The Fifth Amendment of the U. Constitution provides several rights that offer protection for people involved in a criminal investigation. Despite being part of our collection of basic rights and often referred to in media and popular culture, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the Fifth Amendment.
One of the most important protections provided by the Fifth Amendment is the right against self-incrimination. This means you have the legal right to refuse to answer questions or speak to anyone involved in a criminal investigation if you believe what you say could incriminate you. This right is available in both state and federal court and both criminal and civil cases. The protection provided by the Fifth Amendment is intentionally broad and if a statement could be used against you or result in the discovery of evidence that could be used against you, your right to not share or reveal that information is protected.
In addition to protection against self-incrimination, the Fifth Amendment also provides due process rights. Due process includes following proper procedures during criminal matters. Broderick , the New York City Police Department was held to have violated the Fifth Amendment rights of a police officer when it fired him after he refused to waive the Privilege and testify before a grand jury that was investigating police corruption.
Many observers think the better approach in these cases would have been to hold that continued public employment or an occupational license may be conditioned on providing pertinent information after all, there is no constitutional right to be a police officer or a licensed attorney , but that the individual has a right to assert the Privilege in any governmental investigation related to her public employment or occupational license.
Indeed, it has long been understood that the Fifth Amendment Privilege can be asserted by any witness not just the defendant in a criminal trial, and by any witness in a civil trial, grand jury, legislative hearing, or other government proceeding. Kastigar v. United States The most important, and controversial, decision applying the Fifth Amendment Privilege outside the criminal trial is Miranda v. Arizona The individual must be told that she has a right to remain silent, that any statements she makes may be used against her, and that she has the right to have an attorney present during questioning, including the right to a court-appointed attorney if she cannot afford one.
Some heralded Miranda as a better way to regulate police interrogations than the due process approach the Supreme Court had forged during the previous three decades. In Brown v. That would not come until Malloy v. Hogan And it provided murky guidance for both lower courts and law enforcement, especially in cases with no physical coercion.
Miranda , in the view of its supporters, seemed to provide a clear line-in-the-sand for everyone. Miranda was controversial for many reasons. The most serious charge was that whether or not the warnings were good policy, the decision was illegitimate: the Court had just made up a new rule, nowhere found in the Constitution. To be sure, there is much circumstantial evidence that the Fifth Amendment Privilege was adopted in part to constitutionalize a common-law maxim that both British citizens and their American counterparts thought fundamental: nemo tenetur prodere seipsum no one is bound to accuse himself.
In the late eighteenth century, this was understood to forbid extracting confessions by means of physical or spiritual coercion; the latter consisted of forcing a person to take an oath to God and state the truth—undoubtedly coercive in a highly religious society. Most pointedly, the warnings themselves looked more like legislative rule-making than constitutional interpretation.
The Court, in Miranda and two other cases decided shortly before Miranda , seemed bent on reducing, if not eliminating, an important tool of evidence-gathering in criminal cases—questioning the defendant upon arrest.
And no lawyer would allow a client to submit to immediate questioning, as all of the justices knew. In fact, Miranda has not prevented people from making incriminating station-house statements, as initially some of its detractors had feared and some of its supporters had anticipated. It appears to be an aspect of human nature that many recently accused persons are eager to talk their way out of trouble. In a series of subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court gave further ammunition to those who considered Miranda to be nothing more than judicial legislation, by creating exceptions to the broad exclusionary rule the decision had announced.
In Harris v. In New York v. The Court further declares that slaves are not citizens of the United States entitled to the protection of the Fifth Amendment. In Kohl v. United States , the U. This important goal outweighs any inconvenience to individuals living on the land. A defendant who had been convicted in state court objects to having to stand trial in federal court for the same crime.
In United States v. Lanza , the U. In Ng Fung Ho v. White , the U. Supreme Court rules that the Fifth Amendment due process clause requires the government to hold a hearing before deporting a U. The U. Supreme Court considers the question of whether a debtor who testifies at his own bankruptcy hearing is allowed to refuse to answer questions that might incriminate him.
In McCarthy v. Arndstein , the Supreme Court holds that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applies to defendants in civil cases, not just criminal cases, if criminal prosecution might result from the disclosure. In the case of Hirabayashi v. Supreme Court rules that a labor union under criminal investigation cannot refuse to turn over its records on the grounds of self-incrimination, explaining that the Bill of Rights was enacted to protect individuals, not organizations, from government control.
In Miranda v. Arizona , the U. Supreme Court rules that the right against self-incrimination is not limited to in-court testimony, but also applies when a suspect is taken into police custody for questioning. Before any questioning can begin, police must explain that the suspect has the right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.
The court refuses to accept as evidence any statements made after the right to remain silent has been invoked. These mandatory statements by police are known as Miranda rights and the process of informing is known as Mirandizing.
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