Opinion ID: 502739
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prearrest, Post-Miranda Silence

Text: 18 Both the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the district court held that Detective Geigel's three references to Mr. Fencl's silence during the 7:00 p.m. meeting, after he had been given Miranda warnings, violated his due process rights. 4 Mr. Fencl renews that argument here. The respondent contends that the references to Mr. Fencl's silence at trial were used primarily to establish the historical sequence of events.... The probative value of such evidence in a case where the petitioner did not testify, and where he gave exculpatory stories both before and after the 'silence ' is so low as to have virtually no impact on the outcome. Respondent's Br. at 28-29. 5 We agree with both the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the district court that Mr. Fencl's due process rights were violated by the government's use of his prearrest, post-Miranda silence. 19 In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), the Supreme Court held that the prosecution could not use a defendant's postarrest silence to impeach an exculpatory story told for the first time at trial. Id. at 611, 96 S.Ct. at 2241. The Court stated that referring to the defendant's silence after he has been given Miranda warnings violates his due process rights. The rationale for this decision is that: 20 Silence in the wake of these warnings may be nothing more than the arrestee's exercise of these Miranda rights. Thus, every post-arrest silence is insolubly ambiguous because of what the State is required to advise the person arrested. Moreover, while it is true that the Miranda warnings contain no express assurance that silence will carry no penalty, such assurance is implicit to any person who receives the warnings. In such circumstances, it would be fundamentally unfair and a deprivation of due process to allow the arrested person's silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial. 21 Id. at 617-18, 96 S.Ct. at 2244-45 (footnotes and citation omitted). 22 The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed Doyle 's reasoning in Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986), in a case where, like the one now before us, the reference to post-Miranda silence was introduced in the government's case-in-chief. In Wainwright, the Court held that the prosecution's introduction of the defendant's silence after receiving Miranda warnings as evidence of his sanity violated the due process clause. Id. at 295, 106 S.Ct. at 641. The Court stated that Doyle and subsequent cases have ... made clear that breaching the implied assurance of the Miranda warnings is an affront to the fundamental fairness that the Due Process Clause requires. Id. at 291, 106 S.Ct. at 639; see also Dean v. Young, 777 F.2d at 1241; United States v. Shue, 766 F.2d 1122, 1128 (7th Cir.1985); United States v. Caro, 637 F.2d 869, 874-75 (2d Cir.1981). 23 Even more recently, in Greer v. Miller, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 3102, 97 L.Ed.2d 618 (1987), the Court clarified that the holding of Doyle is that the Due Process Clause bars 'the use for impeachment purposes' of a defendant's postarrest silence. Id., 107 S.Ct. at 3108 (quoting Doyle, 426 U.S. at 619, 96 S.Ct. at 2245) (emphasis in original). Thus, in Greer, where the trial court sustained an objection to the only question involving the defendant's postarrest silence, the Court held that no Doyle violation occurred because the defendant's postarrest silence was not submitted to the jury as evidence from which it was allowed to draw any permissible inference. Id. Therefore, we conclude, in accordance with precedent of the Supreme Court and of this court, that the repeated references to the petitioner's post- Miranda silence during the government's case-in-chief violated the due process clause.