THE FIFTH AMENDMENT

THE FIFTH AMMENDMENT
Fifth amendment is an amendment to the United States that authorizes due process of law and forbids self-incrimination, and that no person may be tried for a second time on a charge he has already been cleared off.
The fifth amendment is made up of five parts with six different clauses namely:
 Grand jury clause; it makes sure that Americans cannot be charged with serious federal crimes unless with an accusation by a Grand Jury.
 Grand jury exceptional clause; it guarantees the right to have serious federal criminal charges reviewed by a Grand Jury to all Americans except military personnel.
 Double jeopardy clause; guarantees that Americans cannot be tried twice or punished twice for the same crime.
 Self incrimination clause; you do not have to testify against yourself in criminal proceedings.
 Due process clause; makes sure that the government cannot take your life, liberty or property without following due process.
 Eminent domain clause; assures that, if the government has to take your property for public use then it must pay you a good amount for the property.
CASES THAT HAVE SHAPED THE PAST AND RECENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE FIFTH AMMENDMENT
In 1950 there was a case known as Johnson vs. Eisenstrager , whereby the supreme court ruled that the captured enemy soldiers who were not citizens of the United States would not challenge their detention in American courts. Some German prisoners tried to challenge their detention in civilian American courts after they had been tried and convicted by a military court. This case is interesting because of the current issue regarding whether or not enemy combats captured in Americas war on terrorism can be allowed to appeal their detention in US civil courts. (Grand jury exceptional clause)
The Rasul vs. Bush case of 2004 the court ruled that foreign enemies have no more rights than the Americans do, they reasoned that the American citizens recruited in the military are thereby stripped off their Fifth Amendment rights and as members of the military they are subject to its military including trials for offenses against aliens or Americans. (Grand jury exceptional clause)
In 2004, the supreme court ruled in Hiibel vs. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, that laws require q person to disclose his identity to a police officer in order to not violate the Fifth amendment self incrimination clause. If a police has a sensible suspicion that there’s a crime in the making or has been committed by a person, he can legally ask the person to identify himself and they must comply or be charged. The person does not have to answer further questions. (self incrimination clause)
Roe vs. Wade, 1973, utilized substantive due process to declare a Texas law banning abortions unconstitutional. The court decided that there’s a right to privacy given by the due process clause. Many people have criticized this decision as a judicial overreach. The majority wanted the practice outlawed but the court overruled it. (Due Process Clause)
The interpretations of the future of the fifth amendment, if the trends in improvement to evidence continues to speed up then prosecutions that rely greatly on confessions should become less common. When this system no longer depends much on confessions as proof of guilt then it also becomes less important to make sense of recent self incrimination policy such as the tricky problems of how to define and identify
Sources cited:
 http://www.enotes.com/everyday-law-encyclopedia/fifth-amendment
 http://www.questia.com/googlescholar.qst?docId=5001357358
 http://www.lexisnexis.com

 


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