| Griffin v. California | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued March 9, 1965 Decided April 28, 1965 | |
| Full case name | Griffin v. California |
| Citations | 380 U.S. 609 (more) 85 S. Ct. 1229; 14 L. Ed. 2d 106 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Defendant convicted, California court; affirmed, California Supreme Court. |
| Subsequent | Subsequent trial ended in a mistrial; third trial found defendant guilty of murder. |
| Holding | |
| Prosecutor's reference in closing argument to defendant's exercising his right to refuse to testify, and instruction allowing jury to consider it, violate that right. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Douglas, joined by Black, Clark, Brennan, Goldberg |
| Concurrence | Harlan |
| Dissent | Stewart, joined by White |
| Warren took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. V, by way of XIV | |
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled, by a 6–2 vote, that it is a violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment rights for the prosecutor to comment to the jury on the defendant's declining to testify, or for the judge to instruct the jury that such silence is evidence of guilt.[1]
The ruling specified that this new extension to defendants' Fifth Amendment rights was binding on all States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This "no-comment rule" had already been binding on the federal government's courts because of an 1878 law.