Court Opinion

ID: 9842985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:23:26.895578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:23.446625
License: Public Domain

HARRY T. EDWARDS,
Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The case against the defendant in this action was at best weak. The prosecution relied almost exclusively on the fragmented, inconsistent and repeatedly impeached testimony of a streetwise child prostitute, who is also a convicted thief and known liar. The prostitute admitted at trial that he acted out of anger in telling his tale about the defendant to the authorities — because he believed the defendant had reported his whereabouts to the police. At the time of the encounter between the prostitute and the defendant, the prostitute was a fugitive from either a psychiatric institute or a detention center. Viewed in this setting, the flimsiness of the case against the defendant is easily discerned.
Trial testimony focused on an obviously private encounter between the prostitute and the defendant, and the jury necessarily looked for testimony from the alleged participants. In this context, the right of a defendant to decline to take the witness stand, a right long guaranteed by the United States Constitution, is especially fragile; a jury might view the decision to remain silent as an admission either that any un-contradicted testimony must be true, or that the defendant has something to hide.
Courts have a role, albeit a limited one, in assuring through the use of instructions that a jury does not unfairly penalize a defendant for a decision to remain silent. For the most part, however, jurors are free to draw whatever conclusions they will from the defendant’s silence, and the defendant has no means to know what conclusions jurors have reached, or to challenge them.
In marked contrast, courts have imposed a firm obligation on the prosecution not to exacerbate the problem by highlighting, in any way, the decision of the defendant not to testify. Both the Fifth Amendment and federal statutory law, 18 U.S.C. § 3481 (1982), prohibit comment on the refusal to testify; as the Supreme Court explained in Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 614, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 1232, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), such comment “is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly____ What the jury may infer, given no help from the court, is one thing. What it may infer when the court solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him is quite another.” Notwithstanding this pronouncement, in this case — in which the credibility of the complaining witness was so crucially at issue — the prosecution repeatedly drew the attention of the jurors to the defendant’s silence. The result was not only to penalize this defendant for his constitutionally protected choice, but to do so in a case in which this penalty surely influenced the jury’s decision-making. Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s decision to uphold the defendant’s conviction.
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It is well-established that the Griffin rule prohibits indirect as well as direct comments on the defendant’s failure to testify. As this court has held, “[t]he prosecutor need not directly comment on the defendant’s silence to violate [the Griffin ] rule, so long as the language used, in context, is such that ‘the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify.’ ” 1 When the error is not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), the resulting conviction must be reversed. See United States v. Hastings, *1445461 U.S. 499, 510, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1981, 76 L.Ed.2d 96, 107 (1983) (“The question a reviewing court must ask is this: absent the prosecutor’s allusion to the failure of the defense to proffer evidence to rebut the testimony of the victims, is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have returned a verdict of guilty?”).
In the present case, of the several alleged examples of improper prosecutorial comment to which the defendant points, at least one might suffice, standing alone, to warrant reversal. Several other circuits, and numerous state courts, have ruled that statements that the testimony of a Government witness is “uncontradicted” or “unre-futed” constitute error, at least when it is clear that the defendant is the only person who might have provided the missing contradiction.2 Such comment, although indirect, has been found to be sufficiently unambiguous that a jury would necessarily take it to be a comment on the defendant’s silence, see United States v. Harris, 627 F.2d 474, 476 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied, 449 U.S. 961, 101 S.Ct. 375, 66 L.Ed.2d 229 (1980), and therefore to require reversal if not harmless.
The facts of this case are paradigmatic; one could scarcely imagine a case more exemplary of the concerns of the cited courts than the present one, involving a prosecution for sodomy and for taking indecent liberties with a minor prostitute, who is also a convicted thief and an admitted liar. It cannot seriously be asserted that any one other than the defendant could have refuted the prostitute’s testimony about their alleged sexual encounters in the defendant’s bedroom. Nevertheless, in his closing argument, the prosecutor referred to the testimony of the prostitute and said, “His evidence is uncontradicted at this point that he had sex with Eric Mona-ghan.” Trial Transcript (“Tr.”) (Nov. 3, 1983) at 14. The prosecutor continued, “Now, when you listen to defense counsel they may argue to you that there, indeed, were contradictions. But listen to their argument carefully. I invite you to do that, please. And, you listen for the part of their argument that directs your attention to any evidence that you have heard or seen that contradicts Todd Bart that he had sex with Eric Monaghan.” Id.
Any attorney would recognize this line of closing argument to be persuasive. It focuses the jury’s attention on the act of sex between two persons, and on the presence of testimony from one, its absence from the other. By twice mentioning the defendant’s name in this context, the prosecutor assured that the jury’s attention would shift to the defendant. The cases cited in note 2, supra, make it clear that this precise strategy has been found by numerous courts to constitute reversible error. These decisions also recognize that a prosecutor’s repeated use of this strategy is even more troublesome.3 Yet, “[ajlmost as if he had studied [these cases] and learned all the wrong lessons, the prosecutor in the *1446trial below repeatedly referred to Mr. Mon-aghan’s failure to testify.” Brief for Appellant at 20.
To be sure, several judicial opinions have concluded that a prosecutor’s mere reference to uncontradicted testimony, on its own, will not constitute reversible error, whether because such a comment is not itself error, or is harmless error.4 However, in many instances the courts taper this broad holding into a far narrower one by adding a relevant caveat — i.e., that so long as contradictory testimony is available from witnesses other than the defendant himself, such comment is not reversible error.5 But some courts have found simply that these comments are not error, without further inquiry,6 or that the error was harmless in light of the evidence of guilt.7 Thus, were the case against Mr. Monaghan otherwise a strong one, or had the prosecutor erred only by referring a single time to uncontradieted testimony, these few cases might militate against reversal.
In the instant case, however, we have much more — enough, I believe, easily to establish both that there was error and that it was not harmless. First, the Government concedes that the prostitute’s testimony that he had sex with Monaghan was contradicted on cross-examination by Bart’s prior inconsistent statements. See Tr. (Nov. 1, 1983) at 225-227, 233, 235, 236; Brief for Appellee at 26. Therefore, in stating that Bart’s testimony was uncontra-dicted, the prosecutor could only have meant that the prostitute’s testimony was not refuted by Monaghan’s testimony.
Second, the prosecutor made several remarks and at least one gesture that exacerbated his comments about the uncontradict-ed nature of Bart’s testimony, thus highlighting the absence of testimony from Monaghan. In particular, the prosecutor referred to Monaghan by name when explaining to the jury the legal difference between the testimony of a child and that of an adult. He explained, “It’s just one of the few distinctions that the law makes in the ability of a witness to take the stand and testify; a differentiation between a child, a youth, a minor, and perhaps in Mr. Monaghan’s case or my case or Mr. Tut-tle’s case or your case as an adult.” Tr. (Nov. 3, 1983) at 11-12. Similarly, in his rebuttal, the prosecutor pointed to Mona-ghan and stated that there is one thing that “deep in his heart Mr. Monaghan knows ____” Id. at 73. Defense counsel objected, interrupting the prosecutor, and the judge sustained the objection. Id. Regardless of what was to follow, the remark, coupled with all others, surely left the jury thinking that whatever Monaghan knew in his heart, he was not sharing it.
Third, immediately after the District judge cautioned the prosecutor to be “a little bit careful,” id. at 17, about making comments that might highlight the fact that Monaghan failed to testify, the prosecutor said that “by the very nature of the offense,” Bart “can be the only witness.” Id. at 18.
Taken together, the offensive comments and gesture aggravated the prosecutor’s initial error, reinforced the negative inference to be drawn, and assured that the individual comments would neither go unnoticed nor remain harmless.
Finally, the District judge denied defense counsel’s proper requests for curative instructions. Under the circumstances of this case, error might nonetheless have been rendered harmless had the judge instructed the jury — preferably when the comments were made, but at least at the *1447end of argument — that the prosecutor’s remarks on Monaghan’s decision not to testify were improper and must be disregarded.8 The judge need not have given precisely the instruction proposed by defense counsel but should have agreed to give an instruction that went further than the standard instruction.9
The prosecution’s repeated effort to remind the jury that Monaghan had not testified in his own defense places this case well beyond those involving mere references to uncontradicted testimony and, to my mind, requires a finding of error. Numerous courts have recognized that less egregious cases have resulted in harmful error, and require reversal, and their opinions persuade me that the same result should follow here. Particularly when, as here, it is not at all clear that the evidence is even sufficient to convict the defendant, and where the chief prosecution witness is a male harlot, convicted thief and known liar, who varies his tale with his mood, repeated comments on the defendant’s failure to testify are especially troubling, and dangerous. They unjustifiably suggest to the jury that the complaining witness’s testimony, because uncontradicted, is true. Absent a strong and immediate curative instruction, such inferences are likely to be drawn. I therefore am left with little doubt that the jury in this case disproportionately credited the prostitute’s testimony — which, it must be recalled, was rife with inconsistencies and apparently was offered under a promise not to prosecute — as a result of the prosecutor’s comments on Monaghan’s silence. Under such eircum-stances, I conclude that the error was not harmless,10 and that this case should be reversed.

. United States v. Harris, 627 F.2d 474, 476 (D.C. Cir.) (quoting United States v. Williams, 521 F.2d 950, 953 (D.C.Cir.1975)), cert, denied, 449 U.S. 961, 101 S.Ct. 375, 66 L.Ed.2d 229 (1980).

. See United States v. Hastings, 660 F.2d 301 (7th Cir.1981), rev'd on other grounds, 461 U.S. 499, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983) (reversing court of appeals for failure to consider whether error was harmless); Runnels v. Hess, 653 F.2d 1359, 1362-63 (10th Cir.1981); United States v. Buege, 578 F.2d 187 (7th Cir.), cert, denied, 439 U.S. 871, 99 S.Ct. 203, 58 L.Ed.2d 183 (1978); United States v. Thurmond, 541 F.2d 774 (8th Cir. 1976), cert, denied, 430 U.S. 933, 97 S.Ct. 1556, 51 L.Ed.2d 778 (1977); United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 881 (1st Cir.1971); United States v. Handman, 447 F.2d 853 (7th Cir. 1971); Desmond v. United States, 345 F.2d 225, 226 (1st Cir.1965); Langford v. United States, 178 F.2d 48, 55 (9th Cir. 1949), cert, denied, 339 U.S. 938, 70 S.Ct. 669, 94 L.Ed. 1355 (1950); see also State v. Still, 119 Ariz. 549, 582 P.2d 639 (1978) (en banc); Rowley v. State, 259 Ind. 209, 285 N.E.2d 646 (1972); White v. United States, 248 A.2d 825 (D.C.App.1969); State v. Morgan, 444 S.W.2d 490 (Mo.1969); State v. Hart, 154 Mont. 310, 462 P.2d 885 (1969); State v. Sinclair, 49 N.J. 525, 231 A.2d 565 (1967).

. See United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 882 (1st Cir.1971) (prosecution used term "uncontradicted” three times to refer to witness's testimony about private talk with defendant); Rodriguez-Sandoval v. United States, 409 F.2d 529, 530-31 (1st Cir.1969) (prosecution repeatedly stated that its version of events was uncontradicted); People v. Johnson, 102 iLL. App.3d 122, 57 Ill.Dec. 788, 429 N.E.2d 905 (1981) (repeated references to uncontradicted nature of case impermissibly focused attention on defendant’s silence).

. See, e.g., United States v. Rochan, 563 F.2d 1246, 1249 n. 3 (5th Cir.1977).

. See, e.g., United States v. Armedo-Sarmiento, 545 F.2d 785, 793 (2d Cir.1976), cert, denied, 430 U.S. 917, 97 S.Ct. 1330, 51 L.Ed.2d 595 (1977); United States v. Jennings, 527 F.2d 862, 871 (5th Cir.1976); Watts v. United States, 449 A.2d 308, 312-13 (D.C.1982); Wright v. United States, 387 A.2d 582, 584-85 (D.C.1978).

. See United States v. Estrada de Castillo, 549 F.2d 583, 584 (9th Cir.1976).

. See United States v. Buege, 578 F.2d 187, 189 (7th Cir.), cert, denied, 439 U.S. 871, 99 S.Ct. 203, 58 L.Ed.2d 183 (1978).

. See Eberhardt v. Bordenkircher, 605 F.2d 275, 280 (6th Cir.1979) (endorsing the use of this kind of curative instruction); White v. United States, 248 A.2d 825, 826 & n. 5 (D.C.App.1969) (holding that " ‘[t]he judge should have admonished the jury that the statement was improper and to disregard it, and then and there should have instructed them as to the law on the subject' ” (citation omitted); observing that in some cases even this procedure might not cure prejudice).

. The standard instruction informs the jury that a defendant has a right not to testify. As defense counsel observed at oral argument, and as other courts have recognized, this instruction alone is often ineffective, see United States v. Handman, 447 F.2d at 855; White v. United States, 248 A.2d 825, 826 (D.C.App.1969), and it is more likely to exacerbate the defendant’s predicament than to ameliorate it. Accordingly, 1 believe defense counsel properly and necessarily declined the judge’s offer to deliver this instruction alone.

. See United States v. Hastings, 461 U.S. 499, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983); United States v. Handman, 447 F.2d at 856 (Griffin error not harmless because only one witness’s testimony linked the defendant to the crime, and that witness was not "above reproach”).