## Facts

- Ensio Ruben Lakeside was an inmate at a minimum-security correctional institution in Multnomah County, Oregon.
- He received an overnight pass requiring him to return by 10:00 p.m. the next day and did not return.
- Oregon charged him with second-degree escape.
- Lakeside presented a defense of lack of criminal responsibility through a psychiatrist and lay witnesses.
- Lakeside did not testify.
- At Lakeside’s request, defense counsel asked the trial court not to give a “no-adverse-inference” instruction about Lakeside’s silence, fearing it would highlight his failure to testify.
- Over objection, the trial judge instructed the jury not to draw any adverse inference from Lakeside’s decision not to testify.
- The jury convicted Lakeside.

## Issues

1. Whether giving a “no-adverse-inference” instruction over a defendant’s objection violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether giving that instruction over objection interferes with defense strategy in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment reinstating Lakeside’s conviction.
- The Court held that giving a “no-adverse-inference” instruction over a defendant’s objection does not violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The Court held that the instruction does not violate the Sixth Amendment right to counsel even if contrary to defense counsel’s preferred trial strategy.

## Legal Principles

- A trial judge may instruct the jury, even over the defendant’s objection, that no adverse inference may be drawn from the defendant’s failure to testify.
- A protective instruction aimed at preventing jurors from drawing adverse inferences from silence is not unconstitutional “comment” on silence barred by the Fifth Amendment.
- Federal constitutional analysis does not rest on speculation that jurors either failed to notice the defendant’s silence or will disregard the court’s instruction; jurors are generally presumed to follow instructions.
- The Sixth Amendment does not convert routine trial-management and instruction decisions into constitutional violations merely because they conflict with defense counsel’s tactical preferences; the judge retains authority to provide instructions necessary to state the law and safeguard rights.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that a trial judge may, over a defendant’s objection, instruct the jury not to infer guilt from the defendant’s decision not to testify, and that doing so neither infringes the privilege against self-incrimination nor violates the right to counsel.


Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U.S. 333 (1978)