if any, to be drawn from Lentz’s refusal to provide the Court-ordered handwriting exemplars. See United States v. Lentz, 1:01cr150 (E.D.Va. Jan. 17, 2006) (Order). The parties have now filed their respective memoranda on this issue and the matter is ripe for disposition. Oral argument is dispensed with as the facts and legal contentions are adequately set forth in the existing record and oral argument would not aid the decisional process. III. The starting point in the analysis is the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In this regard, it is axiomatic that the Fifth Amendment prohibits a prosecutor from commenting on a defendant’s failure to testify or to present testimonial evidence in the course of a criminal trial. See Howard v. Moore, 131 F.3d 399, 421 (4th Cir.1997) (<HOLDING>) (citing Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609,
holding the prosecutors statements were not an inappropriate comment on the defendants failure to testify but rather a comment on the defendants failure to present convincing evidence to support his defense holding that the fifth amendment in its direct application to the federal government and in its bearing on the states by reason of the fourteenth amendment forbids either comment by the prosecution on the accuseds silence or instructions by the court that such silence is evidence of guilt holding that the fifth amendment  forbids either comment by the prosecution on the accuseds silence or instructions by the court that such silence is evidence of guilt recognizing that the fifth amendment forbids comment by the prosecution on a defendants failure to testify holding that comment by prosecutor in closing argument that defense counsel did not produce evidence of the defendants innocence was not a comment on the defendants failure to testify