Opinion ID: 1440035
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Give Adverse Inference Instruction

Text: Defendant did not testify during the guilt phase of the trial. Accordingly, at Defendant's request, when the issue of guilt was submitted, the jury was instructed in accordance with MAI Cr3d 308.14 that No presumption of guilt may be raised and no inference of any kind may be drawn from the fact that the defendant did not testify. Defendant was found guilty of all counts, and the penalty phase trial began. Defendant again chose not to testify and offered Instruction G. It informed the jury that it could not draw an adverse inference as to punishment from his failure to testify in the penalty phase. The State objected to the wording of the Instruction and Defendant modified it so that it was identical with the one given in the guilt phase except that it substituted the words as to punishment for the words of guilt: Under the law, the defendant has the right not to testify. No presumption as to punishment and no inference of any kind may be drawn from the fact that the defendant did not testify. (emphasis added). [8] The State opposed both instructions, arguing that the giving of the guilt phase instruction was enough. Defendant persisted, however, arguing: the instruction as it's given in the guilt phase does not include whether they can consider Mr. Mayes' continued right to silence in the punishment phase and that's the reason for adding thisrequesting this be added. He further pointed out that Note on Use 4 to MAI-CR3d 313.30A specifically permits submission of a penalty phase instruction based on MAI CR3d 308.14 directing the jury not to draw an adverse inference from defendant's failure to testify. [9] The court refused both no-adverse-inference instructions. The State now concedes this ruling was error under settled law of both this Court and of the United States Supreme Court. The privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, states that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. U.S. Const. amend. V. Missouri's constitution has a similar provision. Mo. Const. art. I, sec. 19. The privilege against self-incrimination assumes a special place in our criminal justice system, not least because it is the only constitutionally based privilege. See Maness v. Meyers, 419 U.S. 449, 461 n. 8, 95 S.Ct. 584, 42 L.Ed.2d 574 (1975). Its purpose was explained by the Supreme Court over 100 years ago: It is not every one who can safely venture on the witness stand though entirely innocent of the charge against him. Excessive timidity, nervousness when facing others and attempting to explain transactions of a suspicious character, and offences charged against him, will often confuse and embarrass him to such a degree as to increase rather than remove prejudices against him. It is not every one, however honest, who would, therefore, willingly be placed on the witness stand. Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60, 66, 13 S.Ct. 765, 37 L.Ed. 650 (1893). Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), applied these principles in a case in which the jury was told it was free to consider a defendant's silence in deciding guilt. The Court found that such a comment violated the Fifth Amendment, by solemniz[ing] the silence of the accused into evidence against him, so that it unconstitutionally cuts down on the privilege [against self-incrimination] by making its assertion costly. Id. at 614, 85 S.Ct. 1229. Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288, 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241 (1981), even more explicitly recognized that the constitutional privilege gives a criminally accused person two complementary fundamental rights: the right to remain silent and the right not to have an adverse inference drawn from his or her exercise of the privilege. To protect these rights, the Court held not only that no comment could be made, but also that a no-adverse-inference instruction must be given if requested. Id. at 300, 101 S.Ct. 1112. It reasoned that, while courts could not prevent jurors from speculating about why a defendant stands mute in the face of a criminal accusation, courts must use the powerful tool of jury instructions to reduce such speculation, Id. at 303, 101 S.Ct. 1112, for: [j]ust as adverse comment on a defendant's silence `cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly,' .... the failure to limit the jurors' speculation on the meaning of that silence, when the defendant makes a timely request that a prophylactic instruction be given, exacts an impermissible toll on the full and free exercise of the privilege. Id. at 305, 450 U.S. 288, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241. Missouri adopted and applied these principles to the failure to give a no-adverse-inference instruction in the penalty phase of a capital murder trial in State v. Storey, 986 S.W.2d 462 (Mo. banc 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 895, 120 S.Ct. 226, 145 L.Ed.2d 189 (1999), a case handed down over one year before the trial of this case. Mr. Storey had testified in the guilt phase but not in the penalty phase of his trial and requested a modified no-adverse-inference instruction for the penalty phase. Id. at 463. The trial court refused the instruction. Id. On appeal, the State conceded error in failing to give the requested instruction, but it argued that the failure was harmless and any prejudice caused by it was purely speculative. Id. at 465. Applying the harmless error analysis of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), Storey found the error was not harmless and the prejudice caused by failing to give the instruction was not purely speculative because it could have affected the jury's decision to impose the death penalty. 986 S.W.2d at 465. The State recognizes that the Storey analysis governs here, but argues that, in contrast to Storey , it has met its burden of showing that the failure to give this instruction was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Bucklew, 973 S.W.2d 83, 91 (Mo. banc 1998). In fact, the State goes so far as to contend that an error in failing to give an adverse inference instruction, although of constitutional dimensions, is virtually always harmless, and that the absence of the no-adverse-inference instructioneven if requestedshould almost never require reversal. In support, the State notes that Missouri allows a defendant to choose whether to request the no-adverse-inference instruction. Therefore, if it is up to a defendant to decide whether to request the instruction, then the instruction must be considered optional, and failure to give an optional instruction cannot, logically, be prejudicial. The State's argument proves too much. Under the State's analysis, the instruction would have been optional in Storey also, and this Court would not have found the failure to give it prejudicial. Moreover, other instructions in Missouri are not required to be given if not requested by a defendant, such as an instruction on a lesser-included offense. Yet, the failure to give such an instruction when requested is reversible error if the instruction is supported by the evidence. [10] To argue that the failure to such an instruction is harmless on particular facts is appropriate; to suggest that it is optional denigrates this basic and fundamental constitutional right. In fact, Storey concluded that the failure to instruct the jury was even more likely to be harmful than a prosecutor's direct comment on that silence, because in the absence of the instruction, `the inferences drawn by the jury [from silence] may be unfairly broad.' Storey, 986 S.W.2d at 465, quoting, Carter, 450 U.S. at 301 n. 17, 101 S.Ct. 1112. While, in Carter, the United States Supreme Court was ultimately not required to resolve the issue of how to determine when this type of error requires reversal, it noted that it is arguable that a refusal to give an instruction similar to the one that was requested here can never be harmless..... Carter, 450 U.S. at 304, 101 S.Ct. 1112. The State also tries to distinguish Storey on the basis that, in Storey , the jury only found one aggravator but here the jury found multiple aggravators. The State suggests that, given the strength of its case, a no-adverse-inference instruction was not likely to have had a persuasive effect on the jury. But, while the strength of the State's case can be an important factor in determining whether an error is harmless, it cannot be the deciding factor in determining whether the failure to give a no-adverse-inference instruction was harmless in the penalty phase of a capital murder trial. In Missouri, the evaluation of the aggravating and the mitigating evidence offered during the penalty phase is more complicated than a determination of which side proves the most statutory factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Storey, 986 S.W.2d at 464, quoting, State v. Johnson, 968 S.W.2d 686, 701 (Mo. banc 1998). Because Missouri is not a balancing state, the jury has discretion to assess life imprisonment even if mitigating factors do not outweigh aggravating factors. Storey, 986 S.W.2d at 464. [U]nder no circumstance must the jury impose a sentence of death. Id. Therefore, the prejudice against a defendant who invokes the privilegeprejudice which is `inescapably impressed on the jury's consciousness'is not purely speculative as the State suggests. Storey, 986 S.W.2d at 464-65, quoting, Carter, 450 U.S. at 301 n. 18, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241. [11] Another basis on which the State tries to distinguish Storey is that the Storey jury never received any adverse inference instruction at all, whereas here, the jury was given an adverse inference instruction at the close of the guilt phase of the trial. But, due to the wording of the instruction given in the guilt phase of the trial, this discrepancy actually may have added to the prejudice of failing to give an adverse inference instruction at the end of the penalty phase. The guilt phase no-adverse-inference instruction stated: Under the law, the defendant has the right not to testify. No presumption of guilt may be raised and no inference of any kind may be drawn from the fact that the defendant did not testify. (emphasis added). This instruction told the jury only that no presumption arose as to guilt from Defendant's failure to testify. As Defendant specifically pointed out, it did not say that no presumption as to punishment, or no presumption at all, could be drawn from his failure to testify. The Court rejects the State's argument that the jury would know to apply this guilt phase instruction to the penalty phase anyway. As noted by Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172, 117 S.Ct. 644, 136 L.Ed.2d 574 (1996): The fact that juries have expectations as to what evidence ought to be presented by a party, and may well hold the absence of that evidence against the party, is also recognized in the case law of the Fifth Amendment, which explicitly supposes that, despite the venerable history of the privilege against self-incrimination, jurors may not recall that someone accused of crime need not explain the evidence or avow innocence beyond making his plea .... The assumption that jurors may have contrary expectations and be moved to draw adverse inferences against the party who disappoints them undergirds the rule that a defendant can demand an instruction forbidding the jury from drawing such an inference. 519 U.S. at 189 n. 9, 117 S.Ct 644 (emphasis added). The danger that the jury considered Defendant's failure to testify during the penalty phase was certainly present here. Indeed, the other penalty phase instructions may have specifically led the jury to believe that it could not consider the guilt phase no-adverse-inference-instruction in the penalty phase trial, for the first instruction given to the jurors in the penalty phase told them: The law applicable to this stage of the trial is stated in these instructions and Instructions No. 1 and 2 which the Court read to you during the first stage of the trial. All of these instructions will be given to you to take to your jury room for use during your deliberations on punishment. (emphasis added). From the outset, then, the jury was advised that the penalty stage was different than the first stage of the trial and that only Instructions No. 1 and 2 from the guilt phase were applicable in the penalty phase. [12] The rest of the instructions for the penalty phase, the judge told the jury, were those he was then giving them. While this instruction was an accurate statement of the law, the court's failure to then give the jury a no-adverse-inference instruction in the penalty phase opened the door for the jury to consider Defendant's silence in the penalty phase. The jury was specifically instructed that the instructions it was then given were the only instructions it had an obligation to follow in fixing punishment. Accordingly, the jury had no reason to believe that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applied. The absence of a no-adverse-inference instruction was highlighted by the fact that the court did repeat several other guilt phase instructions in the penalty phase regarding issues such as whether the argument of counsel is evidence. Finally, the State contends that the court repeatedly advised the jury that it could consider all the evidence in deciding punishment. Again, this is certainly correct, but this repeated admonition in the absence of an instruction that explicitly removed Defendant's silence from being treated as part of all the evidence, and in addition to the court's admonition that only the instructions it was then giving them and Instructions 1 and 2 from the first phase of the trial were applicable, may well have permitted the jurors to conclude that they affirmatively could consider Defendant's silence in determining his punishment. Nothing prevented them from doing otherwise. [13] For these reasons, the State has failed to meet its burden of proving that the omission of a no-adverse-inference instruction in the penalty phase was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.