Re: Partially remaining silent held against defendant in Arizona

On Apr 2, 2025 at 8:01:52 AM PDT, "Dimensional Traveler" <dtravel@sonic.net>
wrote:

On 4/2/2025 6:31 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

 Arizona Supreme Court drives wedge in right to remain silent. However, I
 don't know enough about trial procedure to understand if the prosecution
 made errors here.
 
 In 2019, in a parking lot outside a church service, a man saw the
 pastor's son, asked him if he were the pastor's son, then shot at him
 twice. Fortunately he missed both shots. He was taken into custody
 by policy and Mirandized before being questioned. The first time, the
 perpetrator invoked his right to remain silent. He was Mirandized and
 questioned a second time; it's not clear if this was the same day or the
 next day. He was inforned that he was going to jail. He offered to answer
 some questions but not others. He claimed self defense,
 
 Part of the problem is that the article Steve Lehto is commenting on
 doesn't make everything clear about what happened at trial. The man
 claimed self defense at trial and took the stand. Now, once he took the
 stand, in cross examination, the prosecution was able to ask him about
 questions of the police he had not answered. In closing arguments, the
 prosecution reminded the jury how not answering those questions made him
 look guilty.
 
 This isn't clear to me. Despite having been Mirandized twoice, are the
 police allowed to start a second round of questioning?
 

As long as he hadn't invoked the right to have an attorney representing
him present, yes.  This actually happens a lot.
 

 At trial, if he hadn't taken the stand, would the prosecution have been
 allowed to raise the issue in closing arguments that he hadn't answered
 certain police questions?

 
I suspect it would depend on whether or not they had called the
interrogating peace officer to the stand and had them testify about what
the suspect did and did not answer.

That's dangerously close to hearsay.

The cop could probably get away with saying that the suspect answered some
questions but not others. But any specificity as to *which* questions were
answered would be questionable. The cop certainly couldn't answer *how* the
defendant answered the questions.