Superior Court of Pennsylvania Rules that Prosecution Cannot Use a Defendant’s Silence to Prove That He is Guilty of Murder

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania reversed a Defendant’s homicide conviction in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Michael Molina, Appellant. Molina appealed from the judgment of sentence entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Criminal Division (Pennsylvania), following his conviction for murder in the third degree and unlawful restraint. The victim in the case was a woman named Melissa Snodgrass.

On appeal, Molina raised one issue for review. He contended that the trial court committed reversible error when it permitted the Commonwealth, over objection, to reference his pre-arrest silence in response to police questioning as substantive evidence of his guilt. The prosecutor had discussed the fact that during the investigation of Snodgrass’ murder, the detective on the case asked Molina when he last saw Snodgrass. Molina initially told the detective a year and a half before; then moments later, he stated it had been approximately three months since he last saw Snodgrass. The detective testified that she asked Molina to come down to police headquarters so she could further interview him and he refused.

At closing argument, counsel for the Commonwealth commented on Molina’s refusal to cooperate with the detective and asked “Why?”. The court found it clear that the prosecutor deliberately exploited Molina’s silence by asking the jury to infer guilt from the fact that he refused to go to the police station to be interviewed. The court determined that the prejudice to Molina could not be considered de minimis and was not harmless. The fact that the jury was persuaded to acquit defendant of the most serious charges while convicting him of others did not rule out the possibility that the jury was not overwhelmed by the credibility of the testifying witnesses. Since the court could not be sure that the jury would have resolved the issue in the same manner absent the improper reference to Molina’s silence, it was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. The court reversed the convictions and vacated the judgment of sentence. The court remanded the case to the trial court for a new trial.

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