Court Opinion

ID: 9733029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:50:11.865396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:37.829402
License: Public Domain

Lowe, J.,

dissenting:

To argue that an instruction of a constitutional right may deny the accused the very protection the Constitution seeks to afford is, at first blush, seemingly incongruous if not absurd. I am convinced, however, that by emphasizing a defendant’s right not to testify, over prior objection, his failure to have done so becomes so spotlighted that “... the light will penetrate the curtain sought to be drawn over it.” United States v. Garguilo, 310 F. 2d 249, 252.
The majority has relied heavily upon Judge Friendly’s “persuasively reasoned” opinion in Garguilo which they quote at length. That opinion rests upon the conclusion that because:
“The jurors have [already] observed the defendant’s failure to take the stand; in the absence of instruction, nothing could be more natural than for them to draw an adverse inference from the lack of testimony by the very person who should know the facts best.”
However, in Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, 614-615 the Supreme Court expressly rejected that very reasoning. The Court felt that in such instances
“. .. the inference of guilt is not always so natural or irresistible. . . .”
The Court went on to recognize that:
“What the jury may infer, given no help from the *204court, is one thing. What it may infer when the Court solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him is quite another.”
In distinguishing Griffin the majority correctly notes that the strict rule espoused in Griffin directs only that the trial judge refrain from instructing the jury that an accused’s failure to take the stand may be the basis for an inference of the accused’s guilt. The purpose of the Griffin rule, however, is to prevent the accused’s exercise of his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination from being judicially emphasized as evidence against him. Logically then, should not the Griffin reasoning apply equally whether the inference is aroused affirmatively or negatively?
The majority acknowledge that the trial judge should respect the accused’s request for no instruction, but place an impossible burden on him to show “actual prejudice” when his request is denied. Certainly if a defendant’s silence were spotlighted by a cunning prosecutorial argument, couched as a negative pregnant, the majority would find sufficient possibility of the “actual prejudice” which it could not see when illumination of the silence had come less auspiciously, but more persuasively from a judge, in the form of an instruction given over prior objection. Recognizing that a convicted defendant is precluded from inquiring into jurors’ reasons for their verdicts, what evidence could an accused possibly add to his conviction by that jury to indicate the probable presence of actual prejudice?
While I would not recommend the practice, I agree that such an instruction given sua sponte but without prior objection is not error, recognizing as the majority points out, however, that there is a division of authority even there. Anno. 18 A.L.R.3d 1335. I am convinced that the trend is toward disallowing a charge concerning silence when an objection is interposed.1 I am more convinced by the simple *205logic of the implied answer to the rhetorical question of the curate in Cervantes’ Don Quixote “. .. can there ever be too much of a good thing?”. Even constitutional rights can be force-fed to a reluctant defendant until he is choked by the well intended benefactor. It is for that reason, among others, that a defendant may waive his rights, even constitutional ones.
I am persuaded by the reasoning of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Bruno v. United States, 308 U. S. 287, 294 2 as he responded “To the suggestion that it benefits a defendant who fails to take the stand not to have the attention of the jury directed to that fact. . . .” Justice Frankfurter continued:
“. . . it suffices to say that, however difficult it may be to exercise enlightened self interest, the accused should be allowed to make his own choice when an Act of Congress authorizes him to choose.”
If an accused is “entitled as a matter of right to have the trial judge tell the jury it must not attach any importance to the defendant’s failure to testify”, see Bruno, supra, 308 U. S. at 294, he should have the correlative right to say whether or not his silence should be singled out for the jury’s attention.
I respectfully dissent.

. See e.g., Russell v. State, 398 S.W.2d 213 (Ark. 1966); People v. Molano, 61 Cal. Rptr. 821 (1967); Villines v. State, 492 P. 2d 343 (Okla. 1971); Mosby v. State, 440 S.W.2d 230 (Ark. 1969); Gross v. State, 306 N.E.2d 371 (Ind. 1974); and State v. White, 285 A. 2d 832 (Me. 1972).

. In Bruno the Supreme Court found error in the absence of the charge after defendant had requested it. In a dissenting opinion in United States v. Gainey, 380 U. S. 63, 73, Mr. Justice Douglas described Bruno:
“Just as it is improper for counsel to argue from the defendant’s silence, so is it improper for the trial judge to call attention to the fact of defendant’s silence. Indeed, under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3481 the defendant is entitled as a matter of right to have the trial judge expressly tell the jury that it must not attach any importance to the defendant’s failure to testify; or, if the defendant sees fit, he may choose to have no mention made of his silence by anyone. Bruno v. United States, 308 U. S. 287, 84 L. Ed. 257, 60 S. Ct. 198.” [Emphasis added].