Court Opinion

ID: 9454557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:50:00.071353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:10.114160
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge
(dissenting) :
I am compelled to dissent. In this day of expanding human rights and expanding constitutional rights, it simply cannot be the law that the assertion of one right may mean the relinquishment of another. I agree that Raff el stands for the proposition that once the defendant takes the stand he cannot pick and choose —he may be put to the test concerning his activities, but he cannot be asked if he made a statement to the arresting officers when the prosecution knows that the answer would demonstrate that he declined to make any statement.
The principles of the Fifth Amendment as enunciated in Miranda v. Arizona, 1966, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, make it abundantly clear that an accused has an absolute right to remain silent. It is not an if-but-or-sometimes partial privilege, it is a complete and absolute right. Here appellant Sharp exercised that right when he was questioned by the arresting officers: He declined to make any statement. The unequivocal exercise of that absolute right cannot now operate to his detriment. The Supreme Court made this clear in Miranda:
“In accord with this decision, it is not permissible to penalize an individual for exercising his Fifth Amendment privilege when he is under police custodial interrogation. The prosecution may not, therefore, use at trial the fact that he stood mute or claimed his privilege in the face of accusation.” 384 U.S. at 468 n. 37, 86 S.Ct. at 1625 n. 37, 16 L.Ed.2d at 720 n. 37.
They restated it in Schmerber v. California, 1966, 384 U.S. 757, 765 n. 9, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1833 n. 9, 16 L.Ed.2d 908, 916 n. 9.
This circuit has also taken a strong stand on the protection of Fifth Amendment rights. In Baker v. United States, 5 Cir., 1966, 357 F.2d 11, 13 we held “it was reversible error to have allowed the FBI Agent to testify that when appellant was first questioned, he indicated that he wanted a lawyer and thereafter made no further statement. * * * In asking for counsel before making any statement, *973appellant was exercising a Constitutional right which the Supreme Court has time and again declared to be guaranteed to all persons accused of crime. To have proven that appellant requested the right of counsel and thereafter made no further statement was, we feel, as objectionable as it would have been to comment on a defendant exercising his Constitutional right not to take the witness stand.”
This Court recently reemphasized its position in Walker v. United States, 5 Cir., 1968, 404 F.2d 900 where we held the Trial Court erred in allowing introduction of Walker’s Fifth Amendment assertion to a third party during a private conversation after Walker’s arrest. “A claim of privilege cannot be equated with silence. When an accused responds to a question, or even to an accusation, with an assertion of a claimed legal or constitutional right, the jury should not be permitted to infer from such an assertion any consciousness of guilt or tacit admission. * * * We would be naive if we failed to recognize that most laymen view an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege as a badge of guilt.” 1
I think the prior decisions of this Court and the Supreme Court make clear that no detriment may flow from the exercise of a Constitutional right. The practice sanctioned here by the majority opinion has no redeeming value and can only lead to trouble. It is but another amazing instance of excess zeal or, more likely,. momentary but decisive thoughtlessness of the prosecutor. Whatever probative effect recitation of silence at the time of apprehension might have it cannot be inquired into if there is a likelihood that the answer will reveal either that the accused stood mute, or worse, formally invoked the Fifth Amendment. This is risky business by the prosecutor for unless he has a substantial basis for believing that the accused did make a response — in which event the inquiry is then on what he said, not as to why he said nothing — the prosecutor is bound to know that the inquiry trespasses on the sanctuary of the Fifth Amendment.
Had the colloquy gone like this:
Prosecutor: Did you tell the officers this story at the time they stopped you?
Defendant: No, sir.
Prosecutor: Why did you not say anything?
Defendant: I told them I was claiming the Fifth * * *
the error would have been graphic and it would have orbited to a Constitutional apogee. For all practical purposes that was the implied, if not express, interrogation and response put here.
Since Sharp and Thornton were tried together for this spirits violation, they either swam or sank together. If the introduction of this evidence was error as to Thornton, I think it necessarily worked to Sharp’s detriment, too. Hamilton v. United States, 5 Cir., 1969, 409 F.2d 928.
I respectfully dissent.

. To tlie same effect see Judge Godbold’s dissent in Hayes v. United States, 5 Cir., 1969, 407 F.2d 189.
Four Circuits have taken the position that illegal statements obtained without advising an accused of his Miranda rights may not be used for impeachment. Proctor v. United States, D.C.Cir., 1968, 404 F.2d 819; United States v. Fox, 2 Cir., 1968, 403 F.2d 97; Groshart v. United States, 9 Cir., 1968, 392 F.2d 172; Wheeler v. United States, 10 Cir., 1967, 382 F.2d 998.