…because the U.S. Supreme Court basically just stripped them away:
Salinas was found guilty in the shooting death of two brothers and was sentenced to 21-years, but his lawyer claims the Texas court should have omitted his silence as evidence of possible guilty because the Fifth Amendment provides protection against self-incrimination. The State of Texas defended the evidence because Salinas’s silence was taken under voluntary conditions.
. . .
By this ruling, the justices settled that the Fifth Amendment does not apply to silence before arrest unless invoked. Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy concluded that Salinas’ Fifth Amendment defense is unacceptable because he did not specifically declare the privilege to remain silent during questioning.
Even if the suspect does not know or understand the law, prosecutors may use the pre-arrest silence of a witness or defendant against them in the court of law.
As summarized by Lyle Denniston of SCOTUS Blog, “Because merely keeping quiet when police ask damaging questions is not claiming a right to silence, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, prosecutors may use that silence against the suspect at the trial. If an individual is voluntarily talking to the police, he or she must claim the Fifth Amendment right of silence, or lose it; simply saying nothing won’t do, according to the ruling.”
*blinks*
Rights are supposed to be sacrosanct… not merely respected when invoked. That’s the whole point of a “right” at the end of the day: they are eternal and implicit, never to be restricted; only to be preserved.
I’m a bit at a loss for words on this one, folks… maybe you can express it better than I can, but this is pretty shocking stuff.
