Court Opinion

ID: 9750402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:56:37.653576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:09.229360
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, P. J.
I concur with my colleagues’ affirmance of the judgment entered against the defendant. However, I disagree with their rationale. In my view, the fact that the defendant first introduced evidence concerning his choice not to speak to the police after being informed of his Miranda *373(Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 [16 L.Ed.2d 694, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 10 A.L.R.3d 974]) rights makes a Doyle (Doyle v. Ohio (1976) 426 U.S. 610 [49 L.Ed.2d 91, 96 S.Ct. 2240]) analysis unnecessary. Moreover, even if Doyle were relevant to our inquiry, I do not believe that the facts of this case constitute a Doyle violation.
In Doyle, two defendants (Doyle and Wood) were convicted in separate state trials of selling marijuana to an informant. At their trials, Doyle and Wood had told “not entirely implausible” exculpatory stories, and little “direct evidence” was introduced to contradict them. (Doyle v. Ohio, supra, 426 U.S. at p. 613 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 95].) The prosecutor was permitted, over repeated defense objections, to ask whether or not Doyle and Wood told their stories to the arresting agent (Beamer) when they were arrested. (Id., at pp. 613-615 [49 L.Ed.2d at pp. 95-96].)
The Supreme Court determined that the prosecutor’s use “for impeachment purposes” of the defendants’ silence—after receiving Miranda warnings—constituted a violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (Doyle v. Ohio, supra, 426 U.S. at p. 619 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 95].) However, the rationale for the court’s decision (italicized in the majority opinion) is the key to understanding its potential application to the case at hand: “ '. . .it does not comport with due process to permit the prosecution during the trial to call attention to [the defendant’s silence] . . . .’” (Ibid., italics added.)
The policy underlying Doyle—protecting a defendant from improper prosecutorial use of his choice to remain silent after being given Miranda warnings—does not apply when a defendant voluntarily chooses to introduce his decision to remain silent as part of his defense.1 Once the defendant made that choice, his postarrest silence became a legitimate subject for cross-examination. Put another way, the defendant’s choice eliminated due process concerns.
Furthermore, the single, unanswered question posed by the prosecution does not constitute a Doyle violation. In my view, my colleagues misread Greer v. Miller (1987) 483 U.S. 756 [97 L.Ed.2d 618, 107 S.Ct. 3102]. Although they correctly report the facts and the ultimate decision in Greer, they overlook how the court reached its conclusion: “The fact of [defendant’s] postarrest silence was not submitted to the jury as evidence from which it was allowed to draw any permissible inference, and thus no Doyle violation occurred . . . .” (Id., at pp. 764-765 [97 L.Ed.2d at pp. 629-630], italics added.)
*374Putting aside the fact that the defendant introduced the fact of his silence, thus inviting whatever inferences the jury might draw from it, it is clear that the prosecutor’s single, unanswered question did not serve as evidence of that silence.2 The jurors were clearly instructed that questions do not constitute evidence. In addition, they were instructed that they were not to assume to be true “any insinuation suggested by a question.”3
In sum, any inferences that might have been drawn by the jury from the defendant’s silence were inferences he chose to permit them to draw. Once he introduced evidence of his silence, the prosecution had every right to cross-examine thereon.
Respondent’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied August 17, 1994.

In the case at hand, not only did defendant testify about his remaining silent, the defense called Officer McKay to establish the same fact.

Contrary to my colleagues’ view, it is absolutely clear that the prosecutor’s follow-up question about the defendant’s pre-M¡randa-warnings statements was proper. Even if the question had addressed pre-Miranda-warnings silence on the part of the defendant, it would have been proper. (Fletcher v. Weir (1982) 455 U.S. 603, 607 [71 L.Ed.2d 490, 494, 102 S.Ct. 1309].)

It is worth noting that the prosecutor did not argue that the defendant’s postarrest silence was relevant to the jury’s decisionmaking process. In fact, the defendant’s silence was never mentioned by the prosecutor in her closing argument.