpatory story is transparently frivolous and evidence of guilt is otherwise overwhelming, the reference to defendant's silence constitutes harmless error. Chapman, 547 F.2d at 1249-50. This first category includes Doyle violations that explicitly or repeatedly link the silence to the exculpatory story; these are harmful per se, affecting the fundamental fairness of the trial, and require reversal. See, e.g., McDonald, 620 F.2d at 563. We held in Carter that sustained objections with curative instructions prevent the violation from falling into this category that automatically requires reversal. See Carter, 953 F.2d at 1466. The latter two categories do not present “rigid rules but instead are guidelines to help a court examine a Doyle violation.” United States v. Cardenas-Alvarado, 806 F.2d 566, 572 (5th Cir. 1986) (citing Alderman v. Austin, 695 F.2d 124, 126 n.7 (5th Cir. 1983) (en banc)). 11 We agree with the go vernment and find that the comment falls within the last of the three Doyle categories. The facts of this case present one of overwhelming guilt inasmuch as Moreno offered inconsistent and implausible explanations for the drugs found in the luggage she was transporting.5 Comparatively, the reference was minor especially since the district court took immediate corrective action and effectively precluded any further references. Notwithstanding the reference, the evidence in this case supports Moreno’s conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. We are satisfied that the reference did not prejudice the jury’s deliberations. The court directed the jury to disregard the reference. We presume the jury followed those instructions. See U.S. v. Johnston, 127 F.3d 380, 393 (5th Cir. 1997). Although we find a constitutional error, such error was harmless; therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a mistrial.