Portuondo v. Agard

The Court today transforms a defendant’s presence at trial from a Sixth Amendment right into an automatic burden on his credibility. I dissent from the Court’s disposition. In *77Griffin v. California, 880 U. S. 609 (1965), we held that a defendant’s refusal to testify at trial may not be used as evidence of his guilt. In Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610 (1976), we held that a defendant’s silence after receiving Miranda warnings did not warrant a prosecutor’s attack on his credibility. Both decisions stem from the principle that where the exercise of constitutional rights is “insolubly ambiguous” as…