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The Fifth Amendment Right to Remain Silent
The criminal justice system serves the principal purpose of crime control and prevention. It also fosters the achievement of justice. It constitutes a powerful component of preventing criminal acts in response to the US citizens who fall victims of criminal activities. Thus, the judicial system must guarantee crime control and prevention whilst providing justice to suspects and victims of crimes. Indeed, Wellford states that an effective judicial system is not only fair but also responds to individual rights (57). In the same line of thought, the Fifth Amendment guarantees people the right to remain silent in the interrogation process in a bid to mitigate forced confessions, which may lead to wrongful convictions.
The Fifth Amendment ensures that people do not incriminate themselves. Acker defines self-incrimination as the act of revealing an individual’s affairs in an allegation or blame of an offense that includes the individual (1207). The right to remain silent implies a refusal or choice not to engage in utterances in response to questions, which might lead to a dangerous disclosure. Defending people to ensure they are not forced to make bogus admissions reduces cases of self-incrimination while attempting to acquire information from the accused persons. The right to remain silent implies that suspects have been at liberty to shun making any remarks when interrogated by law enforcement agents.
The right to remain silent guarantees the privilege to either testify or not give evidence to the defendant. This claim means the accused persons are not required to make their acknowledgment. Indeed, in the US jurisdiction, outside arrests, or detection contexts, people have no duty to respond to questions that are raised by law enforcement agents. Where a state seeks judicial compulsion, the accused persons still have the privilege of invoking the Fifth Amendment’s rights and/or refusing to make any compelled self-incrimination.
Supreme Court Decisions that influence Law Enforcement Interrogations
Escobedo v. Illinois made provisions for the defendants to have counsel during interrogation before Miranda found its way into the US legal discourses. While at Phoenix, Ernesto Miranda was suspected of sexually abusing and abducting a minor. After being interrogated by the Phoenix police department for about two hours, Miranda signed a self-confession form admitting to having committed the rape.
This form had an included typed statement asserting that “I do hereby swear that I make this statement voluntarily and of my own free will, with no threats, coercion, or promises of immunity, and with full knowledge of my legal rights, understanding any statement I make may be used against me” (Norris et al. 1303). Miranda was not at any time told that he had a right to an attorney.
Miranda was not aware of his freedom of not making any remarks before presenting any spoken admission, which he was later required to put in writing. He was also not aware that any statement that self-incriminated him with murder would be deployed against him during the trial. During the trial process, his attorney objected to the confessions when they were used as evidence-based on these two facts.
However, the court overruled the objections. Miranda was imprisoned for 20 years because of rape and 30 years because of kidnapping. His attorney filed an appeal at the Arizona Supreme Court. He asserted that the confession made by Miranda was not in totality voluntary and that his conviction was not appropriate since such confessions should not have been used in the trial process. In the judicial precedence, now referred to as state v. Miranda, the Supreme Court affirmed the earlier decision on the argument that the defendant had not specifically requested an attorney. State v. Miranda influenced police interrogations.
Police must notify an individual about his or her right to counsel and to remain silent during interrogation to avoid circumstances that can lead to self-incrimination. Any given information may be used against the offender in a court of law. For this reason, the Supreme Court overturned the decision that had been made by the trial court.
In Michigan v. Jackson, the Supreme Court ruled that after a defendant had requested an appointed attorney, any ensuing confessions made in the absence of the attorney were invalid even if law enforcement agents had given Miranda a warning before the suspect interrogation. However, this judicial precedence applies depending on the facts of any particular case. For instance, in the case of Montejo v. Louisiana, the jury convicted Montejo for first-degree murder. Montejo faced charges of mugging and of Ferrari’s assassination that occurred in 2002.
Upon notification about his Miranda v. Arizona rights, Montejo gave videotaped varying accounts of the crime. During a preliminary hearing, the court ordered that the defendant be given an appointed attorney. However, later, while in the prison, the law enforcement agents requested him to accompany them in the excursion of the weapon that was deployed in the murder, which the accused claimed to have thrown into the lake.
Miranda’s rights were read to Montejo again. He agreed to accompany the police. During the evidence expedition exercise, Montejo contacted the victim’s widow expressing his heartfelt regret for committing the crime. On return to the prison, the attorney was angered that the interrogations were conducted in his absence and breach of the defendant’s rights. However, through the admission of the apology letter, the prosecution overturned this objection. The court sentenced Montejo to death on accounts of first-degree murder. This case affected police interrogations since any admission that had been made while the defendant was fully aware of his or her rights could be used as evidence in a court of law.
The case of Montejo v. Louisiana provides an example where law enforcement agents have videotaped statements that are made by the accused persons. Is this case appropriate? Videotaping has strong and weak sides. Criminal defense lawyers in the US advocate the banning of recordings of the accused people’s statements to ensure transparency. However, recording through videotaping can help in preventing gross misconduct of the police such as manipulation of witness statements.
It can also prevent false allegations that are raised by law enforcement personnel, which may lead to wrongful convictions. Amid these benefits, some situations make the recording unwarranted. For example, videotaping a statement is inappropriate since it can lead to public incitement or threaten national security. Where a witness or an accused person invokes his or her Miranda rights, videotaping is also inappropriate.
False Confessions
In some situations, innocent people admit to committing crimes they have not done. The enlarging body of literature presents a large number of confessions that have been proven false by DNA tests. Scottsboro Boys’ case exemplifies how falsified confessions may lead to a wrongful conviction. In this case, nine African-American boys were convicted of rape. Acker informs that they were “convicted of and sentenced to death for raping two white women while on a train going through Northern Alabama” (1208).
Immense false confessions characterized the case. Various defendants engaged in counteraccusations for committing the alleged crime. Some eyewitnesses claimed having had a direct observation on eventualities of the crime while in a position, which raised doubts on what they proclaimed to have seen (Acker 1208). Evidently, witnesses also lied. Testimonies of medical experts confirmed that sustained injuries accrued from gang rape due to the presence of semen on the victims.
Prosecutorial misconducts also hailed the case. Acker quotes the prosecutor in charge of the case drawing the attention of the jury by requesting it to depict that justice in the state of Alabama does not equate to Jewish money that is acquired from the state of New York (1208). This statement was made regarding Leibowitz, the lawyer representing the suspects. Although he intensively objected, his mistral motion was denied. The jury convicted the boys wrongfully.
In the US, Norris et al. claim that the number of people who are wrongly convicted because of falsified confessions increases as more cases continues to be revisited (1302). Since the 1989 successful prosecution of the first case that involved DNA testing in the US, the Innocence Project, which is an advocacy group that fights for the rights of wrongly convicted persons confirms that 272 people had been exonerated by 2011 (Norris et al. 1302). Similarly, In Israel where there is no judicial system, people are also wrongfully convicted due to falsified confessions. Although there is no adequate literature on the exact number of false confessions that lead to wrongful convictions in different jurisdictions, its prevalence is high among juveniles.
Works Cited
Acker, James. “Wrongful Convictions Then and Now: Lessons to Be Learned.” Albany Law Review 73.4 (2010): 1207-1211. Print.
Norris, Robert, Catherine Bonventre, Allison Redlich, and James Acker. “Than That One Innocent Sufferer: Evaluating State Safeguards against Wrongful Convictions.” Albany Law Review 74.3(2011): 1301-1364. Print.
Wellford, Charles. “Two Goals of Criminal Justice.” Crime and Justice 13.11 (1997): 57-61. Print.
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