Jenkins v. Anderson 447 U.S. 231 (1980)
JENKINS v. ANDERSON 447 U.S. 231 (1980)
The Fifth Amendment allows a criminal defendant to remain silent during his trial and prevents the prosecution from commenting on his silence, in order to prevent the jury from drawing adverse inferences. In Jenkins the defendant surrendered to the police two weeks after killing a man and claimed that he had acted in self-defense. When he told that self-defense story at his trial, the prosecutor countered that he would have surrendered immediately had he killed in self-defense. After conviction the defendant, seeking habeas corpus relief, argued that the use of his prearrest silence violated his right against self-incrimination and fundamental fairness. The Supreme Court, like the federal courts below, denied relief. Justice lewis f. powell, for a 7–2 Court, ruled that the use of prearrest silence to impeach a defendant's credibility, if he testifies in his own defense, does not violate any constitutional rights. Powell's murky reasoning provoked Justices thurgood marshall and william j. brennan, dissenting, to declare that a duty to incriminate oneself now replaced the right to remain silent. Powell had supported no such duty, but he rejected a "right to commit perjury," which no one claimed. His opinion weakened the right to remain silent.
Leonard W. Levy
(1986)