[joering2]

Which of course is not how justice works, at least in USA. Here you are innocent until proven otherwise. Mere decline to produce a notebook (with or without evidence of crime in it) is in no way shape or form an admission of guilt or a proof of itself good enough to find you guilty. Look no further than the most important case of modern history - impeachment of Donald J. Trump. During Senate hearing Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued how important it is to forbid judges and juries from finding someone guilty merely on fact they invoked their fifth ammandment right. At the end Mr. Trump was acquitted in part based on this defense. And what’s good for a President of the country that is a beacon of justice and freedom, cannot be less good for an average Joe Doe.

[throwaway17_17]

As a semi-counter-point: 1) the argument, made by every criminal defense attorney in trial ever, that a jury can not infer anything from a defendant’s exercise of his/her 5th amendment right to remain silent is basically pointless. Juries, and individual jurors in the vast majority, do not buy it, they don’t accept it as the law in their minds, and they certainly factor it into deliberations;

I in no way want the following to appear that I have an opinion as to anything regarding Trump’s anything, but

2) Trump was acquitted because of the way the US impeachment process is set up, if I am sure of anything, it is the fact that no votes to acquit where based in any way on Seklow’s arguments about presumption based on the 5th amendment.

[joering2]

Politicans who found Mr. Trump not guilty have stated its in part because of lack of evidence otherwise. Everyone welcome to keep downvoting, but I will remain certain in USA you are innocent until proven guilty. You don’t have to prove your innocence. And many cases - even the big ones like Casey Anthony, OJ, Zimmerman, now Weinstein - prove that fifth amandment works.

[nulbyte]

You are not innocent until proven guilty; you are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You are guilty, or you are innocent, from the beginning; only, we admit uncertainty in the presence of reasonable doubt, which evidence and argument need erode to prove guilt.

[cgriswald]

I'm afraid it's not quite so absolute. Consider a murder case in which the defendant admits to killing a person, but pleads self defense. It is certainly a fact that he killed the person, but whether it was self defense or not (i.e., whether he is guilty or innocent) depends entirely on the interpretation of the law and the events that occurred. Absent a finding of law, his guilt or innocence simply can't be established. If we hold the presumption of innocence and the absolute idea that he either is guilty or not, then we would have to conclude he is innocent, rather than taking the more rational view that we simply don't know.

[rootusrootus]

Impeachment isn't a criminal trial.

[throwaway17_17]

While this is true, there is no dispositive ruling on the totality of criminal procedural law as it applies to impeachment. The 1936 impeachment of Judge Ritter was the first point a defendant in an impeachment trial appealed to a court to assert his procedural/constitutional rights had been denied by the Senate. It is clear there are procedural requirements the Senate must honor, but the full extent is not clearly defined. For a decent review of the area as it stood in 1993, prior to the Clinton trial, see [0].

0 —> https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi...

[anigbrowl]

If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? The mob takes the Fifth.

[zimbu668]

This explains why an innocent person should take the fifth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

[tedunangst]

Taking the fifth in a courtroom is rather different than not talking to police without a lawyer.

[cryptonector]

The two are related. In practice no indictment will issue if the prosecutor doesn't think they can win without the defendant's testimony, and in practice the defendant's statements to police are used to impeach them at trial (because the hearsay rule allows that hearsay) and thus make a part of the case just as much as if they made those statements in court, in the witness box. No case -> no trial, no trial -> definitely no testimony.

Watch that video. Then watch it again. Schedule a yearly watching or three.

[pdonis]

> If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

Because innocent people do get wrongly convicted. If you don't want to be that innocent person, you might have to assert your rights, including your Fifth Amendment rights.

Note that the Fifth Amendment does not say that you can't be forced to incriminate yourself, as many TV courtroom dramas wrongly imply. Statements like "the mob takes the Fifth" are based on that kind of incorrect reading of the Amendment.

The Fifth Amendment actually says that you can't be forced to be a witness against yourself. A witness can provide testimony that looks incriminating even if the defendant is actually innocent, and such testimony can lead to an innocent person being wrongly convicted. The Fifth Amendment is there to help reduce the chances of that happening.

[anigbrowl]

Thanks for taking time to answer properly, and I agree wholeheartedly.

My post was above was a bit naughty, as I was quoting the current president (in response to a post discussing his recent impeachment) without revealing that it was a quotation.

[joering2]

Because anything you say may be used AGAINST you in the court of law. Nothing you say can be used to help you.

[anigbrowl]

It was a little underhanded of me to write that without quotation marks, but the words I posted above were famously uttered by the current President in 2016, when criticizing someone else for relying on the 5th amendment. My point is that his idea of justice is actually extremely variable depending on what benefits him at any given time.