United States of America v. Christopher Kee

Albquerque, New Mexico criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with assault and battery in Indiana country.



Christopher Kee was convicted and sentenced for assaulting and battering his girlfriend in April of 2020 in Shiprock New Mexico.



Kee claimed that his due process rights were violated under Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), which provides:



Despite the importance of cross-examination, we have concluded that the

Miranda decision compels rejection of the State's position. The warnings

mandated by that case, as a prophylactic means of safeguarding Fifth

Amendment rights . . . require that a person taken into custody be advised

immediately that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says

may be used against him, and that he has a right to retained or appointed

counsel before submitting to interrogation. . . Moreover, while it is true

that the Miranda warnings contain no express assurance that silence will

carry no penalty, such assurance is implicit to any person who receives

the warnings. In such circumstances, it would be fundamentally unfair

and a deprivation of due process to allow the arrested person's silence to

be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at tria



At trial, the prosecutor asked Mr. Kee during cross-examination about the fact

that he had not spoken about his side of the story until his testimony at trial. Then, in

both initial closing argument and in rebuttal, the prosecutor emphasized that Mr. Kee

was sharing his side of the story for the first time at trial. It would be hard to find a

more clear-cut violation of the standard laid out in Doyle

Reversed and remanded.