People State New York v. Thomas Conyers

Defendant Thomas Conyers was tried before a jury and convicted of several criminal counts in connection with the armed robbery of Marion Dantzler and Grace Johnson. The Appellate Division, however, reversed the conviction after concluding that defendant had been deprived of his right to a fair trial (65 A.D.2d 437). We affirmed the decision of the Appellate Division, in part because, in our view, defendants right to due process of law had been violated by the District Attorneys use of his post-arrest silence to impeach his testimony at trial (49 N.Y.2d 174). The People then petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, seeking a further review of our determination upon Federal constitutional grounds.