Cite as: 526 U. S. 314 (1999)
Thomas, J., dissenting
fendant's decision not to testify); Carter, supra, at 306 (Powell, J., concurring) ("But nothing in the [Self-Incrimination] Clause requires that jurors not draw logical inferences when a defendant chooses not to explain incriminating circumstances").* Therefore, at bottom, Griffin constitutionalizes a policy choice that a majority of the Court found desirable at the time. Carter compounded the error. This sort of undertaking is not an exercise in constitutional interpretation but an act of judicial willfulness that has no logical stopping point. See Carter, supra, at 310 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) ("Such Thomistic reasoning is now carried from the constitutional provision itself, to the Griffin case, to the present case, and where it will stop no one can know").
We have previously recognized that stare decisis is "at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our prior decisions." Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 235 (1997). Given their indefensible foundations, I would be willing to reconsider Griffin and Carter in the appropriate case. For purposes of this case, which asks only whether the principle established in Griffin should be extended, I agree that the Fifth Amendment does not prohibit a sentencer from drawing an adverse inference from a defendant's failure to testify and, therefore, join Justice ScaliaTMs dissent.
*I also agree with Justice Scalia, ante, at 336, that Griffin improperly relied on a prior decision interpreting a federal statute to inform its resolution of a constitutional question—an error the Court later repeated in Carter. See Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609, 613-614 (1965); Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U. S. 288, 300-301, n. 16 (1981).
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