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Posted on 06/17/2013 12:20:46 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Supreme Court says prosecutors can use a person’s silence against them if it comes before he's told of his right to remain silent.
The 5-4 ruling comes in the case of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of a 1992 murder. During police questioning, and before he was arrested or read his Miranda rights, Salinas answered some questions but did not answer when asked if a shotgun he had access to would match up with the murder weapon.
Prosecutors in Texas used his silence on that question in convicting him of murder, saying it helped demonstrate his guilt. Salinas appealed, saying his Fifth Amendment rights to stay silent should have kept lawyers from using his silence against him in court. Texas courts disagreed, saying pre-Miranda silence is not protected by the Constitution.
The high court upheld that decision. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
My 5th amendment rights exist (and all the rest) whether or not a jack booted govt thug tells me I have the right not to talk to them.
From the Supreme Court, the only appeal is to God.
You know what the next incremental step will be: You have no right to keep quiet until “Mirandized” but the cops can delay that indefinitely.
SCOTUS ping.
i still would not talk... even if i were not under arrest... i won’t even talk with an officer issuing me a speeding ticket... i hand over the license and registration... i sign it and leave.. no hello officer.. no small talk... no good-bye... nada! (although back in the day, i talked myself out of a couple of tickets)...
Cops can legally lie to you to get info out of you. What rights does any average citizen have to protect themselves against cops?
Exactly! I am so surprised at how easily citizens, even well-informed conservatives, cave in...
“The perp in the case had started answering questions and then stopped. It’s not pick and choose. Either stay silent or speak, whether mirandized or not.”
Someone should tell Congress and the IRS skirt who took the 5th and then gave a speech about her innocence.
Not true...
Seems the issue is that your silence IN CONTEXT can be used to infer, a la:
Q: “Did you do A?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you do B?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you do C?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you do D?”
A: “No.”
...
Q: “Did you do X?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you do Y?”
A: [silence]
Q: “Did you do Z?”
A: “No.”
Yeah, he did Y.
“Someone should tell Congress and the IRS skirt who took the 5th and then gave a speech about her innocence.”
Exactly right. She wanted it both ways and Trey Gowdy called her on it. But Issa hasn’t called her back yet. Probably won’t.
“So you have to be told you have a right in order to invoke it? “
No; I think that is not a good reading of what they said.
At the time of the police questioning at issue, during the initial investigation and years before the man’s arrest and before the man who became a suspect. At that earlier time and period, when talking to the police, and was not yet a suspect, (1) the police had not yet “Mirandized” the man and [because he wasn’t a suspect or under arrest - not enough evidence)(2) the man had at that time made no demand that he would keep silent.
It was during that period of discussion with the man that he offered no answer to one of the questions.
As he was not a suspect at that time, none of the conversation was possibly (??) under the man’s assumption that he needed to, or the police assumption that they needed Mirandize him to, “keep silent”.
So, the “silence” - the non-answer, in THAT particular period of communication, before the man was believed to be a suspect, was considered to be NOT under the mandate covered by a SUSPECT’S right to remain silent or the mandate to Mirandize someone who IS a suspect.
The court allowed THAT conversation, before he was a suspect, including his non-answer, into the trial.
NOW THEN, if the man really was guilty and KNEW, way back then, he could be found to be a suspect he could have immediately invoked his right to remain silent, period, and never said a thing.
He was probably be too smart by half; thinking he could evade becoming a suspect by NOT appearing so in refusing to talk. But, his conversation - outside of the police finding him to be a suspect came back against him.
If you know your guilty, whether the police do or not, say nothing.
Firing pin indentation, scratch marks from the load/unload mechanism, trace elements in the lubricants, any striations imprinted from the breach block or inside the chamber, residual plastic tracked in from the casing, trace elements in the brass alloy of the shell deposited in micropores of the chamber or and part the brass touched in its travels through the gun, skin cells common to any surface on the gun and the hull.
If they really want to find evidence they will. Even if it’s not really there. If you torture the data enough, it will confess...
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Yes, it is true. Our right to remain silent is now conditional, therefore, not a right.
The court ruled, if you would read the decision, that a person must say they exercising their right: “ …concludes that Salinas’ Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege.”
The same court ruled 50 years ago, “no ritualistic formula is necessary in order to invoke the privilege.” This is at complete odds with today’s ruling. I didn’t know a right could be voided by parliamentary procedure.
Perhaps, but the burden of proof should still on the court that you did Y. Your silence should not be able to be used against you.
The problem is that this court ruling allows a court to infer guilt fro your invoking your 5th amendment right. It effectively eviscerates the right.
Gee another 5-4 decision! Without even attempting to debate on the actual issue, it is one more proof, we do not have a USSC court to judge laws base upon the Constitution.
These are nothing but political hacks with the goal of protecting the ruling elite at all costs.
No other explanation holds water as these are supposed to be the best and brightest legal minds, (meaning they can distort the truth better than anyone else), and they cannot agree any better than 5-4 on what a rather small document means even when it comes with an Owners Manual known as the Federalist Papers.
None of the branches of the Federal government are doing their Constitutional limited tasks yet we have done nothing!
There is the fall-back of, when asked questions by the police, to respond with the “name, rank, and serial number” mnemonic, except by saying, “Please direct all statements and questions to my attorney.”
Remember that invoking your rights is meaningless until you have been arrested. And the police will use that against you.
Importantly, the police can use “catch and release” against you. That is, tell you that you are under arrest, give you your Miranda warnings, and then ask you questions that they tell you cannot be used in court. When you answer, if you give them useful information, they can *release* you from arrest, and use that information to gather incriminating evidence, then re-arrest you.
This is a really nasty trick, but has been upheld by at least one federal court.
So the bottom line, is never, ever, talk to the police.
“but if you answer one question you have effectively forfeited your fifth amendment rights.”
Including your name? But you can be arrested for not answering THAT...this place is going to hell in a handcar, it really is.
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