Sunday, July 14, 2002
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Sunday, July 14, 2002 |
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Avoiding the truth when it may hurt By MARY JANE HOLT
Here it is, from the U.S. Constitution. Read it again. Or read it for the first time. Or read it as I did this week and get it. Finally. FIFTH AMENDMENT - "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Read on. According to Kastigar v. U.S., 406 U.S. 441, 44-45 ('72), the Fifth Amendment "can be asserted in any proceeding, civil or criminal, administrative or judicial, investigatory or adjudicatory; and it protects against any disclosures which the witness reasonably believes could be used in a criminal prosecution or could lead to other evidence that might be so used." And according to U.S. v. Rendahl, 746 F.2d 553, 55-56 (9th Cir.'84), "a reasonable belief that information concerning income or assets might be used to establish criminal failure to file a tax return can support a claim of Fifth Amendment privilege." There's more. According to Rendahl, 746 F.2d at 555, citing with approval U.S. v. Bell, 448 F.2d 40, 42 (9th Cir.'71), "the only way the Fifth Amendment can be asserted as to testimony is on a question-by-question basis." Finally, according to Sharp, 920 F.2d at 1172, "the appropriate device for compelling answers to incriminating questions is a government grant of use immunity." Now, the next time your kid does something wrong and you know he or she did it you know it, but you can't prove it and so you ask him or her about it and he or she just stands silent before you refusing to comment, remember if he were in a American court of law, according to the US Constitution, the only way he or she can be compelled to tell the truth about the act/s is if he or she is promised immunity, as in no punishment. I've been hearing "I take the fifth on that" since I was a small child. I've heard it in social settings, family settings, work place settings. It has been somewhat amusing when somebody was being accused of something, jokingly or not so jokingly perhaps, and the one being accused, laughingly chose to plead the fifth. I'm not laughing today. On this day when I hear corporate executives on the hot seat before Congress being questioned about a four billion dollar discrepancy, fraud, lie (call it what you will) and they choose to plead the fifth rather than answer truthfully, I'm just not laughing anymore. On this date when my pocketbook has been affected, I'm not laughing anymore. Is this the American way, or what? Finally, when my bottom line is influenced negatively, not positively mind you, but negatively, then and only then do I wake up and listen. Really listen. Really hear what it means to "take the fifth." We hear a lot about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this great land of ours. And truly it is that. There is nowhere else I would rather live. That I know. I'm just having a little trouble this week realizing that truth is something our courts can only compel us to tell about another, as if we could ever really know another's truth. But our own truth? If it's going to hurt us to tell it, then we just don't have to tell it. I would truly love to hear readers' thoughts on this subject. Please write to me at: Mjhcolumn@aol.com.
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