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" You have a right to remain silent, as the Supreme Court has codified it;" So let's a few things things straight :) 1. This particular right does not explici

" You have a right to remain silent, as the Supreme Court has codified it;" So let's a few things things straight :) 1. This particular right does not explicitly appear in the constitution. There is nobody who argues otherwise. The history of the fifth amendment does not support any other reading than being about compulsion to testify (IE torture, etc). 2. The Supreme Court are the ones who say you have to invoke it explicitly So the Supreme Court, who you say "codified" this right, are the very people saying you need to explicitly invoke it. So it does make sense to talk about invoking it, since the same people who have explained this right have said, as part of that explanation, that you are required to do it. Basically "that it is your right to invoke your silence". Not "you have an unabrogated right to silence and not have that silence used against you". "You don't have to declare "I invoke my First Amendment rights" as a magic spell to avoid being prosecuted for writing something on the internet." Of course, you can be prosecuted for plenty of stuff you write on the internet, because the first amendment is not absolute, as the Supreme Court has codified it.

chimeracoder 12y ago
Unlike you, I am not a laywer, so take this for what it's worth: I agree with most of what you say, but I do think the following statement is a bit unfair: > So it does make sense to talk about invoking it, since the same people who have explained this right have said, as part of that explanation, that you are required to do it. Unless I'm mistaken, you're referring to two separate SCOTUS decisions that are separated by several decades (the latter decision is very recent). I don't think it's right to treat the Supreme Court as a singular, monolithic entity even within a given session (let alone separated by many years and with different chief justices, etc.) Our public understanding of the supposed 'right to remain silent' developed after the Warren court decision, and while it's true that the Roberts court clarified (or imposed) the requirement that this be explicit, AFAICT it's not the only way to interpret the Warren ruling. Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling. [0] I say 'appearing to' because it's easily arguable that this is a clarification, not a reversal, which AFAICT is the whole controversy to begin with
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling." It's certainly fair to criticize, but honestly, this is the problem with unenumerated rights in general (like "The right to privacy" and others), and judicially made rules like the exclusionary rule - they tend to erode or change over time, even after people come to rely on them. I'd much prefer to see both in the constitution itself. :)
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    The contemporaneous objection to the proposed Bill of Rights was that future generations would come to believe that only those rights enumerated in the Bill are protected by the Constitution. It seems to me that that fear has basically come true. Adding a few more amendments won't fix that; in fact they would reinforce the problem.

chimeracoder 12y ago

Unlike you, I am not a laywer, so take this for what it's worth: I agree with most of what you say, but I do think the following statement is a bit unfair: > So it does make sense to talk about invoking it, since the same people who have explained this right have said, as part of that explanation, that you are required to do it. Unless I'm mistaken, you're referring to two separate SCOTUS decisions that are separated by several decades (the latter decision is very recent). I don't think it's right to treat the Supreme Court as a singular, monolithic entity even within a given session (let alone separated by many years and with different chief justices, etc.) Our public understanding of the supposed 'right to remain silent' developed after the Warren court decision, and while it's true that the Roberts court clarified (or imposed) the requirement that this be explicit, AFAICT it's not the only way to interpret the Warren ruling. Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling. [0] I say 'appearing to' because it's easily arguable that this is a clarification, not a reversal, which AFAICT is the whole controversy to begin with

DannyBee 12y ago
"Again, I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but I don't think it's unfair to criticize the most recent SCOTUS ruling for appearing to[0] reverse or mitigate our understanding of the earlier SCOTUS ruling." It's certainly fair to criticize, but honestly, this is the problem with unenumerated rights in general (like "The right to privacy" and others), and judicially made rules like the exclusionary rule - they tend to erode or change over time, even after people come to rely on them. I'd much prefer to see both in the constitution itself. :)
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  The contemporaneous objection to the proposed Bill of Rights was that future generations would come to believe that only those rights enumerated in the Bill are protected by the Constitution. It seems to me that that fear has basically come true. Adding a few more amendments won't fix that; in fact they would reinforce the problem.