Has the Fifth Amendment Become a Menace to Human Rights?

Have the protections afforded by the Fifth been overextended by judicial interpretation ? Yes, says the author, and this is why

Few would be so narrow or provincial as to maintain that a fair and enlightened system of justice would be impossible without …. immunity from compulsory self-incrimination. . . . This too might be lost, and justice still be done. Indeed, today as in the past there are students of our penal system who look upon the immunity as a mischief rather than a benefit, and who would limit its scope, or destroy it altogether. No doubt there would remain the need to give protection against torture, physical or mental. . . . Justice, however, would not perish if the accused were subject to a duty to respond to orderly inquiry.

PC

About the Author

Park Chamberlain

Featured Tags

Have the protections afforded by the Fifth been overextended by judicial interpretation ? Yes, says the author, and this is why

Few would be so narrow or provincial as to maintain that a fair and enlightened system of justice would be impossible without …. immunity from compulsory self-incrimination. . . . This too might be lost, and justice still be done. Indeed, today as in the past there are students of our penal system who look upon the immunity as a mischief rather than a benefit, and who would limit its scope, or destroy it altogether. No doubt there would remain the need to give protection against torture, physical or mental. . . . Justice, however, would not perish if the accused were subject to a duty to respond to orderly inquiry.