The constitutional right to an implicit bias jury instruction

• Author: Colin Miller
• Position: Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Professor of Law
• Pages: 349-391

THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO AN IMPLICIT BIAS JURY

INSTRUCTION

Colin Miller*

ABSTRACT

The Supreme Court has gone to great lengths to prevent jurors from holding

defendants’ silence against them. In a trilogy of opinions, the Court concluded

that when a defendant refrains from testifying, (1) the prosecutor and judge can-

not make adverse comments about that decision; (2) the judge can give a “no

adverse inference” instruction even over a defense objection; and (3) the judge

must give a “no adverse inference” instruction upon a defense request.

Conversely, the Court has never ruled that jurors can impeach their verdict

based upon jurors holding a defendant’s silence against him, and lower courts

have ruled against recognizing such a right to jury impeachment.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has addressed the issue of juror racial bias in

reverse. In 2017, the Court ruled in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado that jurors must

be allowed to impeach their verdict based on jurors holding a defendant’s race

against him. But the Court has never held that there is a right to an implicit bias

jury instruction, and no lower court has ever recognized such a right.

In Pena-Rodriguez, however, the Supreme Court recognized that the right to

an impartial jury not only addresses “unique historical, constitutional, and insti-

tutional concerns,” but also requires “[a] constitutional rule.” Specifically, the

Pena-Rodriguez Court concluded that “[a] constitutional rule that racial bias in

the justice system must be addressed—including, in some instances, after the ver-

dict has been entered—is necessary to prevent a systemic loss of confidence in

jury verdicts, a confidence that is a central premise of the Sixth Amendment trial

right.”

This Article contends that this rule must go further and address juror racial

bias on both the back end and the front end. For the same reasons that the

Supreme Court created the right to a jury instruction that jurors must not hold a

defendant’s silence against him, it should recognize the constitutional right to a

jury instruction that jurors must not hold a defendant’s race against him.

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

I. THE SIXTH AMENDMENT RIGHT TO AN IMPARTIAL JURY AND THE IMPLICIT

BIAS INSTRUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

* Associate Dean for Faculty Development, Professor of Law, and Thomas H. Pope Professorship in Trial

Advocacy, University of South Carolina School of Law; co-creator and co-host, Undisclosed podcast; Blog

Editor, EvidenceProf Blog. © 2022, Colin Miller.

349

A. An Introduction to Implicit Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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352

B. The Sixth Amendment Right to an Impartial Jury . . . . . . . . . . 354

C. The Implicit Bias Jury Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

1. Different Proposed Formulations of the Implicit Bias

Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

2. Courts’ Reluctance to Recognize a Right to an Implicit Bias

Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

3. The Sympathy/Prejudice Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

D. Conclusion 361

II. THE FIFTH AMENDMENT PRIVILEGE AGAINST SELF-INCRIMINATION AND “NO

ADVERSE INFERENCE” INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

B. Griffin v. California: Can the Prosecutor or Judge Make

Adverse Comments About the Defendant’s Decision Not to

Testify? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

C. Lakeside v. Oregon: Over a Defense Objection, Can the Judge

Instruct Jurors Not to Hold the Defendant’s Refusal to Testify

Against Him? 363

D. Carter v. Kentucky: Upon Request, Does a Judge Have to Issue

a “No Adverse Inference” Instruction? 364

E. Conclusion 366

III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO AN IMPLICIT BIAS JURY INSTRUCTION . . . 366

A. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

B. Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

1. Pena-Rodriguez and the Elevation of the Sixth Amendment

Right to an Impartial Jury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

a. Rule 606(b)(1) and the General Prohibition on Jury

Impeachment 367

b. Rule 606(b)(2) and the Exceptions to the Anti-Jury

Impeachment Rule 367

c. Tanner and the Sixth Amendment Right to a

Competent Jury 368

d. Lower Court Extensions of Tanner 369

e. Pena-Rodriguez and the Elevation of the Sixth

Amendment Right to an Impartial Jury 370

C. In Recognizing the Right to a “No Adverse Inference”

Instruction, the Supreme Court Rejected the Arguments Made

Against an Implicit Bias Instruction 372

1. No Constitutional Obligation to Give the Instruction . . . . 372

2. The Sufficiency of Existing Jury Instructions . . . . . . . . . . 374

3. The Lakeside Court’s Rejection of Two Assumptions About

Jury Conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

350 AMERICAN CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW [Vol. 59:349

a. Assumptions About Jury Conduct Related to

Defendants Not Testifying 376

i. Do Jurors Notice and Hold Defendants’

Decisions Not to Testify Against Them? 376

ii. Does the “No Adverse Inference” Instruction

Help or Hurt Defendants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

b. Assumptions About Jury Conduct Related to Implicit

Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

i. Do Jurors Notice and Hold Race Against

Defendants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

ii. Do Implicit Bias Jury Instructions Help or Hurt

Defendants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

(a) The Sympathy/Prejudice Instruction

Experiment 382

(b) The Implicit Bias Instruction Experiment 385

D. The Possibility of a More Limited Right to an Implicit Bias Jury

Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

1. Ham v. South Carolina and the Due Process Right to

Special Voir Dire Questioning Regarding Racial Bias 386

2. Ristaino v. Ross and the “Inextricably Bound” Test . . . . . 388

3. Turner v. Murray and Interracial Capital Cases . . . . . . . . 389

CONCLUSION 390

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INTRODUCTION

Imagine you are a public defender representing a Black man who does not tes-

tify at his trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a white woman.

1

These facts are drawn from the case of Ronnie Long, which the author investigated for the Undisclosed

podcast. See State v. Ronnie Long, Episode 1: Brilliant Disguise, UNDISCLOSED (March 12, 2018), https://

undisclosed-podcast.com/episodes/ronnie-long/episode-1.html. In 1976, Long, a Black man, was convicted of

sexually assaulting a white woman by an all-white jury in Concord, North Carolina. In 2020, he was exonerated.

See Ken Otterbourg, Ronnie Long, NAT’L REGISTRY EXONERATIONS (last updated May 4, 2021), https://www.

law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5801.

Which do you

fear more: (1) that the jury will draw adverse inferences from your client’s decision

not to testify, or (2) that the jury will draw adverse inferences from your client’s

race? If you chose option two, your fear does not align with the Supreme Court’s

precedent regarding jury instructions on adverse inferences. While the Court has

held that a defendant has the right to an instruction ordering jurors to avoid draw-

ing adverse inferences from the defendant’s silence, the vast majority of courts

have held that a defendant does not have the right to an instruction advising jurors

to avoid drawing adverse inferences based on the defendant’s race.

Conversely, imagine you are a judge hearing an appeal based upon jury miscon-

duct after the Black man is convicted of sexual assault. Which allegation do you

1.

2022] THE RIGHT TO AN IMPLICIT BIAS JURY INSTRUCTION 351