First, I’m not saying that a person who doesn’t testify on their own behalf is guilty. I am curious though. If a person knows they are innocent, is there a reason they would avoid testifying? I ask because I’m sure there are reasons which just aren’t obvious to me, but are obvious to you. Thanks!!
They could give a bad impression even if they’re telling the truth, they could be easy to trick by opposing counsel, they could be guilty of something else, they could have done something which is legal but they don’t want others to know.
In fiction, it is usually to avoid being cross examined. We don’t have the 5th over here, so by not going on the stand, a defendant can avoid answering awkward questions like - Did you do it?
Some defendants might also simply be bad communicators for some reason. Standing in the dock and mumbling, contradicting and not answering questions will give the jury a bad impression.
Seeing the first two answers, let me add, the only reason I could think of as I fell asleep last night was that the innocent person is a poor communicator (would make a poor impression).
Thanks to both of you for your answers. I hadn’t considered that they might be guilty of something else that they don’t want revealed or even something legal (but embarrassing).
I am still curious if there is any additional reasons?
The average defendant is uneducated and unskilled at self expression. The voluble manipulative criminals we see on TV shows are not common in real life. Often they have mental health problems and/or drug and alcohol issues.
A defendant may indeed be innocent but have no realistic ability to give convincing evidence. Tongue tied, scared, confused.
Best protection against their fast-talking lawyer is to have your lawyer do all the talking.
A defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Period. Why, given that you begin from a position of assumed innocence would someone testify? There’s no place to go but down!
ETA: IANAL, duh.
Reason she is innocent of that crime is because when it happened she was in another mans bed. He is gay and if testify s it would come out. She wants to protect a loved one. He has been doing some other illegality and wants to avoid attention. She is not good or sympathetic but is innocent.
Take your pick.
In reality as well.
Police and prosecutors are well trained in methods of tricking defendants into making statements that can be twisted in ways that neither defendants nor jurors have any experience in defending themselves against, using studied and proven methods of skilled verbal entrapment. It like asking why a person who knows the probability of getting a good hand is unwise to play cards against a stage magician who has decades of experience performing astounding card tricks. You are up against professionals who know their devious craft very, very well and are dedicated to using it to victimize everyone they can, regardless of innocence. It’s called “justice”.
As stated above, a good prosecutor can make anyone look guilty.
Have you ever testified in court?
I had my garage broken into and some items stolen. The cops caught the guy.
I had to testify in court about the theft.
Now I am an experienced public speaker and frankly I was scared when I got on the stand. I finally calmed down about the time I finished testifying.
Being in court is scary. Much more so if you are accused of a crime.
Your nervousness could be mistaken for lying by the jury.
Thanks for the answers. It appears the common theme is that an innocent may poorly present themselves or be tricked into misrepresenting themselves.
The jury is watching each person on the witness stand (including eye witnesses, cops, character witnesses, etc.) looking for signs of lying, trying to hide something or inconsistencies. “Credible” is the word often used. This is multiplied when the defendant gets on the stand. Any inconsistency or even hesitation can be seen as being untruthful or not credible. A defendant, especially an innocent one, is quite often angry, defensive and in bad temper, all of which can come across as seeming guilty or as trying to hide something. Taking the stand is a big risk, even for an innocent defendant.
I was a juror on a rape case, and the accuser and defendant both took the stand. He came across as more believable and more consistent than she did, and the jury acquitted him. As one of the jurors, I was already inclined to vote not guilty after seeing all of the testimony and cross-examinations to that point, so the defendant taking the stand didn’t alter my opinion. I’m not sure about the other jurors, but many simply didn’t believe the accuser nor find her credible. Or at least not enough to overcome the reasonable doubt hurdle. So, I don’t know if the defendant needed to take the stand to save his ass, but it certainly was a risk.
One of my business associated was involved in a law suit and while he wasn’t guilty of anything, he got ripped apart on the deposition. He’d give answers and then get tripped up by the other attorney asking slightly different things and him having to try to explain things.
There’s a video on Youtube which goes into the reasons why you should never talk to the police, given by a law professor and a (former?). It’s two part, here’s part one.
It shows how you can be made to look bad because of the way you innocently answer questions.
Pythia is generally true. It’s also true that by testifying you make make admissible prior crimes you have committed that would otherwise be kept from the jury. (Basically, you can be impeached by prior crimes of a dishonest nature, usually things like theft or fraud). That’s going to prejudice the jury.
Also, a defendant testifying pchanges the jury’s focus from “did the prosecutor prove the case?” To “do we believe the defendant?” It’s not supposed to do that, but the fear is a jury will shift their analysis when you affirmatively get up there and start saying you’re innocent. Often it’s better for your lawyer to say “my client has already said he didn’t do it by pleading not guilty, and the prosecutor’s case is so weak it didn’t overcome the presumption of inocence that goes with that.” Sometimes if you didn’t do a crime, you really have nothing more to say than that.
However, in many cases the defendant really does have to take the stand and defend himself. “That bad with the cocaine I was carrying? My neighbor asked me to bring it to his mother, I had no idea…” You can see in such a case simply stating the prosecutor hadn’t proved the case is unlikely to work. You had a bag with cocaine in your hand. A lawyer arguing “maybe she didn’t know what was in there” isn’t going to get an aquitatal. The defendant really has to testify and explain things. That’s true in a lot of cases.
The trial begins with an assumption of innocence, but as the trial progresses and you start to look not-so-innocent because of evidence that’s been presented against you, that’s when you might take an interest in testifying on your own behalf. Maybe you’ve got scratches on your hands and arms that the police have testified are consistent with the break-in attempt you are accused of - but you’d like to testify that you got them when you were installing your car stereo the other day.
Has anyone ever checked the numbers empirically? Gone through trial records and compared the outcomes of trials where the defendants testified vs trials where they did not?
Hmm. I like this as a summary. 
A very good way of looking at it. Thanks again to all!
This argument would work better if testifying was a mere recitation of dry facts.
But it’s not. It’s an interaction between the prosecutor and the defendant.
You can get an idea of the type of things that can happen by watching the “never talk to the cops” lecture. Just like a police interrogation, It’s too easy for opposing counsel to make you look like a liar who is guilty of something.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers are in agreement on this. Prosecutors want nothing more than a chance to cross-examine the defendant on the stand and defense lawyers want nothing more than to avoid it.