3 ms·
[The judiciary] can force you to provide evidence. Everybody has a duty to cooperate with litigation. The 5th Amendment appears to explicitly contradict thos
by manarth 10y ago
[The judiciary] can force you to provide evidence.
Everybody has a duty to cooperate with litigation.
The 5th Amendment appears to explicitly contradict those examples.
- rayiner 10y agoWrits subpoena (court orders to testify or produce documents) had been part of the English legal system for almost 400 years at the time the Constitution was written. So when the Framers wrote that no one "shall be compelled in any [1] criminal case [2] to be a witness [3] against himself," that's what they meant. Had they intended to limit courts' subpoena power in civil cases, as to non-testimonial conduct, or as to testimony against other people, they would have said so.