United States v. Robinson

In United States v. Robinson (1988), 485 U.S. 25, 33-34, 108 S. Ct. 864, 99 L. Ed. 2d 23, the United States Supreme Court also recognized that the Fifth Amendment prohibition against unfair use of the defendant's silence does not prevent a prosecutor from making a fair response to claims of the defendant or his attorney at trial. State v. Vance at P 44-46; State v. Exum, 10th Dist. No. 05AP-894, 2007 Ohio 2648, P 40. In Robinson, the defendant did not testify. His attorney argued that the government had "unfairly denied" the defendant the "opportunity to explain his actions." United States v. Robinson at 27. In response, the prosecutor argued that the defendant "could have taken the stand and explained it to you, anything he wanted to." Id. at 28. The United States Supreme Court held that the right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment was not violated by the comment: "The broad dicta in Griffin Griffin v. California (1965), 380 U.S. 609, 85 S. Ct. 1229, 14 L. Ed. 2d 106 to the effect that the Fifth Amendment 'forbids comment by the prosecution on the accused's silence,' 380 U.S., at 615, 85 S.Ct. at 1233, must be taken in the light of the facts of that case. It is one thing to hold, as we did in Griffin, that the prosecutor may not treat a defendant's exercise of his right to remain silent at trial as substantive evidence of guilt; it is quite another to urge, as defendant does here, that the same reasoning would prohibit the prosecutor from fairly responding to an argument of the defendant by adverting to that silence. There may be some 'cost' to the defendant in having remained silent in each situation, but we decline to expand Griffin to preclude a fair response by the prosecutor in situations such as the present one." Id. at 869-870. In United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 234; 94 S. Ct. 467; 38 L. Ed. 2d 427 (1973), the Supreme Court recognized that "the danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and uncertainty, and not from the grounds for arrest." Robinson, 414 U.S. at 234, n 5. The Robinson Court relied on the differences between searches incident to lawful custodial arrests and Terry "stop-and-frisk" searches to reject an argument that the limitations established in Terry should be applied to a search incident to arrest. Robinson, 414 U.S. at 228. There are two historical rationales for the "search incident to arrest" exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment: (1) the need to disarm the suspect in order to take him into custody; (2) the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial. A custodial arrest involves "danger to an officer" because of "the extended exposure which follows the taking of a suspect into custody and transporting him to the police station." Robinson, 414 U.S. at 234-235.