Posted on 06/17/2013 12:20:46 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Once you invoke your right to remain silent, STFU.
This is unmitigated balderdash! You have the RIGHT to remain silent. RIGHTS do not require that you claim them to use them. Reporters don't go around prefacing news reports with their RIGHT to freedom of the press. Priests, rabbis, and imams don't start their services declaring their RIGHT to freedom of religion. When we meet with friends, we don't declare our RIGHT to assembly or associate. If we had to declare a right to use it, then our Bill of Rights would amount to NOTHING. How would someone possibly declare their 4th amendment protections from a lawyer issuing a request for a warrant? It's logically impossible!
Rights are EXTANT! THEY ALREADY EXIST! The Bill of Rights is an affirmation of them. It states that they are our rights and no one can take them away from us. They are granted to us by GOD!
What the HELL is going on in our country?
Testimony before a jury or other fact-finding agency is different from talking to police. Among other things, when one is giving testimony, one is supposed to give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Someone who gave some testimony, but then sought to plead the fifth, would have given testimony which was not the whole truth. I would posit that people should still have the right to plead the fifth, but it would be legitimate for jurors or other fact-finder to draw inferences from that in their evaluation of a person's earlier statements.
Incidentally, I think people who are employed by government retain their Fifth Amendment rights, but they have no right to continued employment if they refuse to give testimony related to what they were doing on the job.
Think about how ridiculous that is.
"Were you at the scene of the crime?"
"No"
"Do you know anyone who was at the scene of the crime?"
"No"
"Is your name John Smith?"
"Yes"
"Do you live at 1234 Easy Street?"
"Yes"
"Will the shotgun you own match the ballistics of the murder weapon?"
*silence*
The first questions are either known or are ridiculously trivial. What the Hell difference does it make?
Devil's advocate: Cop pulls you over because your car matches the description of a getaway vehicle in the area. If you immediately lawyer up, you're immediately assumed to be guilty, no? So at that point, you've got choppers flying overhead and half the PD surrounding you. You didn't do it, but you were silent. As such, the real criminal actually got away while you rot in jail waiting for someone to bail you out on suspicion of committing armed robbery.
Our judicial system is completely screwed from its origins.
the ruling makes no sense.
you have to now be under arrest to invoke your 5th amendment rights. ut if they arrest you they are inferring guilt.
if they don’t arrest you, ie don’t mirandize you, your silence now infers guilt.
the average citizen cannot win either way.
The bizarre thing is that it was the liberal judges who dissented!!???
The conservative judges were fine with giving away our fifth amendment rights.
When we meet with friends, we don't declare our RIGHT to assembly or associate. If we had to declare a right to use it, then our Bill of Rights would amount to NOTHING. How would someone possibly declare their 4th amendment protections from a lawyer issuing a request for a warrant? It's logically impossible!
I'm going to concede ALL your points as more than valid.
From the Alternative Universe File: What is the Leftist Wing of SCOTUS doing opposing this decision, as the conservative wing supported it? Are we missing anything here?
Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
Seems to me the world has gone insane. This sort of hogwash is embarrassing to read:
“Petitioner claims that reliance on the Fifth Amendment privilege is the most likely explanation for silence in a case like his, but such silence is “insolubly ambiguous.” See Doylev. Ohio, 426 U. S. 610, 617. To be sure, petitioner might have declined to answer the officer’s question in reliance on his constitutional privilege. But he also might have done so because he was trying to think of a good lie, because he was embarrassed, or because he was protecting someone else. Not every such possible explanation for silence is probative of guilt, but neither is every possible explanation protected by the Fifth Amendment. Petitioner also suggests that it would be unfair to require a suspect unschooled in the particulars of legal doctrine to do anything more than remain silent in order to invoke his “right to remain silent.” But the Fifth Amendment guarantees that no one may be “compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” not an unqualified “right to remain silent.”
The decision can be read in full here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-246_7l48.pdf
If the US Supreme Court says there is a “right to remain silent”, then this statement seems fair:
“Petitioner also suggests that it would be unfair to require a suspect unschooled in the particulars of legal doctrine to do anything more than remain silent in order to invoke his “right to remain silent.”
If there is NOT a right to remain silent, then what the hell was Miranda decided on?
Bottom line - if asked anything, tell the cops you want to speak to a lawyer.
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