Court Opinion

ID: 9471318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:29:00.683061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:20.960475
License: Public Domain

JOHN W. PECK, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting with whom Keith and Jones, Circuit Judges, joined.
Because I believe that the majority errs both in its interpretation of Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), and its progeny, and in its analysis of the jury instruction given in contravention of the dictates of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), as harmless error, I respectfully dissent.
The majority states that “[t]his [case] is not a Doyle case as that decision has been interpreted and limited by subsequent Supreme Court decisions.” Majority op. at 172 (citation omitted). Rather, the majority construes the evidence as showing that unlike the defendants in Doyle, Crowder did not exercise his right to remain silent but instead reiterated the story he had given several months before to the Kentucky State Police. I do not agree.
Crowder’s purported “statement” was first presented to the jury in the testimony of FBI agent Seldon Sledd in the prosecution’s case-in-chief:
Q. Did he state that he understood the constitutional rights?
A. Yes he did.
MR. OSBORNE. May we approach the bench.
BY THE COURT: Yes.
(At bench out of the hearing of the jury-)
MR. OSBORNE. I don’t believe this trick.
MR. GILLENWATER. This what?
MR. OSBORNE. This trick — t-r-i-c-k. This man took the fifth and declined to give a statement.
BY THE COURT. What are you objecting to?
MR. OSBORNE. He advised the man of his constitutional rights and he was not willing to give a statement. He said he didn’t want to, and he didn’t have to.
BY THE COURT: Mr. Witness.
(Witness at bench out of hearing of the jury.)
BY THE COURT. Did the defendant make a statement to you after you advised him of his rights?
THE WITNESS. No, sir. He said he didn’t want to and he didn’t have to.
MR. GILLENWATER. Could I refresh his memory? He said that he would stand by the statement he made to the police.
*176MR. GILLENWATER. That is his statement.
BY THE COURT. All right. I will let him answer about that.
MR. OSBORNE. Your honor, to allow into evidence the admission of an accused person to refuse a statement after he has been advised of his rights is in violence, in my opinion, of the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution, and I move for a mistrial.
BY THE COURT. Well, if he had refused, this evidence wouldn’t have been competent, but he didn’t. He said he would stand by his statement to the police.

Continuing Direct Examination

Q. Did he indicate to you- — What did he say to you?
A. After being advised of his rights, he stated that he did not wish to discuss these charges, that he wished to stand by the statement he had made to the State Police.
Trans. 317-19 (emphasis added).
Crowder’s “statement” was again presented to the jury during the prosecution’s cross-examination of Crowder.
Q. Do you recall being interviewed by Agent Sledd on December 9, 1980?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Well, did you make this statement to him? “I do not wish to discuss the matter and will stand by my previous statements to the Kentucky State Police”?
A. Yes, I did.
BY THE COURT: He had- the perfect right to make that statement, ladies and gentlemen, and that is not to be considered as evidence of his guilt.
A. I made that statement, If I may say so, on the advice of a previous lawyer that I had had.
Q. Your lawyer told you to make that statement?
A. That is correct.
BY THE COURT: He didn’t have to make any statement.
A. (Continuing) Not this lawyer. Trans. 429.
I believe that a fair reading of this testimony reveals that Crowder invoked his right to silence as explicated in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and leads to the conclusion that this case is controlled by Doyle. Crowder made his statement to Agent Sledd invoking his right to silence following the reading of his Miranda rights and on the advice of counsel. As the Supreme Court stated in Doyle:
“[W]hen a person under arrest is informed, as Miranda requires, that he may remain silent, that anything he says may be used against him, and that he may have an attorney if he wishes, it seems to me that it does not comport with due process to permit the prosecution during the trial to call attention to his silence at the time of arrest and to insist that because he did not speak about the facts of the case at that time, as he was told he need not do, an unfavorable inference might be drawn as to the truth of his trial testimony.... ”
426 U.S. at 619, 96 S.Ct. at 2245, (quoting United States v. Hale, 422 U.S. 171, 182-83, 95 S.Ct. 2133, 2139-2140, 45 L.Ed.2d 99 (1975) (White, J., concurring)). Moreover, this case is factually indistinguishable from Doyle. In Doyle, after the two defendants were arrested and informed of their Miranda rights, one said nothing. The other defendant, Jefferson Doyle, asked arresting officers “[Wjhat’s this all about?” Doyle v. Ohio, supra, 426 U.S. at 615 n. 5, 96 S.Ct. at 2243 n. 5. After the officers informed him of the reason for his arrest, he said “you got to be crazy” or “I don’t know what you are talking about.” Id. at 622 n. 4, 96 S.Ct. at 2247 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Neither the majority nor the dissent in Doyle treated these comments as waivers of Doyle’s right to remain silent. Id. at 616-20, 96 S.Ct. at 2244-2246; id. at 620, 621, 622, 626, 96 S.Ct. at 2246, 2248 (Stevens, J., dissenting). See Anderson v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 407, 100 S.Ct. 2180, 2181, 65 L.Ed.2d 222 (1980) (per curiam) (discussing the factual background *177of Doyle). I simply cannot conclude, as the majority must, that the statement “I do not wish to discuss the matter and will stand by my previous statements to the Kentucky State Police” is a waiver of the right to silence, but that statements such as “you got to be crazy” and “I don’t know what you are talking about” are not.
The decisions cited by the majority as limiting Doyle, do not compel the decision reached today. Neither Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980), nor Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603, 102 S.Ct. 1309, 71 L.Ed.2d 490 (1982) (per curiam), is apposite because Crowder received the Miranda warnings which trigger the applicability of Doyle and were absent in those cases. Anderson v. Charles, supra, is not, contrary to the claim of the majority, controlling. In Charles, the Supreme Court held that where inconsistent statements have been made by a defendant, the omission of facts from one statement that are contained in the other statement is not silence within the meaning of Doyle. 447 U.S. at 409, 100 S.Ct. at 2182. The Court in Charles explicitly distinguished Doyle on the ground that in Doyle neither defendant made any statement contradicting his subsequent trial testimony. Id. at 407 n. 2 & 408, 100 S.Ct. at 2182 n. 2. As the majority concedes, Crowder made no statement inconsistent with his subsequent trial testimony.
There is one point which distinguishes Doyle from the instant case, but the distinction further supports vacating the judgment of the district court. Doyle involved a prosecutor’s emphasizing a defendant’s silence for the purpose of impeaching the defendant’s subsequent trial testimony. In the instant case, the prosecution first introduced evidence of Crowder’s invoking his right to counsel in its case-in-ehief. The majority contends that the prosecutor by introducing the evidence “just brought to the jury’s attention that Crowder continued throughout to stick with a story which was contradicted in many details by the testimony of disinterested witnesses.” Majority op. at 172. Because there was no suggestion that Crowder ever wavered in adhering to his statement that his sole tie to the stolen equipment was as a good Samaritan, the only possible reason for the prosecutor’s improper question was his desire to benefit from the incriminating implications of Crowder’s invoking his Miranda right to silence. Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment of the district court.
Although the original panel did not reach the question because of its disposition of the Doyle issue, I believe that the jury instruction given in violation of Sandstrom also requires vacating the judgment of the district court. I concur in the majority’s conclusions that the instructions do violate Sandstrom and that they are plain error. I do not, however, concur in the majority’s conclusion that the error was harmless.
As the majority acknowledges, the Supreme Court divided equally on the question of whether a Sandstrom error can be harmless. Connecticut v. Johnson, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 969, 74 L.Ed.2d 823 (1983). Because neither the plurality nor the dissenting opinion is a binding holding of the Court, I would follow the approach adopted by various panels of this court that whether a Sandstrom error is harmless is in large measure a function of the defense asserted at trial. Engle v. Koehler, 707 F.2d 241, 246 (6th Cir.1983); Conway v. Anderson, 698 F.2d 282, 285 (6th Cir.1983). Judge Contie, writing for the panel in Koehler, delineated the approach quite well:
If the defendant acknowledges that an intentional, malicious killing occurred and only claims non-participation, then a Sandstrom instruction may be harmless. Conversely, if the defendant asserts lack of mens rea, a Sandstrom instruction can be extremely prejudicial even if overall proof of intent or malice is substantial.
707 F.2d at 246 (citation omitted).
Crowder both denied participation in the transportation and receiving of stolen equipment and asserted lack of mens rea. Specifically, Crowder denied that he knew that the vehicles were stolen and argued that the government had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had such *178knowledge. Not only was Crowder’s mental state placed squarely into issue by the defense, but the government argued, and the trial court instructed, that Crowder’s knowledge that the equipment was stolen could be inferred from his failure to explain or his unsatisfactory explanation of his possession of the equipment. In such circumstances, I would not, as the majority does, apply woodenly an “overwhelming evidence” standard as a touchstone for determining the harmlessness of a Sandstrom error. I would not, as the majority does, find the Sandstrom error in the instant case to be harmless because the overall proof of guilt is substantial.
Even if I were to apply an “overwhelming evidence” standard in this case, I would dissent from the majority’s holding that the Sandstrom error was harmless. While the evidence was sufficient to sustain Crowder’s conviction, sufficiency of the evidence is not dispositive of the issue of harmless error. Williams v. Engle, 683 F.2d 152, 153 (6th Cir.1982) (per curiam). I do not find the proof of guilt overwhelming.
As the majority states, Crowder’s testimony was contradicted by the testimony of disinterested witnesses on various points. The majority ignores, however, that on many of those points Crowder’s testimony was corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses. Due to the conflicting testimony and the fact that proof of most of the ultimate issues of fact relies heavily on jury inferences, I cannot concur in the majority’s finding that the proof of guilt was so overwhelming in this case that the Sandstrom error was harmless. See Williams, supra.
For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent.