Opinion ID: 2972795
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of Mackey’s Post-Arrest Silence

Text: Next, Mackey claims that the prosecution’s repeated references to Mackey’s post-arrest silence during cross-examination and closing argument violated his due process rights. Explaining that the Miranda warning of a right to remain silent implied that such silence would not be used against a defendant, the Supreme Court in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 619 (1976), held that prosecutors may not refer, for impeachment purposes, to a defendant’s post-Miranda silence. While Doyle does not apply to the use of such silence as to prior inconsistent statements, see Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 408 (1980), no such use was made in Mackey’s case, nor is any alleged by the State. Outside of this exception, no court has found any other valid reason for allowing the government to use a defendant’s silence to impeach him. However, once having found a Doyle -8- No. 02-4237 Mackey v. Russell violation, we may not order a retrial (or grant a writ of habeas corpus) without a determination that the violation substantially affected the outcome of the trial. See, e.g., Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993) (holding that, to require reversal, the error must have had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.”). In criminal cases, where “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the standard for conviction, however, “if one cannot say, with fair assurance, . . . that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error, it is impossible to conclude that substantial rights were not affected.” Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946). Mackey contends that, under Doyle, the prosecution’s repetitive discussion of the fact that he did not mention his defense of self-defense between the time of his arrest and the time of his trial was both improper and a violation of his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. During the prosecution’s cross-examination of Mackey, just after Mackey testified that his lawyer told him not to say anything to the police when turning himself in, the following exchange occurred: Q: And you have never given your side of the story since April 14th or 15th, until today in court, September 15th, 1998? A: Is it the 15th? Q: So five months have gone by since these events occurred, is that fair to say? A: Yes, sir. Q: And that five months is the first time you have given your version of what happened in front of the Office Lounge, right? A: I beg your pardon. Q: This is the first time you have given your version as to what happened in the Office Lounge to any type of authority? -9- No. 02-4237 Mackey v. Russell A: [Y]es, this is the first time. Q: And you maintained, though, that from the day it happened, it was strictly selfdefense, correct? A: Yes, sir. Later, in closing, the prosecution made the following statement: [Mackey] claims that David Smith went for his gun. He’s the defendant in this case. He’s charged with a crime. So I anticipate that’s what his testimony is going to be, although it took five months for him to so indicate. (emphasis added). Several minutes later, the prosecutor added: There’s no voluntariness here. We hear his version. He was arrested April 15th. The first time any official version of what happened was when Maurice Mackey took the witness stand and gave his accounts of some five months later. I find it a little peculiar, you are alleging self-defense, it takes you five months to so indicate. (emphasis added). No objection was made to any of these statements by trial counsel, nor did the trial judge instruct the jury in any way as to these statements. There can be little question that such direct references to Mackey’s post-Miranda silence are clear violations of the standard elucidated in Doyle. See, e.g., Gravley v. Mills, 87 F.3d 779, 787–88 (6th Cir. 1996) (citing similar references as Doyle violations). However, it does not appear that the Doyle error, considered alone, significantly affected the outcome of Mackey’s case. True, Mackey’s case involves significantly less evidence, and a significantly more believable defense, than did the case in Gravley, where a panel of this Court found that Doyle error required retrial. Id. One would expect verdicts in closer cases (such as Mackey’s) to be more easily affected by Doyle errors. However, in his closing, Luskin, despite not - 10 - No. 02-4237 Mackey v. Russell objecting to the prosecution’s mention of Mackey’s silence, significantly diminished the chance that the jury used the prosecution’s repeated mentions of Mackey’s silence against Mackey: If an individual, whoever that individual is, you, I, Mr. Kellon, Judge McGinty, anyone has an inalienable right, a constitutional right to talk to their attorney. Ladies and gentlemen, no individual can disparage an individual because they wanted to talk to their attorney before they talk to the government. And if that attorney says to them, “He does not wish to make any type of statement,” be it self-incriminating or not, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. And Mr. Rubin advised his client, Maurice Mackey, “Maurice does not want to make a statement,” and that is a right that Mr. Mackey exercised on the advice of his counsel. So [if] it took five months to hear Maurice Mackey’s story, then you blame it on Irl Rubin and blame it on John Luskin, because that’s what we advised him to do. It is, of course, not inconceivable that a juror could have disbelieved this statement, but the right to an attorney and the right to remain silent are commonly known to society at large. Given both the common popular knowledge of the right to remain silent and to the advice of an attorney, and given Mackey’s counsel’s statement on closing that substantially mitigated the adverse effects of the Doyle violation, we can say with fair assurances that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the Doyle error in this case, when considering that error by itself. Therefore, the state courts’ determination that the prosecution’s Doyle references, when considered alone, do not rise to the level required to issue a writ of habeas corpus was not unreasonable.