The Fifth Amendment is meant to protect individuals from self-incrimination. Self-incrimination denotes the act of making statements that expose oneself to the danger of facing criminal charges or makes one liable to a crime they may or may not have committed. The provisions of the Fifth Amendment arose from the principles that no man can be compelled to accuse himself. The maxim arises from one aspect that encompasses two systems of the enforcement of the law that competed in England for acceptance by the general public. Therefore the provisions of the principles of the Fifth Amendment make legal provisions for persons interested in guarding against offering information that may incriminate them from testifying in a court of law.
Self-incrimination is generally used to refer to the exposure of the witness to the crime as a person liable to the tenets of such a crime and hence, it offers the privilege of declining to provide such evidence. The principle originates from two maxims, namely the inquisitorial and the accusatorial paradigms of searching for evidence (Brezina, 2011). The accusatorial paradigm originated before the reign of King Henry the Second, and he worked to expand and extend it so that it remained in effect long after his reign. The system began by communities listening to witnesses over the wrongdoings of others and then moved to the admission of small and large gatherings of juries for the same purpose (Brezina, 2011). These parties to the judgement would listen to pieces of evidence presented by the witnesses to crimes and make their determination.
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Criminal trials allow for officers of Law Enforcement to plead the Fifth Amendment whenever they feel the need to leave out shreds of evidence that would incriminate them. The Fifth Amendment can be likened to the Fourteenth Amendment concerning the clauses of due process that forbid the deprivation of individuals of property, liberty and life without adhering to the due process of the law (Smith, 2010). Whereas the due process of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the state governments, the due process of the Fifth Amendment applies to the Federal Government. The Federal Government is the overall centre of power in the US. In contrast, the state governments are pockets of power dissolved to the regional level to reach out to the people (Smith, 2010). According to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, the law offers protection of witnesses under two distinctive clauses which include procedural due process and substantive due process.
The Fifth Amendment has its limitations and does not extend to the collection of fingerprints or DNA samples. However, this is strictly when such elements are connected to the criminal investigation (Smith, 2010). According to the Supreme Court, the privilege of the Fifth Amendment only applies to commutative evidence or that which the witness is obliged to speak about. Collection of fingerprints and the examination of blood samples to determine the DNA is considered to be non-testimonial. On the one hand, substantive due process institutes adherence to the protection of individual rights (Smith, 2010). On the other hand, procedural due process lays out the need to follow specific provisions of the law when depriving individuals of life, property or freedom.
Overall, whereas police reports must be clear, compelling, concise and free of error, the Fifth Amendment offers provision for protection against self-incrimination for officers who require such protection due to the nature of their work. The amendments are founded on the precipice that human is to err and therefore, it is expected that some forms of errors may be transferred into police reports and may involuntarily contaminate the quality of the stories. Clauses such as double jeopardy further enhance witness protection by ensuring they can only be tried once for the same offence in a federal court.
References
Brezina, C. (2011). The Fifth Amendment: Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, and Due Process of Law. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
Smith, R. (2010). Fifth Amendment: The Right to Fairness. New York: ABDO.
