Opinion ID: 1265378
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The admissibility of prewarning/postarrest silence under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Text: The question implicating Coleman's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment is whether the admission of prewarning/postarrest silence for impeachment purposes violates Coleman's fundamental right to due process of law, i.e., a fair trial. Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), determined that the use by the prosecutor of a defendant's post- Miranda -warning/postarrest silence constituted a violation of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment based upon an implicit guarantee by the State not to use the defendant's silence to impeach him or her at trial. In the instant case, the issue thus becomes whether the prosecutor, in impeaching Coleman with his prewarning/postarrest silence, has violated Coleman's due process rights based upon an implied guarantee by the State that he would not suffer such impeachment if he elected to testify in his own defense. I conclude that no such implied guarantee exists where, as here, a defendant's silence was not preceded by a Miranda warning. In Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603 (1982), the Court reached the issue of the use of prewarning/postarrest silence in order to impeach a defendant who takes the stand in his own defense. [1] On appeal from the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it was inherently unfair to allow cross-examination regarding postarrest silence. The majority reasoned that a key premise in both Doyle and Jenkins was the unfairness inherent in using government-induced silence for impeachment purposes. Indeed, the Sixth Circuit expanded Doyle, concluding that the arrest alone is governmental action which implicitly induces a defendant to remain silent, thus rendering fundamentally unfair and a violation of due process, references to postarrest silence for impeachment purposes. In reversing the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court in Fletcher stated that [i]n the absence of the sort of affirmative assurances embodied in the Miranda warnings, we do not believe that it violates due process of law for a State to permit cross-examination as to postarrest silence when a defendant chooses to take the stand. Fletcher, 455 U.S. at 607. Impliedly, the Court recognized that only governmental inducement in the form of a Miranda warning would preclude the use of postarrest silence for purposes of impeaching a testifying defendant. I fully agree with this proposition. A general awareness of Miranda -based expressions of rights and warnings is not sufficient to preclude the State from impeaching a testifying defendant by resorting to his or her prewarning/postarrest silence. Miranda warnings are prophylactic measures directed at a specific arrestee. Thus, an individual suspect is given specific assurances by the State concerning rights and warnings that he may implicitly rely upon. Under such circumstances, where a suspect is advised of the right to remain silent and that anything he or she utters may be used against him or her in a court of law, the implicit representation is that invoking the right to silence will not be used against the accused in court. To conclude, however, that a defendant may rely upon Miranda -type information stemming from such nongovernmental sources as movies, the electronic and print media, word of mouth or prior experience with the criminal justice system as a basis for preventing the State from impeaching him or her by using the defendant's prewarning/postarrest silence is untenable. It would attach greater priority and significance to unreliable, unfocused forms of common understanding or misunderstanding unattributable to government action than it would to the State's compelling interest in seeking truth, preventing and discouraging perjury, and facilitating accountability and justice. This I would be unwilling to do. Moreover, the Fletcher Court did not fashion an absolute rule of admissibility of prewarning/postarrest silence in State criminal proceedings. Instead, the Court recognized the right of a State to leave to the judge and jury under its own rules of evidence the resolution of the extent to which postarrest silence may be deemed to impeach a criminal defendant's own testimony. Fletcher, 455 U.S. at 607. Thus, if this court were to embrace the reasoning in Fletcher, a defendant's prewarning/postarrest silence could be used to impeach a defendant who testifies at trial only if the trial judge determined that it would be properly admissible under Nevada's rules of evidence. Such considerations as relevance, probative value vis-a-vis prejudicial effect, and the degree to which the circumstances of the case may render the defendant's silence ambiguous, would enter into the trial court's determination of the admissibility of the defendant's silence. In both Aesoph v. State, 102 Nev. 316, 721 P.2d 379 (1986), and Vipperman v. State, 92 Nev. 213, 547 P.2d 682 (1976), we held that impeachment with post- Miranda silence was a violation of a defendant's due process rights. However, in both cases, we explicitly limited our rulings to situations where Miranda warnings antedated the silence used for purposes of impeachment. In Aesoph, we held that [w]hat is impermissible is the evidentiary use of an individual's exercise of his constitutional rights after the state's assurance [in the Miranda warnings] that the invocation of those rights will not be penalized. Aesoph, 102 Nev. at 321, 721 P.2d at 383 (emphasis supplied). On the same issue, the Vipperman court concluded that [t]o hold otherwise would ... operate unfairly against the accused, who, when informed of his rights, would not suppose that his silence could in any way be used against him. Vipperman, 92 Nev. at 216, 547 P.2d at 684 (emphasis added). For the reasons discussed above, I would conclude that Coleman was not deprived of his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process when the State used his prewarning/postarrest silence for impeachment purposes during cross-examination. Convinced that Coleman's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were not violated, I respectfully dissent from the majority's ruling to the contrary. I do, however, concur in affirming Coleman's judgment of conviction. STEFFEN, C.J., dissented in part.