Court Opinion

ID: 9427970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:28.124517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:10.905284
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring in the judgment.
My approach to both of petitioner’s constitutional claims differs from the Court’s. I would reject his Fifth Amendment claim because the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination 1 is simply irrelevant to a citizen’s decision to remain silent when he is under no official compulsion to speak. I would reject his due process claim for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, 620.
I
The Court holds that a defendant who elects to testify in his own behalf waives any Fifth Amendment objection to the use of his prior silence for the purpose of impeachment. As the Court correctly points out, this holding is squarely supported by Raffel v. United States, 271 U. S. 494, in which the Court upheld the use of a defendant’s failure to take the stand at his first trial to impeach his testimony on retrial. Nevertheless, I would not rely on Raffel because such reliance incorrectly implies that a defendant’s decision not to testify at his own trial is constitutionally indistinguishable from his silence in a preeustody context.2 But the two situations are fundamentally different.
*242In the trial context it is appropriate to presume that a defendant’s silence is an exercise of his constitutional privilege and to prohibit any official comment that might deter him from exercising that privilege.3 For the central purpose of the Fifth Amendment privilege is to protect the defendant from being compelled to testify against himself at his own trial.4 Moreover, since a defendant’s decision whether to tes*243tify is typically based on the advice of his counsel, it often could not be explained without revealing privileged communications between attorney and client.
These reasons have no application in a prearrest context. The fact that a citizen has a constitutional right to remain silent when he is questioned has 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.5 When a citizen is under no official compulsion what*244ever, either to speak or to remain silent, I see no reason why his voluntary decision to do one or the other should raise any issue under the Fifth Amendment.6 For in determining whether the privilege is applicable, the question is whether petitioner was in a position to have his testimony compelled and then asserted his privilege, not simply whether he was silent. A different view ignores the clear words of the Fifth Amendment. See n. 1, supra. Consequently, I would simply hold that the admissibility of petitioner’s failure to come forward with the excuse of self-defense shortly after the stabbing raised a routine evidentiary question that turns on the probative significance of that evidence and presented no issue under the Federal Constitution.7
II
For the reasons stated in Part I of my dissenting opinion in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S., at 620-626, I do not agree with the Court’s view that the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 479, contain an implicit assurance that subsequent silence may not be used again'st the defendant. *245See ante, at 239-240. As the Court actually acknowledged in Doyle itself, see 426 U. S., at 619-620, n. 11, any such implicit assurance is far from being unqualified.8 Moreover, I continue to disagree with the Court’s view, repeated today, ante, at 240, that there was “fundamental unfairness present in Doyle.” In my judgment the fairness or unfairness of using a defendant’s postarrest silence for impeachment purposes does not simply depend on whether or not he received Miranda warnings. Rather, it primarily depends on whether it is fair to infer that the defendant was silent because he was asserting his constitutional privilege.9
In any event, since I was unpersuaded by the due process rationale of Doyle,10 I readily concur in the Court’s rejection of a similar argument in this case.
Me. Justice Stewart concurs in Part I of this opinion.

 The Fifth Amendment provides in pertinent part:
“No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. . . .”

 Moreover, there is a serious question about the continuing vitality of Raffel. In Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189, 199, the Court stated that when a trial judge “grants the claim of privilege but allows *242it to be used against the accused to his prejudice, we cannot disregard the matter. That procedure has such potentialities of oppressive use that we will not sanction its use in the federal courts over which we have supervisory powers.”
In Grunewald v. United States, 353 U. S. 391, 415-424, the Court held that it was error to permit the prosecutor, when cross-examining the defendant at trial, to use his assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege while a witness before the grand jury for impeachment. In effect, the Court limited Raffel to cases in which the probative value of the cross-examination outweighed its possible impermissible effect on the jury; see 353 U. S., at 420-421. Because the Court held the probative value of the assertion of privilege to be negligible on the issue of the defendant’s credibility, it was “not faced with the necessity of deciding whether Raffel has been stripped of vitality by the later Johnson case, supra, or of otherwise re-examining Raffel." Id., at 421. Mr. Justice Black, writing for four Justices, would have expressly overruled Raffel. He could “think of no special circumstances that would justify use of a constitutional privilege to discredit or convict a person who asserts it. The value of constitutional privileges is largely destroyed if persons can be penalized for relying on them.” 353 U. S., at 425.
See also Stewart v. United States, 366 U. S. 1, 5-7; United States v. Hale, 422 U. S. 171, 175, n. 4.

 “For comment on the refusal to testify is a remnant of the 'inquisitorial system of criminal justice,’ Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U. S. 52, 55, which the Fifth Amendment outlaws. It is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly.” Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, 614 (footnote omitted).

 “The Fifth Amendment protects the individual’s right to remain silent. The central purpose of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is to avoid unfair criminal trials. It is an expression of our conviction that the defendant in a criminal case must be presumed innocent, and that the State has the burden of proving guilt without resorting to an *243inquisition of the accused.” Lefkowitz v. Cunningham, 431 U. S. 801, 810 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted).
“The Fifth Amendment itself is predicated on the assumption that there are innocent persons who might be found guilty if they could be compelled to testify at their own trials. Every trial lawyer knows that some truthful denials of guilt may be considered incredible by a jury — either because of their inherent improbability or because their explanation, under cross-examination, will reveal unfavorable facts about the witness or his associates. The Constitution therefore gives the defendant and his lawyer the absolute right to decide that the accused shall not become a witness against himself.” Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U. S. 333, 343 (SteveNS, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted).

 There is, of course, no reason why we should encourage the citizen to conceal criminal activity of which he has knowledge. In Roberts v. United States, 445 U. S. 552, 557-558, we pointed out:
“Concealment of crime has been condemned throughout our history. The citizen’s duty to ‘raise the “hue and cry” and report felonies to the authorities,’ Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665, 696 (1972), was an established tenet of Anglo-Saxon law at least as early as the 13th century. 2 W. Holdsworth, History of English Law 101-102 (3d ed. 1927); 4 id., at 521-522; see Statute of Westminster First, 3 Edw. 1, ch. 9, p. 43 (1275); Statute of Westminster Second, 13 Edw. 1, chs. 1, 4, and 6, pp. 112-115 (1285). The first Congress of the United States enacted a statute imposing criminal penalties upon anyone who, ‘having knowledge of the actual commission of [certain felonies,] shall conceal, and not as soon as may be disclose and make known the same to [the appropriate] authority. . . .’ Act of Apr. 30, 1790, § 6, 1 Stat. 113. Although the term ‘misprision *244of felony’ now has an archaic ring, gross indifference to the duty to report known criminal behavior remains a badge of irresponsible citizenship.
“This deeply rooted social obligation is not diminished when the witness to crime is involved in illicit activities himself. Unless his silence is protected by the privilege against self-incrimination, . . . the criminal defendant no less than any other citizen is obliged to assist the authorities.” (Footnote omitted.)

 "Petitioner insists that he had a constitutional right to remain silent and that no adverse inferences can be drawn from the exercise of that right. We find this argument singularly unpersuasive. The Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination is not self-executing. At least where the Government has no substantial reason to believe that the requested disclosures are likely to be incriminating, the privilege may not be relied upon unless it is invoked in a timely fashion.” Roberts v. United States, supra, at 559.

 Under my approach, assuming relevance, the evidence could have been used not only for impeachment but also in rebuttal even had petitioner not taken the stand.

 It is interesting to note that Mr. Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice BrenNan share my view that the Miranda warnings in Doyle did not create the right to remain silent or create an otherwise unavailable objection to the use of the defendants’ silence for impeachment purposes. See post, at 247-248, n. 1. I do not, however, agree with their assumption that a holding that evidence of silence is admissible necessarily rests on the premise that a quiet person has any duty to speak. See post, at 250-251, n. 4. A dog’s failure.to bark may be probative whether or not he has been trained as a watchdog.' Cf. A. Conan Doyle, Silver Blaze, in The Complete Sherlock Holmes (1938).

 Generally, in the absence of an express assertion of the privilege, the presumption is that the privilege was not exercised. See Roberts v. United States, supra, at 559-560.

 It strikes me as anomalous that, assuming Raffel v. United States, 271 U. S. 494, has survived Doyle, a defendant who takes the stand is deemed to waive his Fifth Amendment objection to the use of his pretrial silence, *246but not to waive what I regard as a much less focussed, and hence weaker, due process objection. Perhaps the Court’s opinion can best be understood by assuming that Rajjel is not good law on its facts under the Doyle rationale.