Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution Part II

 

Explicit invocation

In June 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Berghuis v. Thompkins that a criminal suspect must now invoke the right to remain silent unambiguously. Unless and until the suspect actually states that he is relying on that right, police may continue to interact with (or question) him, and any voluntary statement he makes can be used in court. The mere act of remaining silent is, on its own, insufficient to imply the suspect has invoked those rights. Furthermore, a voluntary reply, even after lengthy silence, can be construed as implying a waiver. The new rule will defer to police in cases where the suspect fails to assert the right to remain silent. This standard was extended in Salinas v. Texas in 2013 to cases where individuals not in custody who volunteer to answer officers' questions and who are not told their Miranda rights. The Court stated that there was no "ritualistic formula" necessary to assert this right, but that a person could not do so "by simply standing mute".

Production of documents

Under the Act of Production Doctrine, the act of an individual in producing documents or materials (e.g., in response to a subpoena) may have a "testimonial aspect" for purposes of the individual's right to assert the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to the extent that the individual's act of production provides information not already in the hands of law enforcement personnel about the (1) existence; (2) custody; or (3) authenticity, of the documents or materials produced. (United States v. Hubbell. In Boyd v. United States,) the U.S. Supreme Court stated that "It is equivalent to a compulsory production of papers to make the nonproduction of them a confession of the allegations which it is pretended they will prove".

By corporations

Corporations may also be compelled to maintain and turn over records; the Supreme Court has held that the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination extend only to "natural persons". The Court has also held that a corporation's custodian of records can be forced to produce corporate documents even if the act of production would incriminate him personally. The only limitation on this rule is that the jury cannot be told that the custodian personally produced those documents in any subsequent prosecution of him, but the jury is still allowed to draw adverse inferences from the content of the documents combined with the position of the custodian in the corporation.

Refusal to testify in a criminal case

In Griffin v. California (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a prosecutor may not ask the jury to draw an inference of guilt from a defendant's refusal to testify in his own defense. The Court overturned as unconstitutional under the federal constitution a provision of the California state constitution that explicitly granted such power to prosecutors.

Refusal to testify in a civil case

While defendants are entitled to assert the right against compelled self-incrimination in a civil court case, there are consequences to the assertion of the right in such an action.

The Supreme Court has held that "the Fifth Amendment does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them." Baxter v. Palmigiano, "[A]s Mr. Justice Brandeis declared, speaking for a unanimous court in the Tod case, 'Silence is often evidence of the most persuasive character.'" "'Failure to contest an assertion ... is considered evidence of acquiescence ... if it would have been natural under the circumstances to object to the assertion in question.'"

In Baxter, the state was entitled to an adverse inference against Palmigiano because of the evidence against him and his assertion of the Fifth Amendment right.

Some civil cases are considered "criminal cases" for the purposes of the Fifth Amendment. In Boyd v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that "A proceeding to forfeit a person's goods for an offence against the laws, though civil in form, and whether in rem or in personam, is a "criminal case" within the meaning of that part of the Fifth Amendment which declares that no person "shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself."

In United States v. Lileikis, the court ruled that Aleksandras Lileikis was not entitled to Fifth Amendment protections in a civil denaturalization case even though he faced criminal prosecution in Lithuania, the country that he would be deported to if denaturalized.

Federal income tax

In some cases, individuals may be legally required to file reports that call for information that may be used against them in criminal cases. In United States v. Sullivan, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a taxpayer could not invoke the Fifth Amendment's protections as the basis for refusing to file a required federal income tax return. The Court stated: "If the form of return provided called for answers that the defendant was protected from making, he could have raised the objection in the return, but could not on that account refuse to make any return at all. We are not called on to decide what, if anything, he might have withheld."

In Garner v. United States, the defendant was convicted of crimes involving a conspiracy to "fix" sporting contests and to transmit illegal bets. During the trial the prosecutor introduced, as evidence, the taxpayer's federal income tax returns for various years. In one return the taxpayer had showed his occupation to be "professional gambler". In various returns the taxpayer had reported income from "gambling" or "wagering". The prosecution used this to help contradict the taxpayer's argument that his involvement was innocent. The taxpayer tried unsuccessfully to keep the prosecutor from introducing the tax returns as evidence, arguing that since the taxpayer was legally required to report the illegal income on the returns, he was being compelled to be a witness against himself. The Supreme Court agreed that he was legally required to report the illegal income on the returns, but ruled that the right against self-incrimination still did not apply. The Court stated that "if a witness under compulsion to testify makes disclosures instead of claiming the right, the Government has not 'compelled' him to incriminate himself."

Sullivan and Garner are viewed as standing, in tandem, for the proposition that on a required federal income tax return a taxpayer would probably have to report the amount of the illegal income, but might validly claim the right by labeling the item "Fifth Amendment" (instead of "illegal gambling income", "illegal drug sales", etc.) The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has stated: "Although the source of income might be privileged, the amount must be reported." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has stated: "... the amount of a taxpayer's income is not privileged even though the source of income may be, and Fifth Amendment rights can be exercised in compliance with the tax laws 'by simply listing his alleged ill-gotten gains in the space provided for "miscellaneous" income on his tax form'." In another case, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stated: "While the source of some of [the defendant] Johnson's income may have been privileged, assuming that the jury believed his uncorroborated testimony that he had illegal dealings in gold in 1970 and 1971, the amount of his income was not privileged and he was required to pay taxes on it." In 1979, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit stated: "A careful reading of Sullivan and Garner, therefore, is that the self-incrimination privilege can be employed to protect the taxpayer from revealing the information as to an illegal source of income, but does not protect him from disclosing the amount of his income."

Grants of immunity

If the government gives an individual immunity, then that individual may be compelled to testify. Immunity may be "transactional immunity" or "use immunity"; in the former, the witness is immune from prosecution for offenses related to the testimony; in the latter, the witness may be prosecuted, but his testimony may not be used against him. In Kastigar v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the government need only grant use immunity to compel testimony. The use immunity, however, must extend not only to the testimony made by the witness, but also to all evidence derived therefrom. This scenario most commonly arises in cases related to organized crime.

Record keeping

A statutorily required record-keeping system may go too far such that it implicates a record-keeper's right against self-incrimination. A three part test laid out by Albertson v. Subversive Activities Control Board, is used to determine this: 1. the law targets a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities; 2. the activities sought to be regulated are already permeated with criminal statutes as opposed to essentially being non-criminal and largely regulatory; and 3. the disclosure compelled creates a likelihood of prosecution and is used against the record-keeper. In this case, the Supreme Court struck down an order by the Subversive Activities Control Board requiring members of the Communist Party to register with the government and upheld an assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination, on the grounds that statute under which the order had been issued was "directed at a highly selective group inherently suspect of criminal activities."

In Leary v. United States, the court struck down the Marijuana Tax Act because its record keeping statute required self-incrimination.

In Haynes v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that, because convicted felons are prohibited from owning firearms, requiring felons to register any firearms they owned constituted a form of self-incrimination and was therefore unconstitutional.

Combinations and passwords

While no such case has yet arisen, the Supreme Court has indicated that a respondent cannot be compelled to turn over "the contents of his own mind", e.g. the password to a bank account.

Lower courts have given conflicting decisions on whether forced disclosure of computer passwords is a violation of the Fifth Amendment.

In In re Boucher (2009), the US District Court of Vermont ruled that the Fifth Amendment might protect a defendant from having to reveal an encryption password, or even the existence of one, if the production of that password could be deemed a self-incriminating "act" under the Fifth Amendment. In Boucher, production of the unencrypted drive was deemed not to be a self-incriminating act, as the government already had sufficient evidence to tie the encrypted data to the defendant.

In January 2012 a federal judge in Denver ruled that a bank-fraud suspect was required to give an unencrypted copy of a laptop hard drive to prosecutors. However, in February 2012 the Eleventh Circuit ruled otherwise—finding that requiring a defendant to produce an encrypted drive's password would violate the Constitution, becoming the first federal circuit court to rule on the issue. In April 2013, a District Court magistrate judge in Wisconsin refused to compel a suspect to provide the encryption password to his hard drive after FBI agents had unsuccessfully spent months trying to decrypt the data. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that unlocking a phone with a passcode is testimonial under Article I, section 12 of the state constitution, thus compelling it would be unconstitutional. Its ruling implied, however, that unlocking via biometrics may be allowed.

Employer coercion

As a condition of employment, workers may be required to answer their employer's narrowly defined questions regarding conduct on the job. If an employee invokes the Garrity rule (sometimes called the Garrity Warning or Garrity Rights) before answering the questions, then the answers cannot be used in criminal prosecution of the employee. This principle was developed in Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967). The rule is most commonly applied to public employees such as police officers.

Due process

The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution each contain a due process clause. Due process deals with the administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property by the government outside the sanction of law. The Supreme Court has interpreted the due process clauses to provide four protections: procedural due process (in civil and criminal proceedings), substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws, and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.

Takings Clause

Eminent domain

The "Takings Clause", the last clause of the Fifth Amendment, limits the power of eminent domain by requiring "just compensation" be paid if private property is taken for public use. It was the only clause in the Bill of Rights drafted solely by James Madison and not previously recommended to him by other constitutional delegates or a state ratifying convention.

The Takings Clause originally applied only to the federal government, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1897 case Chicago, B. & Q. Railroad Co. v. Chicago that the Fourteenth Amendment incidentally extended the effects of that provision to the states. The federal courts, however, have shown much deference to the determinations of Congress, and even more so to the determinations of the state legislatures, of what constitutes "public use". The property need not actually be used by the public; rather, it must be used or disposed of in such a manner as to benefit the public welfare or public interest. One exception that restrains the federal government is that the property must be used in exercise of a government's enumerated powers.

The owner of the property that is taken by the government must be justly compensated. When determining the amount that must be paid, the government does not need to take into account any speculative schemes in which the owner claims the property was intended to be used. Normally, the fair market value of the property determines "just compensation". If the property is taken before the payment is made, interest accrues (though the courts have refrained from using the term "interest").

Property under the Fifth Amendment includes contractual rights stemming from contracts between the United States, a U.S. state or any of its subdivisions and the other contract partner(s), because contractual rights are property rights for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court held in Lynch v. United States, 292 U.S. 571 (1934) that valid contracts of the United States are property, and the rights of private individuals arising out of them are protected by the Fifth Amendment. The court said: "The Fifth Amendment commands that property be not taken without making just compensation. Valid contracts are property, whether the obligor is a private individual, a municipality, a state, or the United States. Rights against the United States arising out of a contract with it are protected by the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Central Pacific R. Co., 118 U. S. 235, 238; United States v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 256 U. S. 51, 64, 67. When the United States enters into contract relations, its rights and duties therein are governed generally by the law applicable to contracts between private individuals."

The federal courts have not restrained state and local governments from seizing privately owned land for private commercial development on behalf of private developers. This was upheld on June 23, 2005, when the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Kelo v. City of New London. This 5–4 decision remains controversial. The majority opinion, by Justice Stevens, found that it was appropriate to defer to the city's decision that the development plan had a public purpose, saying that "the city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue." Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion observed that in this particular case the development plan was not "of primary benefit to ... the developer" and that if that was the case the plan might have been impermissible. In the dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor argued that this decision would allow the rich to benefit at the expense of the poor, asserting that "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms." She argued that the decision eliminates "any distinction between private and public use of property—and thereby effectively delete[s] the words 'for public use' from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment". A number of states, in response to Kelo, have passed laws and/or state constitutional amendments which make it more difficult for state governments to seize private land. Takings that are not "for public use" are not directly covered by the doctrine; however such a taking might violate due process rights under the Fourteenth amendment, or other applicable law.

The exercise of the police power of the state resulting in a taking of private property was long held to be an exception to the requirement of government paying just compensation. However the growing trend under the various state constitutions’ taking clauses is to compensate innocent third parties whose property was destroyed or "taken" as a result of police action.

Just compensation

The last two words of the amendment promise "just compensation" for takings by the government. In United States v. 50 Acres of Land (1984), the Supreme Court wrote that "The Court has repeatedly held that just compensation normally is to be measured by "the market value of the property at the time of the taking contemporaneously paid in money." Olson v. United States, 292 U.S. 246 (1934)  ... Deviation from this measure of just compensation has been required only "when market value has been too difficult to find, or when its application would result in manifest injustice to owner or public". United States v. Commodities Trading Corp., 339 U.S. 121, 123 (1950).

Civil asset forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture or occasionally civil seizure is a controversial legal process in which law enforcement officers take assets from persons suspected of involvement with crime or illegal activity without necessarily charging the owners with wrongdoing. While civil procedure, as opposed to criminal procedure, generally involves a dispute between two private citizens, civil forfeiture involves a dispute between law enforcement and property such as a pile of cash or a house or a boat, such that the thing is suspected of being involved in a crime. To get back the seized property, owners must prove it was not involved in criminal activity. Sometimes it can mean a threat to seize property as well as the act of seizure itself.

In civil forfeiture, assets are seized by police based on a suspicion of wrongdoing, and without having to charge a person with specific wrongdoing, with the case being between police and the thing itself, sometimes referred to by the Latin term in rem, meaning "against the property"; the property itself is the defendant and no criminal charge against the owner is needed. If property is seized in a civil forfeiture, it is "up to the owner to prove that his cash is clean" and the court can weigh a defendant's use of their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in their decision. In civil forfeiture, the test in most cases is whether police feel there is a preponderance of the evidence suggesting wrongdoing; in criminal forfeiture, the test is whether police feel the evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a tougher test to meet. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is a legal action brought as "part of the criminal prosecution of a defendant", described by the Latin term in personam, meaning "against the person", and happens when government indicts or charges the property which is either used in connection with a crime, or derived from a crime, that is suspected of being committed by the defendant; the seized assets are temporarily held and become government property officially after an accused person has been convicted by a court of law; if the person is found to be not guilty, the seized property must be returned.

Normally both civil and criminal forfeitures require involvement by the judiciary; however, there is a variant of civil forfeiture called administrative forfeiture which is essentially a civil forfeiture which does not require involvement by the judiciary, which derives its powers from the Tariff Act of 1930, and empowers police to seize banned imported merchandise, as well as things used to import or transport or store a controlled substance, money, or other property which is less than $500,000 value.