## Facts

- Doyle and Wood were arrested together in Ohio and charged with selling ten pounds of marijuana to a police informant.
- After arrest, both received Miranda warnings.
- Each defendant was tried separately and convicted.
- At trial, each defendant testified and offered an exculpatory account for the first time, asserting they had been framed and that the informant was the actual seller.
- Over objection, the prosecutor cross-examined each defendant about why he did not tell this exculpatory story to police at the time of arrest, after receiving Miranda warnings.
- The prosecution’s questioning invited the jury to treat the defendants’ post-warning silence as undermining the credibility of their trial testimony.

## Issues

1. Whether the Due Process Clause permits a prosecutor to impeach a defendant’s trial testimony by cross-examining the defendant about his post-arrest silence after receiving Miranda warnings.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ohio Court of Appeals and remanded.
- The Court held that using a defendant’s silence at the time of arrest, after Miranda warnings, for impeachment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Court reasoned that post-Miranda silence is “insolubly ambiguous” because it may reflect the exercise of the right to remain silent.
- The Court concluded that Miranda warnings implicitly assure an arrestee that silence will not be penalized, making it fundamentally unfair to use that silence to attack credibility at trial.
- The Court distinguished impeachment with prior inconsistent statements, which remains permissible, from impeachment based on silence following Miranda warnings.

## Legal Principles

- A prosecutor may not impeach a defendant’s trial testimony by using the defendant’s post-arrest silence after Miranda warnings.
- Post-Miranda silence is not a prior inconsistent statement and cannot be treated as substantive evidence of fabrication or guilt for impeachment purposes.
- The constitutional violation rests on due process: the State may not induce silence through Miranda warnings and later penalize that silence by using it against the defendant.

## Conclusion

Because Miranda warnings carry an implicit assurance that exercising the right to remain silent will not be used against the arrestee, due process forbids prosecutorial impeachment based on a defendant’s post-arrest, post-warning silence.


Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976)