Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment's right against self-incrimination permits an individual to refuse to disclose information that could be used against him or her in a criminal prosecution. The purpose of this right is to inhibit the government from compelling a confession through force, coercion, or deception. The Self-Incrimination Clause applies to any state or federal legal proceeding, whether it is civil, criminal, administrative, or judicial in nature. This privilege is frequently invoked during the trial phase of legal proceedings, where individuals are placed under oath and asked questions on the witness stand.

The privilege is also asserted with some frequency during the pretrial phase of legal proceedings. In the pretrial phase of criminal cases, it is usually asserted in response to pointed questions asked by law enforcement agents, prosecutors, and other government officials who are seeking to determine the persons responsible for a particular crime. During the pretrial phase of civil cases, parties may assert the right against self-incrimination when potentially damaging questions are posed in depositions and interrogatories.

The right against self-incrimination largely took hold in English law with the seventeenth-century trial of John Lilburne. Lilburne was a Puritan agitator who opposed British attempts to impose Anglican religious uniformity across England. In 1637, Lilburne was prosecuted for attempting to smuggle several thousand Puritan pamphlets into England. Before the STAR CHAMBER (an English court with jurisdiction to extinguish nonconformity in the realm), Lilburne refused to take an oath requiring him to answer truthfully any question asked of him. He said that he could see that the court was trying to ensnare him, and he claimed that the law of God and the law of the land supported his right against self-accusation. Lilburne was whipped and pilloried for refusing to take the oath. Parliament later declared his punishment illegal, abolished the Star Chamber, and ultimately recognized the right against self-incrimination.

The American colonists, particularly the Puritans in Massachusetts, were familiar with the plight of Lilburne. Nonetheless, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, a collection of rules of conduct for the Puritan colonists taken nearly verbatim from the Bible, permitted the use of torture to extract confessions from defendants who were accused of capital crimes. Many other colonies subjected political and religious dissenters to inquisitorial judicial proceedings not unlike those employed in England. In many of these proceedings, the accused persons were not entitled to remain silent but were often asked to provide evidence of their innocence. Even after the Revolution, the constitutions of four states offered no protections against self-incrimination. As Madison drafted the original version of the Fifth Amendment, the lessons of English and colonial history were firmly in his mind.

The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Self-Incrimination Clause more broadly than many of the Framers probably would have. MIRANDA V. ARIZONA, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966), illustrates this point. In Miranda the Court held that any statements made by defendants while in police custody before trial will be inadmissible during prosecution unless the police first warn the defendants that they have (1) the right to remain silent, (2) the right to consult an attorney before being questioned by the police, (3) the right to have an attorney present during police questioning, (4) the right to a court-appointed attorney if they cannot afford one, and (5) the right to be informed that any statements they do make can and will be used in their prosecution. Although the Miranda warnings are not provided in the Fifth Amendment's Self-Incrimination Clause, the Court has ruled that they constitute an essential part of a judicially created buffer zone that is necessary to protect rights that are specifically set forth in the Constitution.

In Dickerson v. United States 530 U.S. 428, 120 S. Ct. 2326, 147 L. Ed.2d 405 (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the Miranda decision was based on Fifth Amendment principles and therefore that it could not be over-turned legislatively. Congressional anger at the Miranda decision had led to the passage in 1968 of a law, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3501, that had restored voluntariness as the test for admitting confessions in federal court. However, the United States DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, under attorneys general of both major political parties, has refused to enforce the provision, believing the law to be unconstitutional. The law lay dormant until the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1999 that Congress had the constitutional authority to pass the law. Chief Justice WILLIAM REHNQUIST, a frequent critic of the Miranda decision, joined the majority in rejecting the Fourth Circuit interpretation. Although members of the Court might not agree with the reasoning and the rule of Miranda, Rehnquist acknowledged the essential place that Miranda has in U.S. law and society. He pointed out the importance that the judicial system places on STARE DECISIS, a concept that counsels courts to honor judicial precedents to ensure stability and predictability in decision-making. A court should only overrule its case precedents if there is, in Rehnquist's words, "special justification." The Court in Dickerson concluded there were no special justifications.

Despite this decision the controversy over Miranda has not abated. In 2002 the Supreme Court took up the matter again when it reviewed Martinez v. Chavez, 270 F.3d 852 (9th Cir. 2001). The Court must decide whether the Fifth Amendment conveys a constitutional right to be free of coercive interrogation, or merely a right not to have forced confessions used against them at trial.