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The Fifth Amendment: If An Aid To The Guilty Defendant, An Impediment To The Innocent One, Peter W. Tague
The Fifth Amendment: If An Aid To The Guilty Defendant, An Impediment To The Innocent One, Peter W. Tague
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The fifth amendment's privilege not to answer, critics carp, insulates the guilty defendant from revealing his complicity. While this is true, ironically it also can shackle the innocent defendant from attempting to prove that another person committed the crime. If that other person asserts the fifth amendment in response to questions designed to substitute him for the defendant, the innocent defendant can neither surmount that person's assertion nor benefit therefrom.
Consider this set of facts. A murder is committed. Defendant, charged with the crime, has evidence that Witness killed the victim. The prosecution believes only one person committed the crime. …