In United States v. Myelicia T. Rodgers, No. 24-10638 (11th Cir. Jan. 30, 2026) (CJ Pryor, Abudu, Conway (MDFL)), affirmed Rodgers’s conviction, after a bench trial, for tampering with, and stealing, mail.
After the government’s presentation of evidence, the district court denied Rodgers’s Rule 29 motion, and—upon defense counsel’s request—the district court conducted a colloquy about Rodgers’s decision of whether to testify, in which the court told Rodgers that her decision not to testify was “not something I’m going to consider in any way in deciding the ultimate issue in this case.” Rodgers did not testify or present any witness, but she submitted her partially signed Miranda waiver form.
At closing, Rodgers (through counsel) argued that her inculpatory statement (introduced during the government’s case-in-chief) was coerced, and pointed to the absence of a recording of the statement in support. The district court responded that there were no facts in the record to support the argument that the interview was coercive, noting specifically that, “your client did not testify as a witness, and so the only evidence that I have as to . . . that interview comes from” the interviewing agent’s testimony. When Rodgers counsel asked the district court not to take Rodgers’s silence “as an admission of guilt,” the district court replied: “I didn’t say that,” “your argument to me is not evidence”; “I am just pointing out that I don’t have another side of the story. I [only] have [the agent’s side].”; “I have to have facts that tell me it was coerced.”
After orally finding Rodgers guilty, the district court also issued a written verdict form, noting that Rodgers “presented no witnesses and only one exhibit,” which meant that the prosecution’s “trial testimony [was] uncontradicted by any evidence.”
Rodgers claimed on appeal that the district court had drawn an adverse inference from her exercise of her privilege not to testify, thereby violating the Fifth Amendment.
The Court of Appeals disagreed, noting that it would “take the district court at its word” that it did not consider Rodgers’s decision not to testify as evidence of guilt—just as it would assume that a jury followed the court’s instructions; characterizing the district court’s referral to her silence during closing argument as “innocuous”; and observing that the written verdict form “accurately recounted” what had occurred and only “referenced Rodgers’s silence to explain that she did not present any witnesses,” and that the government’s case went “uncontradicted,” “not that Rodgers was guilty.”
Opinion here: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202410638.pdf