In the case of Jenkins v. Anderson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a defendant's pre-arrest silence can be used by prosecutors to impeach his credibility at trial without violating his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. The court held that since there was no government action inducing the petitioner to remain silent before arrest, using such silence as evidence does not constitute penalty imposed by courts for exercising one's constitutional privilege against self-incrimination during criminal proceedings. Furthermore, it was noted that impeachment follows different rules than substantive prosecution and thus doesn't necessarily violate Fifth Amendment protections.

In the dissenting opinion for Jenkins v. Anderson, Justice Stevens argued that the majority's decision was inconsistent with previous rulings on self-incrimination and due process rights. He contended that using a defendant's pre-arrest silence as evidence of guilt violated their Fifth Amendment rights, even if they voluntarily chose to testify in court later. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority's view that this issue should be left up to state courts to decide on a case-by-case basis; instead, he believed it was necessary for the Supreme Court to provide clear guidelines about what constitutes improper prosecutorial comment on a defendant’s silence. In his view, allowing such comments could potentially coerce defendants into testifying against themselves out of fear their silence would be used against them otherwise.