Court Opinion

ID: 9846450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:41:16.092483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:31.849795
License: Public Domain

Steffen, C. J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in affirming Coleman’s judgment of conviction, but dissent from the majority’s determination that the prosecutor impermissibly commented on Coleman’s postarrest, pre-*666Miranda-warning silence in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
It is unnecessary for my purposes to repeat the factual recital set forth in the majority opinion. I will therefore limit my dissent comments to the issue described above. I write separately on the issue because of its importance in promoting the search for truth.
In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), the United States Supreme Court held that impeaching a defendant by reference to his or her postarrest, post-Miranda-warning silence constituted a violation of the defendant’s due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Here, there is no evidence in the record that Coleman received a postarrest Miranda warning, and there is no basis for assuming that he did. See People v. Delgado, 13 Cal. Rptr. 2d 703, 706 (Ct. App. 1992) (because of no trial evidence that defendant was questioned by officials, and because a defendant never questioned by officials need not be given his Miranda warnings, there was no basis for assuming that defendant was given his rights). It will thus be seen that Doyle is inapposite.
The Doyle rationale was based upon the ambiguous, equivocal nature of silence following the administration of Miranda warnings. The ambiguous nature of silence postdating the Miranda warnings stems from the prospect that the silence may be nothing more than an exercise of those rights, Doyle, 426 U.S. at 617 n.8, or the defendant’s reaction to the substance of the warning that the arresting officer was required to give the arrestee. Id. at 617. In other words, inferences to be drawn from post-Miranda silence would at best be unreliable and therefore reference to such silence by a prosecutor for impeachment purposes would constitute a “deprivation of due process.” Id. at 619. Of course, Doyle is not implicated in the instant case since there was no evidence that Coleman had received a Miranda warning prior to the postar-rest silence at issue here. In addressing Coleman’s appeal, the issues concerning the admissibility of a defendant’s prewarning/ postarrest silence for purposes of impeachment must be analyzed under the constitutional constraints of both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The admissibility of prewarning/postarrest silence under the Fifth Amendment.

This issue questions whether a defendant’s Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself or herself is violated by allowing a prosecutor to cross-examine a defendant on the subject of the defendant’s prewarning/postarrest silence for impeachment purposes. An analysis of this question essentially implicates two issues. First, whether State action *667compelled the defendant to incriminate himself or herself. Second, if there was such State action, whether it constituted an impermissible burden on the individual’s privilege against self-incrimination.
The first issue has been addressed and resolved by the United States Supreme Court in Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231 (1980). The Jenkins Court rejected the suggestion in Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532 (1897), to the eifect that, as related to the circumstances of the instant case, the State action which compelled the defendant to be a witness against himself was the act of admitting evidence of Coleman’s prewarning/postarrest silence. In Jenkins, the Court held that in admitting the defendant’s silence into evidence, the State had not exacted self-incrimination from the defendant. Jenkins, 447 U.S. at 235. To the contrary,
[t]he Fifth Amendment guarantees an accused the right to remain silent during his criminal trial, and prevents the prosecution from commenting on the silence of a defendant who asserts the right. In this case, of course, the petitioner did not remain silent throughout the criminal proceedings. Instead, he voluntarily took the witness stand in his own defense.
Id. (citation omitted). In Raffel v. United States, 271 U.S. 494, 496 (1926), the Court held that “[t]he immunity from giving testimony is one which the defendant may waive by offering himself as a witness.”
Although Jenkins involved the issue of impeachment through the defendant’s prewarning/prearrest silence, the ruling has application to the instant case because in neither case does the Fifth Amendment right revolve around State action attributable to an arrest or a Miranda warning. The only issue is whether the State compelled Coleman to be a witness against himself. Since he voluntarily took the stand in his own defense, he waived the right to remain silent and became subject to the State’s right of cross-examination like any other witness.
This court’s holding in Murray v. State, 105 Nev. 579, 781 P.2d 288 (1989), does not require a contrary ruling. Our conclusion in Murray that a prosecutor’s comment on appellant’s post-arrest silence violated his right against self-incrimination was based upon the single fact that the State virtually conceded the point. No reason for this court’s holding in Murray was given beyond that of the State’s stipulation. Murray therefore contains neither an analysis of the instant issue nor support for the majority’s ruling.
The second issue for resolution under a Fifth Amendment *668analysis is whether, assuming a coerced self-incrimination as a result of State action, an impermissible burden has been placed on the defendant’s right against self-incrimination by allowing the prosecution to refer to defendant’s prewarning/postarrest silence for purposes of impeachment. I would endorse the ruling by the United States Supreme Court that it does not. See Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S., 113A S. Ct. 1710 (1993); Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603 (1982).
The defendant’s burden as it relates to this issue stems from the dilemma involved in deciding whether to testify at the cost of having the State cross-examine on the subject of the defendant’s silence and thereafter asking the jury to draw inferences therefrom. But once a defendant has elected to take the witness stand in his or her own defense, the right to remain silent is waived and the State has the right to engage the defendant in the refiner’s fire of cross-examination. The State’s compelling interest in the search for truth and the prevention of perjury thus overrides a testifying defendant’s desire to avoid the question of his or her prewarning/postarrest silence and the inferences the jury may be asked to draw from that silence.
Since a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is not absolute, Jenkins, 447 U.S. at 236, even if this court were to conclude that admitting impeaching evidence of Coleman’s silence constituted a burden on Coleman’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, such evidence would still be admissible if the extent of the burden is determined to be permissible in light of compelling State interests. The “threshold question is whether compelling the election impairs to an appreciable extent any of the policies behind the rights involved.” Id. In answering this question, courts balance the threat to the policies underlying the privilege against compelled self-incrimination with the State’s interest in fostering truth through impeachment. See Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U.S. 605 (1972); McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183 (1971).
As noted above, since the defendant is placed in a dilemma in deciding whether to testify and risk impeachment through evidence of his silence, the main threat to the defendant stems from the chilling effect it may have on his decision to testify in his own defense. This “threat,” however, is a reasonable one when balanced against the compelling State interest in finding truth and discouraging perjury.
Every criminal defendant is privileged to testify in his own defense, or to refuse to do so. But that privilege cannot be construed to include the right to commit perjury. Having voluntarily taken the stand, petitioner was under an obligation to speak truthfully and accurately, and the prosecution *669here did no more than utilize the traditional truth-testing devices of the adversary process.
Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 225 (1971) (citations omitted).
Rejecting the contention that impeachment with prior silence impermissibly burdened a defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights, the Court in Jenkins held that once a defendant elects to testify,
“[t]he interests of the other party and regard for the function of the court of justice to ascertain the truth become relevant, and prevail in the balance of considerations determining the scope and limits of the privilege against self-incrimination.” Brown v. United States, 356 U.S. 148, 156 (1958).
Thus, impeachment follows the defendant’s own decision to cast aside his cloak of silence and advances the truth-finding function of the criminal trial.
Jenkins, 447 U.S. at 238. The Court also noted that “[u]se of such impeachment on cross-examination allows prosecutors to test the credibility of witnesses by asking them to explain prior inconsistent statements and acts.” Id. Finally, the Jenkins Court observed that “[cjommon 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.” Id. at 239.
I conclude from the foregoing that the truth-seeking objective of the trial outweighs the burden imposed on the defendant in the course of deciding whether to testify in the face of the admissibility of evidence of prior silence that would be inconsistent with the defendant’s trial testimony.

The admissibility of prewarning/postarrest silence under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The question implicating Coleman’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment is whether the admission of prewarning/ postarrest silence for impeachment purposes violates Coleman’s fundamental right to due process of law, i.e., a fair trial. Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), determined that the use by the prosecutor of a defendant’s post-Mz'randa-warning/postarrest silence constituted a violation of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment based upon an implicit guarantee by the State not to use the defendant’s silence to impeach him or her at trial. In the instant case, the issue thus becomes whether the prosecutor, in impeaching Coleman with his prewarning/postarrest silence, has violated Coleman’s due process rights based upon an implied guarantee by the State that he would not suffer such impeachment if he elected to testify in his own defense. I con-*670elude that no such implied guarantee exists where, as here, a defendant’s silence was not preceded by a Miranda warning. In Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603 (1982), the Court reached the issue of the use of prewarning/postarrest silence in order to impeach a defendant who takes the stand in his own defense.1 On appeal from the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it was “inherently unfair” to allow cross-examination regarding postarrest silence. The majority reasoned that a key premise in both Doyle and Jenkins was the unfairness inherent in using government-induced silence for impeachment purposes. Indeed, the Sixth Circuit expanded Doyle, concluding that the arrest alone is governmental action which implicitly induces a defendant to remain silent, thus rendering fundamentally unfair and a violation of due process, references to postarrest silence for impeachment purposes.
In reversing the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court in Fletcher stated that “[i]n the absence of the sort of affirmative assurances embodied in the Miranda warnings, we do not believe that it violates due process of law for a State to permit cross-examination as to postarrest silence when a defendant chooses to take the stand.” Fletcher, 455 U.S. at 607. Impliedly, the Court recognized that only governmental inducement in the form of a Miranda warning would preclude the use of postarrest silence for purposes of impeaching a testifying defendant. I fully agree with this proposition.
A general awareness of Miranda-based expressions of rights and warnings is not sufficient to preclude the State from impeaching a testifying defendant by resorting to his or her prewarning/ postarrest silence. Miranda warnings are prophylactic measures directed at a specific arrestee. Thus, an individual suspect is given specific assurances by the State concerning rights and warnings that he may implicitly rely upon. Under such circumstances, where a suspect is advised of the right to remain silent and that anything he or she utters may be used against him or her in a court of law, the implicit representation is that invoking the right to silence will not be used against the accused in court.
To conclude, however, that a defendant may rely upon Miranda-type information stemming from such nongovernmental sources as movies, the electronic and print media, word of mouth or prior experience with the criminal justice system as a basis for preventing the State from impeaching him or her by using the defendant’s prewarning/postarrest silence is untenable. It would *671attach greater priority and significance to unreliable, unfocused forms of common understanding or misunderstanding unattributable to government action than it would to the State’s compelling interest in seeking truth, preventing and discouraging perjury, and facilitating accountability and justice. This I would be unwilling to do.
Moreover, the Fletcher Court did not fashion an absolute rule of admissibility of prewarning/postarrest silence in State criminal proceedings. Instead, the Court recognized the right of a State “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.” Fletcher, 455 U.S. at 607. Thus, if this court were to embrace the reasoning in Fletcher, a defendant’s prewarning/postarrest silence could be used to impeach a defendant who testifies at trial only if the trial judge determined that it would be properly admissible under Nevada’s rules of evidence. Such considerations as relevance, probative value vis-a-vis prejudicial effect, and the degree to which the circumstances of the case may render the defendant’s silence ambiguous, would enter into the trial court’s determination of the admissibility of the defendant’s silence.
In both Aesoph v. State, 102 Nev. 316, 721 P.2d 379 (1986), and Vipperman v. State, 92 Nev. 213, 547 P.2d 682 (1976), we held that impeachment with post -Miranda silence was a violation of a defendant’s due process rights. However, in both cases, we explicitly limited our rulings to situations where Miranda warnings antedated the silence used for purposes of impeachment. In Aesoph, we held that “[wjhat is impermissible is the evidentiary use of an individual’s exercise of his constitutional rights after the state’s assurance [in the Miranda warnings] that the invocation of those rights will not be penalized. ” Aesoph, 102 Nev. at 321, 721 P.2d at 383 (emphasis supplied). On the same issue, the Vipperman court concluded that “[t]o hold otherwise would . . . operate unfairly against the accused, who, when informed of his rights, would not suppose that his silence could in any way be used against him.” Vipperman, 92 Nev. at 216, 547 P.2d at 684 (emphasis added).
For the reasons discussed above, I would conclude that Coleman was not deprived of his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process when the State used his prewarning/postarrest silence for impeachment purposes during cross-examination.
Convinced that Coleman’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were not violated, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s ruling to the contrary. I do, however, concur in affirming Coleman’s judgment of conviction.

The vitality of Fletcher was reaffirmed in the recent case of Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 113A S. Ct. 1710 (1993).