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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSCOTUS says you must specify 5th amendment in order to stay silent to police
Basically, if you're ever in any trouble with police (no, we don't condone breaking laws) and want to keep your mouth shut, you will need to announce that you're invoking your Fifth Amendment right instead of, you know, just keeping your mouth shut. "Petitioner's Fifth Amendment claim fails because he did not expressly invoke the privilege against self-incrimination in response to the officer's question," reads the opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, which Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts backed. Justices Thomas and Scalia had a concurring opinion while the remaining four Supremes dissented.
The Salinas case revolves around Genovevo Salinas, a man who was convicted of a 1992 murder of two brothers. Salinas was brought in for police questioning in January 1993. According to the dissenting opinion of Justice Breyer, he was called in to "to take photographs and to clear him as [a]suspect" and Salinas was questioned without being read his Miranda rights:
Because he was "free to leave at that time," [App.14], they did not give him Miranda warnings. The police then asked Salinas questions. And Salinas answered until the police asked him whether the shotgun from his home "would match the shells recovered at the scene of the murder [Id., at 17.] At that point Salinas fell silent.
That silence was then used against Salinas in court, and he was eventually convicted. But the bigger question in revisiting this 20-year-old murder case was whether or not prosecutors were allowed to point to that silence, and win a case using Salinas' own silence against him.
http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-decided-silence-used-against-161934950.html
msongs
(67,407 posts)TlalocW
(15,383 posts)I'm read my rights by the cops and asked if I understand them. I say yes, and the cops start asking me questions, and I just stare at them. Am I not exercising my rights then?
And more importantly, can I make funny faces while just looking at them?
TlalocW
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)...but the ruling applies to BEFORE Miranda rights are given.
And that's usually where people trip themselves up when they answer questions before an arrest. The police only have to inform you of your rights after an arrest.
Where this ruling applies is that if you are answering questions to the police, and you are NOT yet under arrest, you would need to specifically say you have a 5th amendment right to remain silent otherwise your silence can be used against you.
LostOne4Ever
(9,289 posts)we will just have to invoke 5th amendment if police want to question us on anything now.
Stupid stupid ruling.
edhopper
(33,580 posts)"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,"
The right is inalienable and the onus is on the government not to compel any one to testify against themselves. Not for the citizen to know the specifics of the law.
I can only surmise that the majority of the SCOTUS are Fascist assholes who do not believe in the Constitution or democracy.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)This is a tremendous loss of civil rights.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)The RIGHT.... That does not mean you have to ask specifically if you can have that right or not... But I guess I do not understand our language like the conservatives do...
Orsino
(37,428 posts)Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)in order to assert your 5th Amendment rights you not only need to know them but you must affirmatively assert them?
We are definitely living a neo Nazi existence now.