Court Opinion

ID: 9705363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:04:17.523823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:10.363731
License: Public Domain

Kelly, J.
(dissenting). I would hold that the trial court’s admission of testimony regarding defendant’s silence was improper.
I disagree with the majority for three reasons. First, I would find that the prosecution improperly made reference to defendant’s silence during lock up in violation of defendant’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to silence under the federal constitution. US Const, Ams V, XIV. Moreover, I also agree with *219the Court of Appeals that, under the facts of this case, the prosecutor’s use of defendant’s silence violated the rule of People v Bigge, 288 Mich 417; 285 NW 5 (1939). Finally, the trial court should have excluded this evidence under Michigan Rule of Evidence 403, as this evidence was highly prejudicial and utterly lacking in probative value. Because the trial court’s error was not harmless, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
i
As the majority correctly notes, the parties have never agreed on when the silence referenced by the prosecutor was to have occurred. The majority implicitly admits that a reference to defendant’s silence during the 1993 period of incarceration would have violated defendant’s constitutional right to remain silent. However, even if the prosecution’s argument can fairly be said to refer to defendant’s 1991 incarceration, the prosecutor’s comment on his silence still violated defendant’s constitutional right to remain silent.
Logue was not a state agent during the 1991 period of incarceration. Because of that, the majority maintains that the prosecution was free to use defendant’s silence while in the presence of Logue as impeachment evidence against him. I disagree.
The use for impeachment purposes of a defendant’s silence at the time of arrest and after receiving Miranda1 warnings violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Doyle v Ohio, 426 US *220610; 96 S Ct 2240; 49 L Ed 2d 91 (1976); Fletcher v Weir, 455 US 603; 102 S Ct 1309; 71 L Ed 2d 490 (1982); Wainwright v Greenfield, 474 US 284; 106 S Ct 634; 88 L Ed 2d 623 (1986). In Doyle, for example, the United States Supreme Court laid down the following rule: a prosecutor may not impeach a defendant’s inculpatory stoiy, told first at trial, by cross-examining the defendant about his failure to have told the story after receiving Miranda warnings. Use of a defendant’s silence in this manner violates due process because “every post-arrest silence is insolubly ambiguous because of what the State is required to advise the person arrested.” Doyle, supra at 617.
The facts of the instant case are similar to those in Doyle and its companion case, Ohio v Wood. The defendants in both Doyle and in this case were in custody, but were not being interrogated at the time the prosecutor argues that they should have professed their innocence. In Doyle the questioning was as follows:
“Q. [By the prosecutor.] . . . You are innocent?
“A. [By Doyle.] I am innocent. Yes Sir.
“Q. That’s why you told the police department and Kenneth Beamer when they arrived . . .
“(Continuing.) . . . about your innocence?
* * *
“A. ... I didn’t tell them about my innocence. No.
“Q. You said nothing at all about how you had been set up?
* * *
‘Q. Did Mr. Wood?
A. Not that I recall, Sir.
*221“Q. As a matter of fact, if I recall your testimony correctly, you said instead of protesting your innocence, as you do today, you said in response to a question of Mr. Beamer, — ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
“A. I believe what I said, — ‘What’s this all about?’ If I remember, that’s the only thing I said.
“A. I was questioning, you know, what it was about. That’s what I didn’t know. I knew that I was trying to buy, which was wrong, but I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know that Bill Bonnell was trying to frame me, or what-have-you.
* * *
“Q. All right, — But you didn’t protest your innocence at that time?” [Doyle, supra, 426 US 614, n 5.]
Doyle was consolidated with Ohio v Wood where the defendant was also impeached, not for his failure to answer questions implicating Miranda, but for his failure to profess his innocence:
“Q. [By the prosecutor.] Mr. Beamer did arrive on the scene?
“A. [By Wood.] Yes, he did.
“Q. And I assume you told him all about what happened to you?
* * *
“A. No.
“Q. Mr. Wood, if that is all you had to do with this and you are innocent, when Mr. Beamer arrived on the scene why didn’t you tell him?” [Doyle, supra, 426 US 613-614.]
*222Similarly, defendant in the instant case was cross-examined and impeached for his failure to confront his accuser, and for his failure to profess his innocence to his accuser.
The Court’s broad pronouncement in Doyle was somewhat limited by Fletcher v Weir, supra. However, under Fletcher, post-Miranda silence continued to be inadmissable to impeach a defendant’s credibility. Id., 455 US 607.
Further support for this proposition is found in Wainwright v Greenfield, supra. In that case, the defendant argued a defense of insanity. His postarrest, post-Miranda warnings silence was then used by the prosecutor as evidence of sanity. The Supreme Court held that this violated due process. The source of the violation was the implicit assurance contained in the Miranda warnings “that silence will carry no penalty.” Id., 474 US 290 (citation omitted). The Court went on to state:
The point of the Doyle holding is that it is fundamentally unfair to promise an arrested person that his silence will not be used against him and thereafter to breach that promise by using the silence to impeach his trial testimony. [Id., 474 US 292.]
In this case, it would be as fundamentally unfair to punish defendant for electing to remain silent under the circumstances.
In each of these, the defendant’s “silence” was in the physical presence of police officers or other recognizable state agents. The majority maintains that that condition is a prerequisite to finding a constitutional violation. I disagree. The United States Supreme Court has articulated no such explicit *223requirement. Moreover, such a requirement ignores the simple realities of today’s custodial environment. The lack of a visible state agent does not preclude a finding of a constitutional violation.
A recent federal case illustrates this point. In Franklin v Duncan,2 the accused was charged with murder. The charge was based primarily on his daughter’s alleged repressed memory of the killing. At trial, the prosecution presented testimony from the daughter that she had visited her father in jail after his arrest and had attempted to convince him to confess. She testified that he had not responded to her accusations, but instead pointed to a sign in the jail visiting room that indicated all conversations might be monitored. The trial court denied a defense objection to the testimony, and the prosecutor argued that this silence amounted to a tacit confession of guilt “worth its weight in gold.” Id. at 1445.
On habeas corpus review, the district court found the admission of the accused’s silence to have violated the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights, citing Doyle, supra, and stating:
Petitioner chose to remain silent, knowing that he was in custody and that the government was listening to his calls. In declining to answer his daughter’s question, Franklin explicitly pointed to the sign saying that the government monitored conversations. His pointing to the sign indicates that the desire not to talk to the government was his motivating factor in remaining silent. If this is not an invocation of the right to remain silent, it is difficult for the Court to imagine what would be. Surely petitioner need not state, “I am not answering your question, Eileen, because I am invoking my fifth amendment right against self-incrim*224ination” in order not to have his silence used against him. [Id. at 1447.]
This result was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Franklin v Duncan, 70 F3d 75, 78 (CA 9, 1995).
Similarly, in the instant case, it is quite logical to assume that defendant’s postarrest, post-Miranda silence was due to a desire not to talk to the government.3 It is not unknown for police agencies to place informants in jail cells in the hope that an accused may make incriminating statements. Moreover, it is not unheard of for police agencies to place secret electronic listening devices or other monitoring equipment in cells, in part to detect violence.
In today’s custodial environment, it is logical that a defendant, advised of his right to remain silent and the consequences of speaking, will remain silent, even when no officers are visible. Using this silence against a defendant is just as “fundamentally unfair” as it was in Doyle and Wainwright, supra.
Thus, I would hold that the prosecution’s references to defendant’s silence during lock up were in violation of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to silence under the federal constitution.
*225n
The majority also analyzes this case under the rule of People v Bigge, and holds that Bigge is not implicated in the instant case.4 I disagree. In Bigge, we held that a defendant’s silence in the face of an accusation cannot be used against him as evidence of guilt. “There can be no such thing as confession of guilt by silence in or out of court. . . . Defendant, if he heard the statement, was not morally or legally called upon to make denial or suffer his failure to do so to stand as evidence of his guilt.” Id. at 420. The Court in Bigge found that this was a due process violation. The majority rejects the application of this case, stating that, since there was no face-to-face accusation at the time of the silence, there is no reason to rely on Bigge. I disagree.
According to the opinion, defendant did not know Logue would be his accuser during their 1991 incarceration. This is arguably correct. However, the pros*226ecutor improperly told the jury twice that defendant was silent in the face of an accusation (ante, pp 210-211). I would hold this to be error requiring reversal under Bigge, supra. As the majority has indicated, not even the parties can agree which “silence” was referenced by the prosecution. It is certain that the jury was not aware of the two separate interests of Mr. Logue, nor was it aware of the complicated procedural history of this case. It had to rely on the prosecution for much of the factual development.
Whether Logue was actually an accuser in this case should not be determinative. The prosecutor told the jury that Logue was an accuser and argued that defendant would have confronted him had defendant been an innocent man. It was error requiring reversal under these facts to argue, on cross-examination and in closing, that defendant’s failure to confront his accuser during a postarrest, post-Miranda situation evidences his guilt.
m
Even were I to find that defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated by the prosecution’s questioning, I would still affirm the Court of Appeals ruling. Under MRE 403, evidence is properly excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. It is also excluded if it would result in confusion of the issues or a misleading of the jury. The evidence of defendant’s “silence” was highly prejudicial and not probative.
Referring to the notion in Doyle, supra at 617, that “every post-arrest silence is insolubly ambiguous,” I would hold that the prosecutor’s remarks should have been stricken as too ambiguous to be useful. It is *227unclear from the statements themselves which “silence” was actually being referenced • by the prosecutor. That fact became apparent during oral argument and is further shown by the space devoted to the issue in the majority opinion. Moreover, there are reasons having nothing to do with guilt that would explain why a defendant might not confront his accuser directly outside a courtroom. A defendant might be afraid of the accuser. A defendant might be prevented by the court from contacting the accuser, or think that he would get into more trouble by confronting him. A defendant might not trust his control over his own emotions should he confront his accuser. Lastly, and most probably, a defendant might correctly reason that a confrontation would be of no benefit to him. It seems highly unlikely that Logue would have recanted his story had defendant confronted him and accused him of lying. Nothing in defendant’s silence would tend to prove defendant’s guilt or credibility.
On the other hand, given the nature of the prosecutor’s closing arguments, this evidence was highly prejudicial to defendant. The prosecutor argued that defendant’s failure to confront Logue was substantive evidence of his guilt because an innocent person would have let nothing stand in his way. There would have been “no bars strong enough” to have stopped him from rushing out to demand that Logue recant. The argument could well have tipped the scale in the prosecution’s favor, given that this was a close case.
Public policy also supports a finding that the prosecutor acted improperly here. A finding in the prosecutor’s favor signals other defendants that they must confront their accusers or risk having the same *228tactic used against them. This Court should not condone such a confrontational necessity. The risk of spontaneous violence is too great to justify so small a return.
iv
I would not find the error harmless. Because I conclude that the reference to defendant’s silence during his post-arraignment lock up in 1999 violates the federal constitution, the proper standard of review is governed by federal law. Chapman v California, 386 US 18; 87 S Ct 824; 17 L Ed 2d 705 (1967); People v Anderson (After Remand), 446 Mich 392, 404; 521 NW2d 538 (1994). The standard to be applied for unpreserved and preserved nonstructural5 constitutional error is the same: A reviewing court should affirm a defendant’s conviction if it is satisfied that the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. People v Graves, 458 Mich 476, 482; 581 NW2d 229 (1998).
Application of this standard to “trial type” constitutional errors was recently reaffirmed in Brecht v Abrahamson, 507 US 619, 630; 113 S Ct 1710; 123 L Ed 2d 353 (1993). Brecht contrasted the standard of harmless error review to be applied between requests for habeas corpus relief and direct appeals. It noted that there are “ ‘some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless.’ ” Id. at *229630, citing Chapman, supra at 22. The state bears the burden of proving that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Brecht, supra at 630. In the particular setting of this case, the prosecution has failed to meet its burden.
Contrary to the majority’s holding, the evidence against defendant was anything but overwhelming. The case against him depended to a great degree on the credibility of both defendant and Logue, as evidenced by the earlier dismissal of charges against defendant. Logue had every reason to falsely accuse defendant, given the benefits he hoped to obtain concerning his own criminal prosecution.
Moreover, the other evidence was circumstantial to a great degree. Defendant’s fingerprints were found not on the cocaine baggie itself, but on a foil box that defendant claimed Logue stole while a guest in defendant’s home. The police testimony concerning defendant’s activities on the night in question was consistent with defendant’s testimony. He maintained that Logue had invited defendant and Mr. Boyle to a party, but had told them he must first conduct unrelated business at a motel. Defendant’s behavior, as observed by the police officer, was not inconsistent with innocence.
In short, nothing presented by the prosecution indicates that this constitutional error was “harmless” or “insignificant” beyond a reasonable doubt. I would affirm the Court of Appeals decision and remand for a new trial consistent with this opinion.
Brickley and Cavanagh, JJ., concurred with Kelly, J.

 Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966).

 884 F Supp 1435 (ND Cal, 1995).

 At arraignment, the trial court is required, under the Michigan Rules of Criminal Procedure, MCR 6.104(E)(2), to inform a defendant, not represented by counsel, of his right to remain silent. Thus, it is presumed that defendant Hackett had received his Miranda warnings by the time he was in lock up after arraignment in 1991. The absence on the record of a valid waiver by defendant of his right to silence leads me to conclude that his right was violated by reference to it.

 The majority attempts to use People v Cetlinski (After Remand), 435 Mich 742, 757; 460 NW2d 534 (1990), in support of its proposition. Because Cetlinski deals with prearrest silence, I do not find it to be persuasive in the context of the instant case. Moreover, I would also find that Cetlinski and its predecessor, People v Collier, 426 Mich 23; 393 NW2d 346 (1986), upon which Cetlinski relies, are distinguishable from this case. Cetlinski involved a defendant who had made statements to the police and left out certain details. For example, the defendant omitted the fact that he had previously had a conversation with a waitress discussing burning down a building. Also, the prosecutor in Cetlinski did not ask the jury to infer guilt from the defendant’s silence. 435 Mich 763. Collier also involves a defendant who “left out” certain pertinent facts when giving his statement to police. Id. at 26.
The instant case is distinguishable from Collier and Cetlinski. In those cases, the defendants made statements to the police about certain events, but omitted facts that would naturally have been included by a person with nothing to hide. In this case, the prosecutor is trying to impeach defendant’s statements with the fact that defendant did not seek out Logue to confront him with the accusations against defendant.

 Structural constitutional error requires automatic reversal. People v Graves, 458 Mich 476, 482; 581 NW2d 229 (1998), citing People v Anderson, supra at 406.