Supreme Court Grants Cert on Whether Prosecutors Can Introduce Evidence of Pre-Arrest, Pre-Miranda Silence to Prove Guilt

The case is Salinas v. Texas. Reuters has the background:

Genovevo Salinas. . . was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the December 1992 deaths of two brothers in Houston.

Salinas voluntarily answered police questions for about an hour, but he became silent when asked whether shotgun shells found at the crime scene would match a gun found at his home. An officer testified that Salinas demonstrated signs of deception.
Ballistics testing later matched the gun to the casings left at the murder scene.

Salinas was charged in 1993 but evaded arrest until his capture in 2007.

His first trial ended in a mistrial. At his second trial, Texas was able to introduce evidence of his silence in the police station, over his lawyer’s objections.

Salinas’ lawyer argued that his client deserved a Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, even though he had not been under arrest or read his rights under the landmark 1966 decision Miranda v. Arizona.

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