Court Opinion

ID: 9552663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:14:49.876068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:35.669150
License: Public Domain

BURNETT, Judge,
specially concurring.
Although I join in the Court’s opinion, I write separately to examine the issue of postarrest silence in a broader perspective. When a prosecutor asks a defendant why he did not talk to the police, two rights are implicated: the fifth amendment right against self-incrimination and the fourteenth amendment right to due process. In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), the United States Supreme Court adverted to both rights. The Court acknowledged that exercise of the right to remain silent would be burdened if a prosecutor later used a defendant’s silence to impeach his trial testimony. However, the Court focused primarily upon *862due process. Noting that Miranda warnings contain an assurance of the right to remain silent, the Court said, “[E]very post-arrest silence is insolubly ambiguous because of what the State is required to advise the person arrested.” 426 U.S. at 617, 96 S.Ct. at 2244. The Court held it fundamentally unfair to allow impeachment with postarrest silence after such an assurance had been given. A conviction obtained upon such impeachment was reversed for a denial of due process under the fourteenth amendment. In light of this holding, it was unnecessary for the Court to determine whether a similar result would have flowed from the fifth amendment as well.
Subsequent to Doyle, the Supreme Court continued to leave the fifth amendment question open. In Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 239, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 2129, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980), the Court said:
Common law traditionally has allowed witnesses to be impeached by their previous failure to state a fact in circumstances in which that fact naturally would have been asserted. Each jurisdiction may formulate its own rules of evidence to determine when prior silence is so inconsistent with present statements that impeachment by reference to such silence is probative. [Citations omitted.]
The Court continued this approach in Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603, 102 S.Ct. 1309, 71 L.Ed.2d 490 (1982). The Court held that due process was not offended by impeachment of a defendant by his postar-rest silence unless the state affirmatively had advised the defendant of his right to silence. However, the Court again cautioned that it was not precluding the states from adopting a more restrictive rule in order to protect the exercise of an accused person’s fifth amendment right to remain silent. The Court said:
A State is entitled, in such situations, to leave to the judge and jury under its own rules of evidence the resolution of the extent to which postarrest silence may be deemed to impeach a criminal defendant’s own testimony.
455 U.S. at 607, 102 S.Ct. at 1312.
In my view, the right to remain silent when arrested has become so firmly established in American jurisprudence, and now is so commonly known in American society, that an accused person’s refusal to talk to the police is always “insolubly ambiguous” —regardless of whether he has been given a Miranda warning. Consequently, I think the Supreme Court could, and in retrospect should, have grounded its decision in Doyle upon both the fifth and the fourteenth amendments. Be that as it may, the Court has left the states to decide whether the right to silence should be protected by rules of evidence prohibiting the use of postarrest silence for impeachment.
The policy of this staté, as announced by the Idaho Supreme Court, is to avoid burdening an accused person’s exercise of his right to remain silent. In State v. White, 97 Idaho 708, 714-15, 551 P.2d 1344, 1350-51 (1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 842, 97 S.Ct. 118, 50 L.Ed.2d 111 (1976), the Court stated, “If a prosecutor is allowed to introduce evidence of [a defendant’s] silence, for any purpose, then the right to remain silent guaranteed in Miranda v. Arizona ... becomes so diluted as to be rendered worthless.” It has long been recognized that rules of evidence should protect privileges created for policy reasons. Rule 512, of the Idaho Rules of Evidence, now prohibits any comment upon the exercise of a privilege and similarly prohibits any adverse inference to be drawn therefrom.
Another rule of evidence provides additional protection of the right to remain silent. It is well settled in Idaho case law, and presently it is recognized by I.R.E. 403, that evidence — although relevant — may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Because an accused person’s postarrest silence is “insolubly ambiguous,” I submit that the probative value of such evidence is virtually nonexistent. In contrast, the danger of unfair prejudice is substantial because, as noted in Doyle, a *863defendant’s silence may give rise to an inference of guilt in the minds of jurors.
Even if our analysis were narrowly confined to due process, it would still be clear that error occurred in the present case. Doyle and Fletcher hold that a defendant’s postarrest silence may not be used against him at trial if he was given a government assurance of his right to remain silent. Here, the prosecutor raised the subject of postarrest silence on cross-examination, asking the defendant, “When did you first develop this conspiracy theory?” Gooding answered, “Well, right away, immediately.” On redirect examination, Gooding gave a more specific time frame. He said, “I figured two days after it was done why it was done.” The prosecutor on recross-examination further confirmed the two-day time frame:
Q Are you saying then that you have known all along since two days after you were arrested why the boys are doing what they’re coming into court and testifying the way they are?
A I’m saying what I have already told you.
Q You have known all along you're saying, two days within your being arrested you have known, is that what you’re saying?
A Yes, pretty much so.
Q That’s the conspiracy you have mentioned earlier?
A Yes.
In his closing argument, the prosecutor again referred to the two-day time frame:
He told you from the stand that he knew about this conspiracy two days after he had been arrested. So why did he hold that back? I would submit that his theory is really the claim of a desperate man with his back against the wall who is grasping at straws.
If the due process holdings of Doyle and Fletcher are applied to these facts, the question is whether Gooding received any government assurance of his right to remain silent during the two days following his arrest. The record shows that he did. Gooding was arrested on March 13, 1984. The next day, March 14, 1984, Gooding made his initial appearance before a magistrate. The minutes of that initial appearance are set forth at page 7 of the clerk’s record. The minutes show that the judge advised the defendant of his rights and that the defendant said he understood his rights. The rights in question are those set forth in Rule 5(d), I.C.R., which must be communicated to every defendant during his initial appearance before a magistrate. One of the enumerated rights is that the defendant “is not required to make a statement and that any statement made by him may be used against him....”
Whether viewed in a fifth amendment or fourteenth amendment context, the prosecutor’s error was compounded by his unabashed attempt to create an inference of guilt from Gooding’s postarrest silence. In addition to the remarks quoted above, the prosecutor argued to the jury:
Let’s take one step further. Why not tell the police about this conspiracy earlier? What would a reasonable, innocent person do when charged the way this man has been by this group of people? By God, pot in my car, pot in my house, this isn’t mine, this is somebody else's, that is a conspiracy, I want something done about it, I want it investigated. That’s what a reasonable person would do. My God, sexual abuse of a child, I’m being charged with sexual abuse of a child, this is a conspiracy. I want it investigated, I want this done, I want that done, I want this gotten to the bottom. That’s what a reasonable person would do.
What did this man do? Absolutely nothing. Did not tell anyone in law enforcement about conspiracy. Maybe he thought he would spring it on everybody in court at trial. Well, that is not reasonable. That is not what a reasonably innocent person would do. I would say that common sense is such that it refutes the conspiracy theory. The Defendant may say, well, you know, I have the right to remain silent. My lawyer told me not to say anything. Is it reasonable that *864he s going to hold back that kind of information? I would submit that any reasonable man would not do that. In fact, I would ask you to require from the Defendant an explanation as to why, specific reasons he held that conspiracy back for so long.
The prosecutor plainly tried to milk Gooding’s postarrest silence for any drop of prejudice he could get from it. Fortunately for the state, little or no prejudice resulted. The notion that two boys would commit detailed perjury about separate incidents of sexual molestation, simply because their parents had disagreed with Gooding on wholly unrelated matters, was transparently improbable. The prosecutor’s ill-advised questions and remarks on that subject were superfluous. They do not require reversal on appeal. However, by holding that error did occur, the Court today has issued a salutary reminder of the constitutional limits upon using an accused person’s postarrest silence to impeach his testimony at trial.