74
Opinion of the Court
III
Finally, we address the Second Circuit's holding that the prosecutor's comments violated respondent's Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Of course to the extent this claim is based upon alleged burdening of Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, it has already been disposed of by our determination that those Amendments were not infringed. Cf. Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 395 (1989) (where an Amendment "provides an explicit textual source of constitutional protection . . . that Amendment, not the more generalized notion of 'substantive due process,' must be the guide for analyzing [the] claims").
Respondent contends, however, that because New York law required him to be present at his trial, see N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 260.20 (McKinney 1993); N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law § 340.50 (McKinney 1994), the prosecution violated his right to due process by commenting on that presence. He asserts that our decision in Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610 (1976), requires such a holding. In Doyle, the defendants, after being arrested for selling marijuana, received their Miranda warnings and chose to remain silent. At their trials, both took the stand and claimed that they had not sold marijuana, but had been "framed." 426 U. S., at 613. To impeach the defendants, the prosecutors asked each why he had not related this version of events at the time he was arrested. We held that this violated the defendants' rights to due process because the Miranda warnings contained an implicit "assurance that silence will carry no penalty." 426 U. S., at 618.
Although there might be reason to reconsider Doyle, we need not do so here. "[W]e have consistently explained Doyle as a case where the government had induced silence by implicitly assuring the defendant that his silence would not be used against him." Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U. S. 603, 606 (1982) (per curiam). The Miranda warnings had, after all, specifically given the defendant both the option of speaking and the option of remaining silent—and had then gone
Page: Index Previous 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007