Court Opinion

ID: 9473264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:24:42.031133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:25.335885
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree fully with Judge Gordon’s painstaking analysis and with the conclusion which flows from it. I recognize this as a close case for a number of reasons, including both the trial judge’s efforts to insulate the jury from error and the possibility that error was harmless. Nevertheless, the state has been unable to establish that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.1
The Doyle violation was clear arid, if it is to be ignored in a case like this, the assurance to an accused that he has a right to remain silent is empty and dishonest, see Doyle, 426 U.S. at 618, 96 S.Ct. at 2245. The ultimate issue in this case is how *825staunchly Miranda and its policies are to be defended by the federal courts. Recent decisions by the Supreme Court indicate a continuing commitment to the Miranda policies. If Miranda is to remain viable, I see no alternative to taking a principled stand in hard cases like this one.

. In this sort of case, above all, where the evidence consists almost exclusively of the testimony of the complaining witness and the testimony of the defendant, there is reason to be especially sensitive to questions of the prejudice introduced by counsel for either side. The evidence here, although not perfectly balanced, was also not so obviously one-sided that I can say with any conviction at all that the prosecutor's errors must have been harmless, and that the jury would have convicted without them. The defendant's story was that sex was consensual. Although that story has its odd elements, it is also true that witnesses saw the complaining witness with the defendant on prior occasions; that she entered his car willingly after talking to him earlier in the bar; and that after she fled from his car he returned to the bar, which seems unlikely if he had reason to believe that she would call the police. On the complainant’s side, there is the fact the doctor who examined her that evening indicated that there were bruises on her neck, and the fact that the woman from whose house complainant called the police testified that she was obviously terrified, which seems incompatible with the supposition, for example, that she made the call out of vindictiveness. Aside from these bits of indirect evidence, there is only the credibility of the defendant and the complainant on which to base a decision. Certainly it would be inappropriate for us to suppose, in these circumstances, that Doyle error of the sort before us could be treated as harmless.