426 U.S. 610 (1976)
Petitioners Jefferson Doyle and Richard Wood were arrested together in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and charged with selling ten pounds of marijuana to William Bonnell, an informant working with the local narcotics unit.1 The evidence presented at their separate trials, held about one week apart in the Common Pleas Court, was identical in all material respects.2 Narcotics agents had arranged with Bonnell to set up a purchase using $1,320 collected from the unit, which Bonnell took to a bar in Dover, Ohio, where he met the petitioners.3
Subsequently, Doyle obtained the marijuana and met Bonnell and Wood at a parking lot in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where the transaction occurred under surveillance by four agents.4 After discovering they had been paid $430 less than agreed, Doyle and Wood chased Bonnell but were stopped by local police acting on instructions from the agents.5 Agent Kenneth Beamer arrived, arrested both petitioners, and administered Miranda warnings before a search of the car uncovered the $1,320.6
At trial, each petitioner testified that Bonnell had framed them by attempting to sell the marijuana to Doyle, who had changed his mind about the quantity, leading Bonnell to throw the money into the car and take the drugs back.7 During cross-examination, the prosecutor in each trial asked why the petitioner had not told this story to Agent Beamer at the time of arrest, and the trial court overruled defense objections to these questions.8 The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District affirmed the convictions, and the Supreme Court of Ohio denied further review before the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.9
Whether a state prosecutor may seek to impeach a defendant's exculpatory story, told for the first time at trial, by cross-examining the defendant about his failure to have told the story after receiving Miranda warnings at the time of his arrest?10
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids a state prosecutor from using a defendant's post-arrest silence, after receipt of Miranda warnings, to impeach an exculpatory story first told at trial.11
No. Miranda warnings carry an implicit assurance that silence will carry no penalty, rendering any subsequent use of that silence for impeachment fundamentally unfair and a violation of due process.12 In these cases the rule applies directly because petitioners Doyle and Wood were arrested together after the transaction with informant Bonnell, received Miranda warnings from Agent Beamer, and then at their separate trials offered the frame-up explanation for the first time; the prosecutor in each trial cross-examined them about their failure to tell that story to Beamer at arrest, and the trial court overruled timely objections.
The same constitutional prohibition governs both trials because the evidence was identical in all material respects and the impeachment tactic was identical.13
The use of petitioners' post-arrest silence for impeachment violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the convictions must be reversed.14
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Stevens dissents from the due process holding. He maintains that the Miranda warning contains no deception and does not diminish the probative force of silence that is graphically inconsistent with a later claim of being framed by the informant.15 Because the silence is tantamount to a prior inconsistent statement under ordinary evidence rules, Stevens concludes that its use for impeachment creates no due process violation and would affirm the convictions, although he acknowledges that portions of the prosecutor's closing argument were improper yet insufficient to require reversal.16