Opinion ID: 202609
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Was the Appeals Court's Decision An Unreasonable Application of Federal Law?

Text: 25 Federal courts may grant habeas relief to state prisoners who can show that the state court decision in their case involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). As with the contrary to provision, we start with the Supreme Court's explanation of this statutory language. In Williams, the Supreme Court held that a federal habeas court making the `unreasonable application' inquiry should ask whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable. 529 U.S. at 409, 120 S.Ct. 1495. The Court continued by noting that the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law. Id. at 410, 120 S.Ct. 1495. See also McCambridge v. Hall, 303 F.3d 24 (1st Cir.2002). 26 The Massachusetts Appeals Court found that no Doyle violation occurred. In Greer, the Supreme Court explained that the hallmark of a Doyle violation is the use of the defendant's post- Miranda silence against him, especially where the prosecution is allowed to `call attention to [the defendant's] silence.' 483 U.S. at 763, 107 S.Ct. 3102 (quoting Doyle, 426 U.S. at 619, 96 S.Ct. 2240). The Court went on to say that it was significant that in each of the cases in which this Court has applied Doyle, the trial court has permitted specific inquiry or argument respecting the defendant's post- Miranda silence. Id. at 764, 107 S.Ct. 3102. This language suggests that in order to establish the existence of a Doyle violation, the defendant must show that the prosecution used the defendant's post- Miranda silence against him by asking questions, eliciting testimony, or making a statement or argument that invites or encourages the jury to infer guilt (or sanity, as the case may be) from the defendant's silence. The Court's decision in Greer, finding that no Doyle violation occurred, hinged on two key facts: the prosecutor was not permitted to call attention to the defendant's silence (because the defendant's objection to the prosecution's question was promptly sustained and no further mention was made) and no evidence of that silence was submitted to the jury. Id. at 764-65, 107 S.Ct. 3102. 27 This case easily falls within the scope of the reasoning in Greer. As in that case, the court here sustained the first and only objection raising the Doyle issue after Ouellet's testimony that Ellen chose to remain silent; no further references were made to Ellen's silence; and no evidence of that silence was permitted to go to the jury. Although Ellen accurately observes that the prosecutor in his case asked Officer Ouellet a long series of questions regarding the Miranda warnings, there was no reference in that colloquy to Ellen's choice to remain silent until the end of the inquiry when Ouellet testified, arguably non-responsively, to a vague and open-ended question by the prosecutor. 7 At no point did the prosecutor directly ask the officer about Ellen's post-warning silence; in fact, the prosecutor's question asked what the officer himself did or said after the Miranda process, not what Ellen did or said. Therefore, the prosecutor in this case did not make specific inquiry about Ellen's silence, or argue to the jury that his silence should be interpreted as evidence of guilt. 28 Additionally, the lengthy curative instruction in this case explained to the jurors that no adverse inferences could be drawn from Ellen's silence and that Officer Ouellet's testimony on that point was improper and ought not be given any weight. The court further told the jury that it was striking Officer Ouellet's answer. See supra note 2. In Greer, the judge did not give a curative instruction beyond telling the jurors that the offensive question should be disregarded, perhaps because the prosecutor's accusatory question to the defendant about his silence was objected to and stricken before any answer could be given. Seizing on this distinction, Ellen claims that the instruction at his trial served to compound the error of Ouellet's disclosure of his post-warning silence by calling the jurors' attention to it. However, the Supreme Court noted in Greer that courts should normally presume that a jury will follow an instruction to disregard inadmissible evidence inadvertently presented to it. 483 U.S. at 766, 107 S.Ct. 3102 n. 8. On the facts here — a singular reference to the defendant's silence in an arguably non-responsive answer, the presumption of jury adherence to an instruction from the court supports the conclusion that the state court's application of clearly established federal law was not unreasonable. 29 We emphasize, however, that a curative instruction will not always offset an improper reference to a defendant's post- Miranda silence contained in a question from the prosecution or a statement to the jury, or elicited in testimony by a prosecutor's question. 8 See, e.g., United States v. Moreno, 185 F.3d 465, 474 (5th Cir.1999) ([A] sustained objection followed by a curative instruction is not a panacea. It may militate against finding a constitutional violation, or become central to the harmless error analysis. But they do not automatically mean no violation has occurred. (citations omitted)). A prosecutor's persistence in referring to the defendant's post- Miranda silence or a trial judge's failure to provide adequate curative instructions may result in a Doyle violation even when no evidence of the defendant's silence is submitted to the jury. This violation issue will, of course, depend on the particular facts of a given case, and will require a case-by-case analysis. See, e.g., Hill v. Turpin, 135 F.3d 1411, 1413-16 (11th Cir. 1998) (finding a Doyle violation where prosecutor repeatedly inquired about and reminded the jury that the defendant remained silent after receiving Miranda warnings, despite the trial judge's repeated instructions to the jury to disregard that fact); United States v. Kallin, 50 F.3d 689, 693-95 (9th Cir.1995) (finding a Doyle violation, notwithstanding the judge's instruction that the jury disregard any evidence of the defendant's silence, because the instruction was too delayed and unduly emphasized the erroneous testimony). 30 Here, however, we have none of the concerns reflected in these cases. Ellen's post- Miranda silence was not mentioned, by either the prosecutor or a witness, after the judge sustained the objection to Officer Ouellet's testimony. The prosecutor's questions to the officer did not, on their face, call for testimony in violation of Doyle. The judge's instructions were given promptly and were proportional to the testimony given by Officer Ouellet. This case falls squarely within the parameters of Greer. The decision of the Massachusetts Appeals Court that no Doyle violation occurred was not an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. 31 Affirmed.