IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge.
To some, silence is golden; to others, it is “insolubly ambiguous.”
Doyle v. Ohio,
426 U.S. 610, 617, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 2244, 49 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976). Today, we are called upon to examine the concept of silence in its manifold legal permutations. We shall attempt to glean meaning from a state court’s silent affirmance of a criminal conviction, evaluate the effect of an express assurance to the accused that he has a right to remain silent, and decipher what message — if any — is conveyed when a criminal defendant chooses to exercise his right of silence.
This appeal arises from Judge Wexler’s denial of Joseph Hawkins’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, stemming from his 1975 conviction by the New York State Supreme Court.(Harold Hyman,
Justice)
on charges of first degree robbery.
In deciding this appeal, we are mindful that Congress has expressly authorized the litigation of constitutional claims and defenses in a federal district court after a state has vindicated its interests through trial of the substantive criminal offense in the state courts.
See
28 U.S.C. § 2254 (1982). By affording criminal defendants post-trial access to the federal courts, Congress has reinforced the notion that the federal judiciary is vested with the primary responsibility for preserving federal rights and privileges.
Against these powerful concerns must be balanced a state’s interest in ensuring allegiance to its procedural requirements. A willingness by federal courts to permit review of state convictions where a criminal defendant failed to comply with a state’s procedures would detract from the perception of a state criminal trial as a decisive event. Federal courts must steadfastly refrain from slighting the state forum, denying state judges a meaningful role in matters of constitutional adjudication, or underestimating the importance of finality in criminal trials.
Situated at the fulcrum of these conceptual bases militating both for and against
the availability of federal habeas corpus is the doctrine of procedural waiver. Broadly speaking, this doctrine may best be understood as an attempt by the federal judiciary to strike a balance between the constitutional rights of a criminal defendant and a state’s interest in the integrity of its judicial procedural regime.
Because the factual setting of this case bears so prominently on our ultimate determination, we shall proceed carefully to set forth the relevant facts.
I.
The origins of this action may be traced to the evening of February 24, 1975. At approximately 8:00 p.m., Olga and Farkas Citron were robbed at knife-póint by two assailants, as they attempted to enter their apartment in Queens. More significant than the grisly particulars of the crime was the fact that neither Olga nor Farkas Citron
was able to identify Hawkins as one of the perpetrators, although the robbery lasted between two and three minutes and the Citrons enjoyed a clear view of the robbers in an illuminated hallway. At trial, Mr. Citron testified that though it was “possible,” he was not “sure” Hawkins was one of the robbers. Mrs. Citron evinced more certainty, testifying that “I’m quite sure that he was not one [of the robbers].” Indeed, the shorter assailant (allegedly Hawkins) was described by Mr. and Mrs. Citron as a “very young man, about twenty [years old], between five feet one inch and five feet five inches tall, with no facial scars.” In sharp contrast to this verbal portrait, Hawkins was thirty-eight years old, five feet seven inches tall, with a six-inch scar across his forehead, as well as a smaller scar on his cheek.
The-only inculpatory testimony presented at Hawkins’ trial — held before a judge sitting without a jury — was that offered by Steven Jones, a security guard for Smart Security. Jones testified that on the evening of the crime, while stationed in the center of the apartment complex that housed the Citrons, he was approached by a young boy who apprised him that a robbery was in progress. Jones alleged that he rushed to the Citron’s building and, standing approximately 25 feet from its entrance, witnessed the robbery take place. After three or four minutes, the robbers fled into the darkness. Notwithstanding Jones’s pursuit, the two assailants disappeared among the maze of apartment buildings.
Jones alleged, however, that prior to their escape, he managed to catch a glimpse of the shorter robber’s face, as it was illuminated by a street lamp. Jones testified that he recognized this man as someone with whom he had spoken briefly one month earlier. Eleven days after the robbery, Jones again saw the man he identified as the short assailant and summoned a police officer, who placed Hawkins under arrest.
Because the testimony offered by Jones provided the sole link between Hawkins and the crime, the defense counsel devoted considerable effort to puncturing holes in Jones’s story. As the trial unfurled, the contradictions, inconsistencies and impossibilities inherent in Jones’s testimony mounted. First, the crime testified to by Jones bore little resemblance to that witnessed firsthand by the Citrons. The dissimilarities were striking not only in terms of the particulars surrounding the crime, but also relating to the precise location of the robbery and the weapons used in the course of the crime.
More importantly, the documentary evidence assembled and explained by John Stratford, a Legal Aid Society investigator,
demonstrated that Jones could not possibly have observed the robbery from where he claimed he stood. Indeed, the crime would have been within Jones’s optical range only if his vision were capable of penetrating a set of solid double doors, turning left, ascending a staircase, and again turning left. When confronted with this physical impossibility, Jones at first equivocated and, ultimately, changed much of his story.
Hawkins, in his own behalf, testified that he worked as a carpenter at a nearby housing development. After work on the day of the robbery, Hawkins claimed to have had a few drinks with the head carpenter, and then visited the home of a friend, Robin Bates. At approximately 8:30 p.m., Hawkins left Bates’s apartment to “go out and pick up some food.” On the way back, Hawkins alleges he saw two men he knew from the neighborhood (Edward St. John and Fred Brown) running from the general direction of the Citrons’ building. As they approached, the shorter man cautioned Hawkins, “You better get away. We just robbed somebody.” At that point, with security officer Jones in hot pursuit, Hawkins fled and returned to Bates’s apartment. Although Hawkins’s alibi was largely corroborated by the testimony presented at trial by Robin Bates, certain inconsistencies between the two versions did emerge.
At the close of the evidence, but before the defense had been afforded the opportunity to sum up, the state trial judge hastened to pronounce Hawkins guilty. Upon being apprised of his error, the judge apologized for “jumping the gun” and invited defense counsel to sum up. The court repeatedly interrupted defense counsel’s summation (relevant portions of which are reprinted in the margin)
to voice concern
that Hawkins had neither protested his innocence to the police, the District Attorney’s Office or the Grand Jury, nor come forth and announced the identifies of the actual culprits. After the prosecution summed up, the judge found Hawkins guilty on all four counts of first degree robbery,
see
N.Y.Penal Law § 160.15 (McKinney 1975). On November 19, 1975, Hawkins was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of five to fifteen years.
Hawkins appealed his conviction to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York State, Second Department. He claimed his guilt had not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt and that the state trial court had violated his fifth and fourteenth amendment right to remain silent by having drawn impermissible inferences from his post-arrest silence, citing
Doyle v. Ohio, supra.
The Queens County District Attorney seemingly conceded that the trial judge’s actions amounted to a constitutional violation, but argued that such error was harmless. On May 22, 1978, the Appellate Division reduced Hawkins’s sentence to two and one-half to seven and one-half years, but upheld the conviction without commenting on Hawkins’s claims.
People v. Hawkins,
63 A.D.2d 719, 405 N.Y.S.2d 128 (2d Dep’t 1978). On July 5, 1978, permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals was denied. 45 N.Y.2d 780, 409 N.Y.S.2d 1037, 381 N.E.2d 172 (1978) (Wachtler,
J.).
More than three years later, on July 16, 1981, Hawkins filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, reasserting the two claims he had raised before the Appellate Division.
Judge Platt denied the petition on March 31, 1982. He ruled that Hawkins had not exhausted his reasonable doubt claim because he did not “call attention to or frame his argument in terms of a federal constitutional claim.” On May 4, 1983, Judge Oakes, writing for this Court, concluded that Hawkins, by asserting that “[t]he prosecution’s case fell quite short of that required to prove appellant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” had fairly presented the reasonable doubt claim and alerted the state court of its constitutional nature.
Hawkins v. West,
706 F.2d 437, 439 (2d Cir.1983). Consequently the exhaustion of state remedies requirement was satisfied,
see Daye v. Attorney General,
696 F.2d 186 (2d Cir.1982) (en banc),
cert. denied,
— U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 723, 79 L.Ed.2d 184 (1983), and this Court reversed and remanded the case to the district court for its consideration on the merits.
On remand, Judge Wexler — to whom the case had been transferred — denied Hawkins’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He ruled that Hawkins had waived his post-arrest silence claim by failing to object to the trial court’s questions during summation. Moreover, Judge Wexler, citing
Martinez v. Harris,
675 F.2d 51 (2d Cir. 1982),
cert. denied,
459 U.S. 849, 103 S.Ct. 109, 74 L.Ed.2d 521 (1982), presumed that the Appellate Division rested its affirmance on a procedural default. The district judge also concluded that it could not be said “that a reasonable trier of facts could not have found petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of the evidence
presented.” On November 15, 1984, Judge Wexler granted a certificate of probable cause.
II.
Although the law regarding federal habeas corpus review of state criminal convictions has been greatly transformed during the decade of Hawkins’s litigation,
see, e.g., Reed v. Ross,
— U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984);
Engle v. Isaac,
456 U.S. 107,102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982);
Rose v. Lundy,
455 U.S. 509, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982);
Sumner v. Mata,
449 U.S. 539, 101 S.Ct. 764, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981);
Wainwright v. Sykes,
433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977), the claims raised on appeal remain unchanged. He urges that the trial judge contravened his fifth and fourteenth amendment rights by drawing impermissible inferences from his post-arrest silence. In addition, Hawkins asserts that his guilt was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
For purposes of this appeal, we shall address principally the
Doyle
post-arrest silence claim.
We believe it will prove helpful to distill Hawkins’s multifaceted argument and state our conclusions at the outset. Hawkins asserts that the district judge improperly ruled that he had waived his constitutional claim by failing to object at the state trial to the judge’s inquiries into his post-arrest silence. Because New York courts do not require an objection to preserve such a claim,
see People v. McLucas,
15 N.Y.2d 167, 256 N.Y.S.2d 799, 204 N.E.2d 846 (1965), it would be illogical to presume that, through its silence, the Appellate Division rested its affirmance on a procedural default. Rather, the Appellate Division must have considered Hawkins’s constitutional claim on the merits, thereby triggering application of the standards for procedural waiver enunciated in
Washington v. Harris,
650 F.2d 447 (2d Cir. 1981). Because New York courts refuse to enforce the contemporaneous-objection requirement where a criminal defendant seeks to exercise his privilege against self-incrimination,
see McLucas, supra,
15 N.Y.2d at 172, 256 N.Y.S.2d at 802, 204 N.E.2d at 848, we conclude that Hawkins is not procedurally barred from raising his constitutional claim.
In turn, Hawkins argues that the trial judge’s consideration of his post-arrest silence violated his due process rights protected by the fourteenth amendment.
See Doyle, supra.
We agree. Moreover, in light of the scant indicia of guilt and the magnitude of the error, we do not believe the constitutional violation, even in the context of a bench trial, was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Chapman v. California,
386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
A.
Procedural Waiver
In the past few years, we have been confronted with a series of habeas corpus cases pitting the issue of procedural waiver against the right of a criminal defendant to challenge alleged constitutional violations in a federal forum. That our decisions in this area have not proved to be coherent yardsticks is underscored by the district judge’s citation of
Martinez v. Harris, supra,
for the proposition that the Appellate Division, in silently affirming a conviction, must be presumed to have rested its affirmance on a procedural default. The scope of this Court’s decision in
Martinez,
as we shall explain, does not extend to all factual situations and, in particular, does not control the instant action.
In
Martinez,
the defendant claimed that the state trial judge’s supplemental charge to the jury violated his due process rights. The defendant, however, failed to object,
and the Appellate Division affirmed his conviction without opinion. The issue before the federal court was “how to interpret the silence” of the Appellate Division when the prosecutor argued for affirmance in the state appellate court both on the merits and on procedural grounds. Writing for this Court, Chief Judge Feinberg noted “we do not believe that the Appellate Division’s silence evinces an intent to overlook the procedural error.”
Martinez, supra,
675 F.2d at 54. Accordingly, the due process claim was barred by an adequate and independent state ground absent a showing by the defendant of cause for his failure to object and prejudice from the alleged violation.
See Wainwright v. Sykes, supra,
433 U.S. at 87-91, 97 S.Ct. at 2506-2509 (1977). In dicta, the Court stated that, where it appears that the Appellate Division decided the case on the merits, there will be “no adequate and independent state ground upon which the state judgment rests ... [and] the federal claim [will be] open for our consideration.”
Martinez, supra,
675 F.2d at 54.
The following year, the reasoning of
Martinez
was applied in
Edwards v. Jones,
720 F.2d 751 (2d Cir.1983). There, the criminal defendant claimed that the lesser included offense charge that was given by the trial judge, without notice, violated his sixth amendment right “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” against him, as well as his fourteenth amendment right to due process. The defendant, however, failed to register an objection to the charge at trial. In the Appellate Division, the State urged that the conviction be affirmed on procedural grounds and on the merits. We ruled that, “[s]ince the Appellate Division affirmed without opinion, under
Martinez
Edwards’s claims are barred from federal habeas corpus review by an adequate and independent state ground____”
Edwards, supra,
720 F.2d at 754.
In
Edwards,
Judge Newman wrote a separate concurrence to “express [his] respectful disagreement with what [he] believe[s] is an ill-advised application of the forfeiture rule of
Wainwright v. Sykes,
433 U.S. 72 [97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594] (1977).” Judge Newman posited a hypothetical case in which be believed it would be illogical and unfair to apply the reasoning of Martinez:
What concerns me about the majority’s inference from state court silent affirmance in this case is the prospect that in some future case where a procedural default is arguable, but not clear, the Appellate Division will silently affirm after deciding that there was neither procedural default nor a valid claim on the merits, and we will then affirm the denial of habeas corpus relief because we mistakenly presume state court reliance on procedural default even though we think a constitutional error affecting substantial rights has occurred.
Id.
at 757. These words anticipated a case such as that of Joseph Hawkins.
For a variety of reasons, we are unwilling to presume that, through its silence, the Appellate Division rested its affirmance in this case on a procedural default. Indeed, although we are not absolutely certain,
we are confident the Appellate Division affirmed Hawkins’s conviction because it believed there was no constitutional error or, if there were such an error, that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,
The New York legislature has adopted a contemporaneous objection rule requiring that an objection or exception to “a ruling or instruction” be lodged “at the time of such ruling or instruction or at any subsequent time when the court had an opportunity of effectively changing the same,” N.Y.Crim.Proc.Law § 470.05(2) (McKinney 1971).
Nevertheless, the use
of a criminal defendant’s exercise of his privilege against self-incrimination against him at trial is considered a constitutional violation so fundamental that no objection is necessary to preserve such a claim as an issue of law for appellate review.
In
People v. McLucas, supra,
defense counsel failed to object to the trial court’s charge that his client’s denial of guilt to the police upon arrest did “not take the place of sworn testimony____”
McLucas, supra,
15 N.Y.2d at 171, 256 N.Y.S.2d at 801, 204 N.E.2d at 848. Despite the absence of an objection, the New York Court of Appeals addressed the merits of the appeal, noting “that no exception is necessary to preserve for appellate review a deprivation of a fundamental constitutional right---- [T]he Trial Judge’s remarks on the trial of this present case violated defendant’s Federal and State constitutional rights as against self-incrimination and ... the absence of an exception is immaterial.”
Id.
at 172, 256 N.Y.S.2d at 802, 204 N.E.2d at 848 (citations omitted).
The particularized import of
McLucas
—that no objection is necessary to preserve for appellate review issues involving the use for impeachment purposes of a criminal defendant’s privilege against self-incrimination — retains its vitality.
See Ulster County Court v. Allen,
442 U.S. 140, 151 n. 10, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2221 n. 10, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979);
Street v. New York,
394 U.S. 576, 583-84, 89 S.Ct. 1354, 1361-62, 22 L.Ed.2d 572 (1969);
Washington v. Harris, supra,
650 F.2d at 451;
Mercado v. Rockefeller,
502 F.2d 666, 671 (2d Cir. 1974),
cert. denied,
420 U.S. 925, 95 S.Ct. 1120, 43 L.Ed.2d 394 (1975);
United States ex rel. Schaedel v. Follette,
447 F.2d 1297, 1300 (2d Cir.1971);
United States ex rel. Vanderhorst v. LaVallee,
417 F.2d 411, 412 (2d Cir.1969),
cert. denied,
397 U.S. 925, 90 S.Ct. 930, 25 L.Ed.2d 105 (1970). In
People v. Cavallerio,
71 A.D.2d 338, 343-44, 422 N.Y.S.2d 691 (1st Dep’t, 1979), the Appellate Division cited
McLucas,
noting that a prosecutor’s comment on the defendant’s failure to testify was “an infringement of so fundamental a right as to be preserved for appellate review even in the absence of an exception.” Similarly, in
People v. Bowen,
65 A.D.2d 364, 411 N.Y. S.2d 573 (1st Dep’t, 1978), the Appellate Division, citing
McLucas,
addressed the merits of a claim that a prosecutor improperly questioned a criminal defendant regarding his post-arrest silence, although defense counsel failed to register an objection.
iii.
Having concluded that the courts of New York State have carved out an exception to the general rule that an objection is required to preserve issues of law for appellate review, and that no objection was necessary in this case to preserve Hawkins’s constitutional claim for review, we must now examine the applicability of the judicially-created limitations to
McLucas.
We have held that the
McLucas
rule is inapplicable where defense counsel not only fails to object to the introduction of unconstitutionally obtained evidence, but makes a strategic decision to use the evidence as a means of exculpating his client.
See United States ex rel. Terry v. Henderson,
462 F.2d 1125, 1130 (2d Cir.1972);
United States ex rel. Vanderhorst, supra,
417 F.2d at 412;
People v. DeRenzzio,
19 N.Y.2d 45, 50-51, 277 N.Y.S.2d 668, 670-71, 224 N.E.2d 97, 99 (1966). Though the State
curiously omitted any reference to
McLucas
in its brief, it did suggest implicitly that we construe a snippet of language as constituting a strategic decision by counsel to use his client’s post-arrest silence to his advantage. After repeated inquiries by the trial judge into Hawkins’s post-arrest silence, Hawkins’s counsel stated, “I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this matter with the court.” Unlike the State, we read the colloquy between defense counsel and trial judge simply as a lawyer’s assiduous efforts to extricate his client from the straits occasioned by a judge’s disregard of a fundamental constitutional right. In sum, Hawkins’s counsel merely tried to respond politely and make the best of a bad situation.
iv.
In light of our conclusion that
McLucas
remains good law and that, even in the absence of an objection, Hawkins’s constitutional claim is preserved for appellate review, we believe the district judge’s reliance on
Martinez
was misplaced. We would characterize as
dubitante
the likelihood that the Appellate Division rested its affirmance in this case on a procedural default. Indeed, the most plausible reading of the silent affirmance is that the Appellate Division, presumably aware of
McLucas
and its progeny, did not even pause to consider procedural default but simply affirmed Hawkins’s conviction on the merits. We choose not to extend
Martinez
and presume reliance by a state court on a procedural default, where it appears unlikely that the court rested its affirmance on that ground. Although we sympathize with Justice Jackson’s sense of frustration at the veritable flood of frivolous habeas appeals: “He who must search a haystack for a needle is likely to end up with the attitude that the needle is not worth the search,”
Brown v. Allen,
344 U.S. 443, 537, 73 S.Ct. 397, 425, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953) (Jackson,
J,
concurring), we believe that if our judicial system is to remain true to its fundamental principles and ideals, it must not bar access to the federal courts by taking refuge in presumptions that may, in certain instances, be divorced from reality. We hold that this case presents such an instance.
v.
Because there exists no adequate and independent state ground upon which the state judgment rests, this case is controlled by
Washington v. Harris, supra.
There, we held that a criminal defendant must demonstrate cause for his failure to object and prejudice from the alleged violation only where New York actually has a contemporaneous objection requirement for the particular claim raised and this requirement was enforced by the state courts.
See Washington v. Harris, supra,
650 F.2d at 451. We have already demonstrated that New York courts refuse to enforce the contemporaneous objection requirement where a criminal defendant seeks to exercise his privilege against self-incrimination. Because we agree that there is “no warrant ... for guarding state procedural rules more vigilantly than the State itself does,”
id.
at 452, we hold that Hawkins’s constitutional claim is open for our consideration. In so concluding, we note that since New York courts have indicated that Hawkins’s claim is not barred by a state procedural rule, a federal court implies no disrespect for the state by entertaining the claim.
B.
Post-Arrest Silence
Turning, then, to the merits of Hawkins’s constitutional claim, we are required today to decide for the first time whether it is unconstitutional for a trial judge to inquire into a criminal defendant’s failure to proclaim his innocence during the interregnum between his arrest and his trial. Although
Doyle v. Ohio, supra,
represents
the touchstone of our analysis,
its precise holding is of only limited avail as we strive to reach our ultimate destination.
In
Doyle,
two criminal defendants, after having been given
Miranda
warnings, made no post-arrest statements regarding their involvement in an alleged crime. Each defendant then testified at trial that he had been framed. On cross-examination, the prosecutor asked each why he had not presented his exculpatory explanation to the police upon arrest. The Supreme Court held that “the use for impeachment purposes of [a defendant’s] silence, at the time of arrest and after receiving
Miranda
warnings, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Doyle, supra,
426 U.S. at 619, 96 S.Ct. at 2245. Two rationales, grounded in implied contract theory, were adduced by the Court to support this constitutional mandate. First, silence in the wake of the
Miranda
warning is “insolubly ambiguous” because it may signify nothing more than the arrestee’s exercise of the rights described by the warnings.
Id.
at 617, 96 S.Ct. at 2244. Moreover, since the
Miranda
warnings convey an implicit assurance to a suspect that his silence will not be used against him, 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 trial.”
Id.
at 618, 96 S.Ct. at 2245.
Although
Doyle
makes clear that the due process clause prohibits the use of a defendant’s silence following
Miranda
warnings to impeach his exculpatory story, that conclusion represents merely the beginning of our inquiry, for the facts of this case differ from those operative in
Doyle
in at least three significant respects.
Unlike
Doyle,
this case addresses the use by a trial judge, rather than by a prosecutor, of a defendant’s post-arrest silence. We believe that this distinction serves to strengthen the claim of constitutional error urged by Hawkins. Although the duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice, and not merely to convict, it must be remembered that prosecutors are armed with and encouraged to employ a repertoire of adversarial accoutrements. Indeed, attempting to impeach a defendant’s testimony on cross-examination comports precisely with the truth-seeking function of our adversarial system. As the Supreme Court noted: “An adversary system can maintain neither the reality nor the appearance of efficacy without the assurance that its judgments rest upon a complete illumination of a case rather than a partial or speculative presentation of the facts.”
United States v. Nixon,
418 U.S. 683, 709, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3108, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). Of course, a prosecutor’s inquiries into a defendant’s post-arrest silence represent a significant and unconstitutional departure from those norms that animate our system of criminal justice. The miscarriage of justice becomes far more grievous, however, where such queries come from the trial judge — the system’s bastion of neutrality. Closely affiliated with this concern is the fact that this case involved a bench trial, whereas the trier of fact in
Doyle
was a jury. Although we believe this distinction bears on a determination whether the constitutional error was harmless,
see part II.C., infra;
suffice to say at this juncture that the absence of a jury does not remove the taint.
Most significantly, the Court in
Doyle
confined its holding to the impeachment use of a defendant’s silence while under arrest and after having received
Miranda
warnings. In a footnote, the Court explicitly stated that it did not decide whether a defendant’s silence “at the preliminary
hearing or any other time prior to the trial[]” may be the subject of inquiry,
Doyle, supra,
426 U.S. at 616 n. 6, 96 S.Ct. at 2244 n. 6.
Because the trial judge probed into Hawkins’s failure to proclaim his innocence to not only the arresting police officer — which is a clear constitutional violation under
Doyle
—but also the District Attorney and the Grand Jury, we must decide this unresolved question. Mindful of the twin rationales articulated by the
Doyle
majority, we believe the impeachment use of Hawkins’s general failure to come forward and proclaim his innocence or divulge his exculpatory story prior to trial violated his constitutional right to due process.
In particular, we believe that Hawkins’s failure to present his alibi defense to the District Attorney or the Grand Jury is no less “insolubly ambiguous” than was his silence at the time of his arrest. The fact that Hawkins was given
Miranda
warnings apprising him that any statements may be used against him; that he enjoyed his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination throughout this period; and that he retained counsel who may well have encouraged him to say nothing to the District Attorney or the Grand Jury regarding his exculpatory story only fortifies our belief that Hawkins’s silence may simply have been a product of his exercise of his constitutional rights.
The confluence of these factors impels us to the conclusion that, in the face of accusation, Hawkins’s silence did not shed its inherent ambiguity. Indeed, under under these circumstances, Hawkins’s failure to proffer his exculpatory story prior to trial just as easily may be construed as an indicium of reliance on his right to remain silent as support for the inference that his testimony was a subsequent fabrication.
In addition, because Hawkins received
Miranda
warnings advising him that he has the right to remain silent and that anything he says may be used against him, and because his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination assumes the greatest importance following arrest when the suspect is confronted with a direct accusation of criminal conduct, we believe it would vitiate basic notions of elementary fairness and burden a criminal defendant’s constitutionally guaranteed right to remain silent if this silence could be cited as the reason an alibi defense should be disbelieved.
Accordingly, based upon our reading of
Doyle,
we hold that the trial judge violated the due process clause of the four
teenth amendment by using Hawkins’s post-arrest and pre-trial silence to discredit his exculpatory story presented at trial.
C.
Harmless Constitutional Error
Having concluded that the trial judge’s inquiries into Hawkins’s post-arrest silence were constitutional error, we must 4 now determine whether such error was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,”
Chapman, supra,
386 U.S. at 24, 87 S.Ct. at 828, or whether there exists a reasonable possibility that the error may have contributed to Hawkins’s conviction,
see Fahy v. Connecticut,
375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 84 S.Ct. 229, 230, 231, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963).
See Kampshoff v. Smith,
698 F.2d 581 (2d Cir.1983).
Prompted by the realization that an appellate court can almost always discern some “reasonable” possibility that an error influenced a trier of fact, the Supreme Court refined the
Chapman
test in
Harrington v. California,
395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969). There, the Court declared that “the case against Harrington was so overwhelming that we conclude that this [violation of
Bruton
] was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Id.
at 254, 89 S.Ct. at 1728. Notwithstanding the majority opinion’s averments: “We do not depart from
Chapman,
nor do we dilute it by inference. We reaffirm it.”
id.,
it is clear that the
Harrington
inquiry is directed not to the effect of the error on the actual trier of fact but to its “probable impact” on an average trier of fact.
See Kampshoff, supra,
698 F.2d at 587.
In formulating an efficacious harmless error standard, we are presented with what appears to be an inherent tension. On the one hand, the conservation of judicial resources demands that we tolerate as harmless those errors that involve the “mere etiquette of trials” or procedural formalities. On the other hand, notions of justice require errors that vitiate the substantial rights of litigants or debase the entire judicial process be corrected at all costs, since the trial itself — and hence the judgment— was contaminated. In evaluating the effect of an error on a particular judgment, we are mindful that an appellate court deals only with probabilities, rather than certainties. Nevertheless, it cannot be gainsaid that certain errors — particularly those of constitutional dimension — are more grievous than others. Indeed, even “claims of constitutional error are not fungible.”
Rose v. Lundy, supra,
455 U.S. at 543, 102 S.Ct. at 1216 (Stevens,
J,
dissenting);
see Donnelly v. DeChristoforo,
416 U.S. 637, 643, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 1871, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974) (distinguishing cases involving a generalized due process violation from those in which “the State has denied a defendant the benefit of a specific provi
sion of the Bill of Rights ... or in which the prosecutor’s remarks so prejudiced a specific right ... as to amount to a denial of that right.”)
Therefore, although there exists a unitary test of harmlessness for all constitutional errors, our appraisal of a particular error’s impact necessarily depends on the nature of the violation in the context of a given factual setting. Only in light of these dual considerations can we confidently evaluate the likelihood that an error infected the validity of the underlying judgment or the integrity of the process by which that judgment was obtained.
It is against this backdrop that we now turn to examine whether the trial judge’s unconstitutional consideration of Hawkins’s post-arrest silence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. As we noted on the prior appeal, “the only evidence tying Hawkins to the crime was the direct identification testimony of the security guard, Jones. Hawkins presented evidence from a Legal Aid investigation tending to show that the security guard could not have seen the robbery from where he stood____”
Hawkins, supra,
706 F.2d at 440 n. 1. Except for the improbable identification testimony proffered by Jones,
the remaining evidence was entirely exculpatory. Indeed, the robbery victims themselves cast doubt on Hawkins’s guilt. Moreover, Hawkins presented an alibi that was largely substantiated by the testimony of Robin Bates. Thus, despite the State’s repeated allusions to a “sea of inculpatory evidence,”
see
Brief for Appellee at 28, we believe the evidence pointing to Hawkins’s guilt amounted to, at most, a “puddle.” In sum, finding the evidence marshalled by the State against Hawkins to be tenuous, we simply cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the trial judge would have reached the same verdict without using Hawkins’s post-arrest silence to impeach the credibility of his alibi defense and, consequently, infer his guilt.
We pause to comment briefly upon the implications arising from the fact that the constitutional drror occurred in the context of a bench trial. Our system of justice presumes that judges enjoy the capacity to consider only relevant evidence in determining an individual’s guilt or innocence. We vest judges with the authority to grant motions to suppress improperly seized evidence, while at the same time empowering them to pass on an individual’s guilt, confident that the inculpatory evidence will remain outside their decisional calculus. But there comes a point where we are unable to indulge in the comfortable fiction that judges can edit their thought processes to exclude that which is impermissible and include only that which is permissible. In the present case, we believe the trial judge transgressed proper bounds by employing Hawkins’s post-arrest silence as a lever with which he could cast doubt on Hawkins’s credibility, as well as on his innocence. Although we candidly recognize that it is hardly possible for an appellate court to ferret out what subjective factors, if any, entered into a trial judge’s ultimate determination, we are constrained to conclude that the trial judge’s repeated references to Hawkins’s silence reflected his thought processes. Moreover, we are unable to shut our eyes to the trial judge’s premature pronouncement of Hawkins’s guilt, the pernicious effects of which were not cured when the judge apologized for “jumping the gun.” Insofar as an efficacious harmless error standard evinces a sensitivity to the imprint a particular error
leaves on the judicial process, the trial judge’s contravention of fundamental constitutional rights cannot be dismissed as harmless.
Consequently, given the scant indicia of Hawkins’s guilt and the grievous nature of the constitutional error, we hold that the trial court’s inquiries into Hawkins’s post-arrest silence were not harmless.
When a case is tried without a jury, it is reasonable to expect the judge to make an extra effort to be fair and avoid even the appearance of unfairness. This was not done here. The judge’s premature pronouncement of guilt, exposing his rush to convict, and his improper comments on the defendant’s post-arrest silence, lead us to conclude that this conviction lacked fundamental fairness and, thus, violated the due process clause of the Constitution. It cannot stand.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court denying the petition for habeas corpus is reversed. The case is remanded with instructions to issue the writ of habeas corpus, unless within 30 days from the date of this opinion the State moves to resentence Hawkins as a first-time felony offender.