Court Opinion

ID: 9692181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:45:55.173138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:32.628515
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
BATTAGLIA, J.
The majority overrules our decision in Key-El v. State, 349 Md. 811, 818-19, 709 A.2d 1305, 1308 (1998) that pre-arrest, pre-Miranda silence in the presence of a police officer may be admissible as substantive evidence of guilt. The majority concludes that the better view is to preclude the admission of pre-arrest silence in the presence of a police officer as a tacit admission under Maryland law because it is “too ambiguous to be probative.” See maj. op. at 456-57, 863 A.2d at 1002. I disagree and would affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals because we should not overrule the quite recent decision in Key-El to avoid reaching the issue of whether the trial judge abused his discretion in admitting the evidence in this case.
The majority relies on the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 95 S.Ct. 2133, 45 L.Ed.2d 99 (1975), for the proposition that a defendant’s silence is ambiguous, and thus, not probative of guilt. See maj. op. at 458-59, 863 A.2d at 1003. The Supreme Court in Hale, however, explained that an accused’s silence during an initial police interrogation after Miranda warnings had been given was unclear because the “inherent pressures of in-custody interrogation exceed those of questioning before a grand jury and compound the difficulty of identifying the reason for silence.” Hale, 422 U.S. at 177, 95 S.Ct. at 2137, 45 L.Ed.2d at 108. Certainly, Hale was good law and was considered when Key-*464El was decided in 1998. It is inapposite because in this case we are not dealing with a defendant’s in-custody, post-Miranda silence.1
Also, numerous sister courts have commented on the probative value of pre-arrest silence and held such evidence admissible. Courts have ruled that an accused’s silence offered as evidence of guilt represents but one piece of circumstantial evidence that is a natural adversarial component of the overall trial. See U.S. v. Beckman, 298 F.3d 788, 795 (9th Cir.2002) (affirming trial court’s use of pre-arrest silence as one factor to determine the defendant’s guilt); U.S. v. Oplinger, 150 F.3d 1061, 1066-67 (9th Cir.1998) (upholding admission of pre-arrest silence as substantive evidence as part of jury determination); U.S. v. Zanabria, 74 F.3d 590, 593 (5th Cir.1996) (allowing pre-arrest silence to be used as substantive evidence of guilt); U.S. v. Rivera, 944 F.2d 1563, 1569-70 (11th Cir. 1991) (admitting pre-arrest silence as one component of substantive evidence of guilt); State v. Case, 140 S.W.3d 80, 86-87 (Mo.App.2004) (permitting jury to consider a defendant’s pre-arrest silence as evidence of guilt); State v. Lee, 15 S.W.3d 921, 924-25 (Tex.Crim.App.2000) (holding that pre-arrest silence may be considered by jury as evidence of guilt); State v. Richards, 750 So.2d 940, 941-42 (La.1999) (affirming trial court’s admission of defendant’s pre-arrest silence as one factor to assess guilt).2
*465Key-El clearly proposes that pre-arrest silence following an accusation by a third party while in the presence of a police officer should be carefully considered by the trial court as to whether the impact of the officer’s presence would deter a reasonable person from denying or explaining the accusation. See Key-El, 349 Md. at 819, 709 A.2d at 1308. The principles established in Key-El, concerning pre-arrest silence, provide adequate safeguards to overcome any unfair prejudice, whether an officer is present or not. The bright-line rule determined by the majority does not permit the use of deliberative discretion on the part of the trial judge, but rather reflects a wholesale refusal to acknowledge any probative value of pre-arrest silence, which was recognized by this Court within the last six years.
In overruling Key-El the majority fails to determine whether Weitzel’s silence in this case was properly admitted under the tacit admission exception to the hearsay rule. The Court of Special Appeals did so and held that the admission of Weitzel’s silence was not an abuse of discretion. The trial court determined that Weitzel had not been taken into custody or Mirandized and that his drinking alcohol and ingesting cocaine did not render him unable to understand the officer’s questioning about the incident. Indeed, the trial court determined:
[COURT] A reasonable person in Weitzel’s position who would disagree with anything that Mr. Crabtree had said would have certainly spoken up to contradict it. Certainly when the officer gives him the opportunity and asks if he has anything to say with regard to Mr. Crabtree’s *466statement, he does not take advantage of that opportunity.
We should not abandon controlling precedent in Key-El, which was decided by this Court so recently. Deciding to reject precedent, especially one so recent, has serious consequences, as noted by a former mentor, William Reynolds: “[ejvery overruling requires that a price be paid: loss of stability and confidence, damage to the efficiency of the system, [and] reduction in predictability.” William L. Reynolds, Judicial Process (West Publishing 3rd ed.2003).
I respectfully dissent.
Judge CATHELL authorizes me to state that he joins in this dissent.

. Contrary to the majority’s view, Justice Stevens in a concurring opinion in Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980) (Stevens, J., concurring), construed the probative value of a defendant’s pre-arrest, pre-Miranda silence, as evidence of guilt:
The fact that a citizen has a constitutional right to remain silent when he is questioned had no bearing on the probative significance of his silence before he has any contact with the police. We need not hold that every citizen has a duty to report every infraction of law that he witnesses in order to justify the drawing of a reasonable inference from silence in a situation in which the ordinary citizen would normally speak out.
Id. at 243, 100 S.Ct. at 2132, 65 L.Ed.2d at 98.

. Several of the courts opposing the admission of pre-arrest silence as a tacit admission have conceded that the admission of such is harmless error when viewed in conjunction with all the other evidence that the *465fact-finder must use to determine guilt or innocence. See Ouska v. Cahill-Masching, 246 F.3d 1036, 1049 (7th Cir.2001) (stating that admission of pre-arrest silence was harmless error); United States v. Burson, 952 F.2d 1196, 1201 (10th Cir.1991) (explaining that the evidence against the defendant was overwhelming and that the defendant’s silence was but one component); U.S. ex rel. Savory v. Lane, 832 F.2d 1011, 1020 (7th Cir.1987) (noting that the defendant’s silence was included in the overall weight of Ihe evidence).