Court Opinion

ID: 9473987
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:45:09.466213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:50.944062
License: Public Domain

FLAUM, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
As an intermediate appellate court judge obliged to follow the contemporary and controlling teachings of Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), I am compelled to find that a Doyle violation occurred in this case. I therefore respectfully limit myself to registering a dissent from Part I of the majority’s opinion and a detachment from the broad-ranging reflections contained in the concurring opinions of my brothers Posner and Easter-brook. The record in this case reflects that petitioner Phelps made a few brief comments after his arrest and receipt of Miranda warnings, but made no statement that was inconsistent with the version of events he later related at trial. Cf. Ander*1420son v. Charles, 447 U.S. 404, 408, 100 S.Ct. 2180, 2182, 65 L.Ed.2d 222 (1980) (Doyle not violated by cross-examination that merely inquires into defendant’s prior inconsistent statement). The prosecutor’s questioning of Phelps thus referred to Phelps’s post-arrest silence, in direct violation of Doyle.
Nevertheless, the record also demonstrates that Phelps’s testimony lacked credibility in certain critical respects, as outlined in the majority’s opinion, and that the trial court gave a clear, prompt, curative instruction to the jury, cf. United States ex rel. Miller v. Greer, 772 F.2d 293, 298-299 (7th Cir.1985). I thus conclude that under the standard for assessing federal constitutional error mandated by the Supreme Court in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), the Doyle violation in this case was rendered harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. I therefore concur in the majority’s reversal of the district court’s judgment.