How did he “abuse” the 5th?
This presentation by a lawyer and a cop does a really good job explaining why the fifth amendment is important: - YouTube
Suppose you got a speeding ticket. And now you’re at trial. How would you feel if the DA was able to ask you “Mr PSXer, have you ever driven faster than the speeding limit?”
A little more to the point, if you killed Cock Robin and the DA asks you if you killed Cock Robin what are you going to do? If you say no the DA will call you a liar, if you say yes the jury will tend to believe you, if you refuse to answer the DA will say and the jury will believe that you did it. The burden of proof lies with the state, and you don’t have help them out.
The interesting thing about this aphorism is that it’s often quoted as though it’s an absolute principle, when it must surely be a pragmatic and quantitative one.
If we felt the acceptable ratio were as high as 1000:1, we might barely be comfortable with prosecuting anyone, ever.
If we felt that a ratio of 10:1 were acceptable, perhaps repealing that part of the 5th amendment might be ok.
So, is 100 really the number? It’s a serious question. Obviously, we may feel different ratios apply to different crimes and different circumstances.
Personally I feel 100 is a little high. Weighing the chance of being wrongly imprisoned myself, I think wrongly imprisoning 1 person for life to keep 100 murderers off the street might be reasonable.
The DA could ask that in cross examination anyway, and the defense lawyer would object of relevance, and it would be sustained.
If you don’t take the stand, there is no cross-examination.
edited to add: And how do you know such a question would be disallowed by the judge, anyway?
The Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply in Australia.
If you get your knowledge of the legal system by watching American courtroom dramas, you might find yourself surprised if you’re ever charged with a crime outside of America. Or inside America.
Goes to prior bad conduct, which is not allowed, unless the defendant himself has put his past behaviour in issue.
Ok, so what ARE my rights when a Crime Scene Investigator arrests me and confronts me with an enhanced CCTV image that shows my reflection in the victim’s eyeball just as he is being stabbed?
I’ve got a friend named Abby that works in NCIS that owes me a favor. Give me a call.
For starters, I would want proof that whatever algorithm that the CSI person used was accurate enough to provide for evidence that it was you. It’s a mathematical equation that takes the dots and “elaborates” upon it. If we were talking murder, I’d argue for 100% accuracy and reject anything less.
You have the right to hire a hackerwho will hack into the CSI databases and servers to replace all of the images with a picture of your worst enemy (including all offline backups, of course). For an extra fee, they will insert a visual basic script into the CSI routers to scan for any images of you and isolate them on the other side of the firewall.
If my only defense is to challenge the well known “enhance” technology, I think I’m in deep trouble.
Not if you’re the one wrongfully imprisoned.
I know, I know: that couldn’t happen to you. And the reason it can’t happen to you is because of the Bill of Rights. Otherwise the police and prosecutors can go after anyone they want for any reason they want.
Many Americans watch courtroom & police dramas and end up being surprised by what they find out about the law. Television is a horrible educator about the law & law enforcement.
Well, I specifically said that I weighed the chance of being falsely imprisoned myself. You may disagree, but your suggestion that I’m not considering that is unfounded.
My point was that burden of proof is not a question of absolute rights. We make a quantitative decision on the degree of certainty that’s acceptable, “beyond a reasonable doubt” for crimes. Clearly, we are okay as a society with imprisoning some innocents, or the hurdle would be “to an absolute 100% certainty”. The hurdle we choose determines a ratio of false imprisonments to failures to convict the guilty.
Anyway, I thought the original question was answered so a minor tangent was ok, but this is probably more suited to a separate IMHO.
“Who killed Kirk Robbin? I killed Kirk Robbin and not with my little bow and arrow. Don’t try to find me as I’m shuffling off to Buffalo. Signed Buck Wing.”
To fix this hijack; what you are saying is untrue.
Well, it’s impossible to get completely accurate statistics for this, but from what studies have been done, about 2.3% to 5% of people in jail are innocent. Which is a ratio of somewhere between 43 and 20 to 1.