Court Opinion

ID: 9671644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:41:07.644406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.244446
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority. I write separately first to *40observe that the point overlooked by the dissent is that both the Fifth Amendment and Const 1963, art 1, § 17 guarantee a right to be free of governmetttally compelled self-incrimination. In this case, there is simply no governmental action which induced defendant’s silence before arrest. There is thus no basis "as a matter of state constitutional law,” post, p 43, to preclude use of a defendant’s prearrest silence for impeachment purposes.
As Justice Stevens noted, concurring in Jenkins v Anderson, 447 US 231, 243-244; 100 S Ct 2124; 65 L Ed 2d 86 (1980):
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. When a citizen is under no official compulsion whatever, 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. 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. . . . 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.