Court Opinion

ID: 9770359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:59:40.280509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.722035
License: Public Domain

COHEN, Justice,
dissenting, on Motion for Rehearing.
I withdraw my previous dissenting opinion dated March 11, 1999, and reissue it here to accompany the majority’s opinion on motion for rehearing.
In points six and seven, appellant contends the trial judge should have suppressed the audio of his Miranda warnings. I agree.
Consider the following sequence of events that is routinely encountered in DWI cases:
(1)A police officer reads the defendant his Miranda warnings.
(2) The police officer asks if the defendant will waive his rights.
(3) The defendant refuses and instead invokes his rights. This is all audio-taped, and the State offers it into evidence.
Regarding item 3, the law is clear that the audiotape of the defendant invoking his rights is not admissible. Hardie v. State, 807 S.W.2d 319, 321-22 (Tex.Crim.App.1991) (such evidence is inadmissible because the jury may take it as an inference of guilt). Regarding item 2, the officer asking the defendant to waive his rights, that is also inadmissible. Dumas v. State, 812 S.W.2d 611, 614 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1991, pet. refd) (error for jury to hear officer give Miranda warnings, ask defendant if he would waive, and then for court to turn down the audiotape volume of the defendant’s answer because that implied he had invoked his right to remain silent). I agree with the reasoning and the result in Dumas.
I agree with the majority that the error asserted in points six and seven differs slightly from that in Hardie and Dumas. The error asserted here is the same as that in item 1 above, the reading of Miranda rights, not the solicitation of their waiver and not their invocation. Yet, appellant contends the effect of the jury hearing the warnings is the same: when, as here, the warnings are followed by silence, the jury can draw only one reasonable conclusion — that appellant refused to waive his rights and instead invoked them. I agree. In this case, the State’s only apparent purpose in showing the warnings was to have the jury infer guilt from the exercise of constitutional rights. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that was true in Hardie and that such an inference is impermissible. Hardie, 807 S.W.2d at 321 n. 7 (the State’s only apparent reason to offer the evidence was to prove guilt).
*732Allowing evidence of Miranda warnings followed by appellant’s silence would accomplish indirectly what the State could not do constitutionally and directly. The Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to tolerate indirect avoidance of similar evidence rules, even when constitutional rights were not at stake. See Schaffer v. State, 777 S.W.2d 111, 114 (Tex.Crim.App.1989) (“backdoor” hearsay held inadmissible). The fact that Miranda rights were read is generally irrelevant because silence in response to them may not be used against a defendant to show guilt. Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 618, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2245, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). See Tex.R. Evid. 401. Allowing warnings to be read and followed by silence is inviting the jury to use that silence against the defendant.
I would sustain points of error six and seven, reverse the judgment, and remand the cause for a new trial.