Jenkins v. Anderson

The question in this case is whether the use of prearrest silence to impeach a defendant’s credibility violates either the Fifth or the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

I

On August 13, 1974, the petitioner stabbed and killed Doyle Redding. The petitioner was not apprehended until he turned himself in to governmental authorities about two weeks later. At his state trial for first-degree murder, the petitioner contended that the killing was in self-defense.

The petitioner testified that his sister and her boyfriend were robbed by Redding and another man during the evening of August 12,…