Opinion ID: 3015564
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fifth Amendment Inquiry

Text: The Superior Court rested its decision on Copenhefer v. Robinson, 719 A.2d 242 (Pa. 1998) which in turn relied to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Robinson, 485 U.S. 25, 31 (1988). In Robinson, the Court held: Where the prosecutor on his own initiative asks the jury to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s silence, Griffin holds that the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is violated. But where as in this case the prosecutor’s reference to the defendant’s opportunity to testify is a fair response to a claim made by defendant or his counsel, we think there is no violation of the privilege. Id. at 32. The Superior Court explained that the prosecutor’s statement in his closing was 9 a response to Beneshunas’s testimony that he never asked for a lawyer and just wanted to tell the police what had happened. (Appellant App. at 94.) Beneshunas argues that the Superior Court erred in two respects. First, Beneshunas claims that the Superior Court decision fails to mention that it was the prosecutor who first elicited testimony regarding Beneshunas’s invocation of his rights. Second, he claims that the prosecutor’s comments went beyond simply impeaching his testimony, but were used as substantive evidence to rebut the claim that the shooting was accidental. (Brief of Appellant at 24.) a. The Prosecutor’s Comments Were Properly Labeled a Response Beneshunas argues that the Superior Court’s decision was based on an unreasonable factual determination because it describes the Prosecutor’s closing argument as a “response” to Beneshunas’s testimony. He points out that it was really the prosecutor who initially elicited testimony from the police chief regarding his request for a lawyer during questioning. As a factual matter, the Superior Court did not err. The prosecutor made his closing statement after all of the evidence had been presented, including Beneshunas’s testimony that he simply wanted to tell the police what happened. In that sense, the prosecutor’s closing remarks were a “response” to Beneshunas’s entire defense, including his testimony. The fact that certain matters first arose during the prosecutor’s case-inchief does not mean that his later reference to the defendant’s theory is not a “response.” 10 Furthermore, if the prosecutor “opened the door,” Beneshunas kicked it down with testimony that went beyond any effort to rebut the statements made by the police chief. His trial strategy was to discredit Reese and demonstrate that he did not form the intent to kill and to that end he testified that he fully cooperated with the police. As the Superior Court explained: Regarding his cooperation with the police, appellant testified at trial on direct examination that “I never asked for a lawyer that night, never at any point.” He contended that when the news of the victim’s death arrived, “I broke down and started to cry and then Chief Reese said ‘Benny, you better not say anything else until you get a lawyer.’ I said okay.” Appellant further asserted, “No, I never asked for a lawyer. He - I didn’t even want a lawyer. I just knew - I knew what happened. I just wanted to tell them what happened.” (Appellant App. at 92) (emphasis added). After the Court sustained an objection by defense counsel to the prosecutor’s line of question, Beneshunas revisited his cooperation with the police in his own testimony. He didn’t just deny that he requested a lawyer, but urged that he wanted to fully cooperate with the police. The Superior Court did not err in labeling the prosecutor’s closing statement a “response.” For these same reasons, the fact that the prosecutor elicited testimony first does not change the legal consequences. The Superior Court found that the prosecutor’s closing argument was a response to the Beneshunas’s testimony that he cooperated with the police and therefore had no intent to kill. It concluded that under relevant Supreme Court precedent this was permissible. That the Superior Court found it irrelevant that the prosecutor first elicited testimony regarding Beneshunas’s invocation of his rights is not 11 contrary to or, an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent. b. The Superior Court’s Decision Regarding the Scope of the Comments Was Not Unreasonable In a more compelling argument, Beneshunas claims the prosecutor’s closing did more than rebut his testimony; it encouraged the jury to infer guilt from his exercise of his right to counsel. (Brief of Appellant at 28.) Specifically, Beneshunas directs our attention to the prosecutor’s statement, “How about that as a factor to get inside the defendant’s mind what he was thinking that night. Let’s look at some other things that I think go to show you the defendant’s specific intent and whether or not he acted with malice that night . . . .” (Appellant App. at 29.) Beneshunas maintains that, taken in context, this can be read as nothing else but proof of state of mind. Although Beneshunas raises a compelling issue, our review of the state court’s decision is severely circumscribed. As stated above, we can only grant a habeas petition if the Superior Court’s decision is contrary to the governing law as set forth by the Supreme Court, different than a decision of the Supreme Court made on materially indistinguishable facts, or an objectively unreasonable application of the correct Supreme Court precedent. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. at 405-09. Accordingly, we turn to the relevant case law. In Robinson, 485 U.S. at 31, the Court declined to “take the view that any ‘direct’ reference by the prosecutor to the failure of the defendant to testify violates the Fifth Amendment as construed in Griffin.” The Court went on to explain: 12 “[The] central purpose of a criminal trial is to decide the factual question of the defendant's guilt or innocence, United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225 (1975) . . . .” Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 681 (1986). To this end it is important that both the defendant and the prosecutor have the opportunity to meet fairly the evidence and arguments of one another. The broad dicta in Griffin to the effect that the Fifth Amendment ‘forbids . . . comment by the prosecution on the accused’s silence,’ 380 U.S., at 615, must be taken in the light of the facts of that case. It is one thing to hold, as we did in Griffin, that the prosecutor may not treat a defendant's exercise of his right to remain silent at trial as substantive evidence of guilt; it is quite another to urge, as defendant does here, that the same reasoning would forbid the prosecutor from fairly responding to an argument of the defendant by adverting to that silence. There may be some ‘cost’ to the defendant in having remained silent in each situation, but we decline to expand Griffin to preclude a fair response by the prosecutor in situations such as the present one. Id. at 33-34. It appears that the Court has not yet settled the question of whether a prosecutor may properly use the defendant’s invocation of his rights as both a rebuttal to a statement by a defendant and substantive evidence of his guilt. Indeed, Justice Marshall raised concerns about this issue in his dissent in Robinson, when he stated: the Court’s suggestion that whether a comment violates Griffin depends on whether it is a response to the defense is muddled. A comment may well be a response to the defense and nevertheless be precisely the kind of statement that our holdings in Griffin and Wilson were designed to eliminate. If, for example, a defendant's counsel argues at trial that the defendant failed to take the stand in order to protect another person, and the prosecution responds that the true explanation is that the defendant is guilty as sin, the prosecution’s comment responds to the defense, but it nevertheless invites the jury to infer guilt from the defendant's decision not to testify. Such a comment violates Griffin under any reasonable interpretation of that case. Id. at 40-41 (footnote omitted). In this case, the defense presented evidence that the defendant cooperated with the 13 police in order to encourage an inference as to his state of mind. The prosecution responded that the evidence did not support the claim that the defendant was completely cooperative with the police, and used this evidence to challenge the inference that the defense attempted to draw. In light of Robinson, we cannot say that the Superior Court was unreasonable in its holding that there was no Fifth Amendment violation. Even if the Superior Court’s decision was unreasonable, this is such a close question that we cannot say that trial counsel was defective. We must make every effort “to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 669. Defense counsel was trying to use his client’s cooperation with the police as evidence of his mental state. At the closing argument stage of the trial, he would have had a difficult time making the case that the prosecutor had to curb his references to the same evidence he sought to use. For the reasons set out above, we affirm the decision of the District Court. 14