This legislation was proposed and the senate is now voting on it: An Amendment to Limit BOR.V
This makes it where if you are a witness you have to testify. The only way you can not testify is if it self incriminating. It removes the clause where “anyone” has the right to not testify no matter what.
Do you agree on this?
0 voters
Thanks! Please comment below.
I believe this would be difficult to enforce and it also gets rid of the 5ths purpose.
How are they gonna know what you will say will self incriminate you or not? Exactly, they can’t. This is a bill only a communist revolutionary would propose and support. This man wishes to take away our freedoms blessed to us by God and bring us back to the tyranny of King George.
What is this? The Soviet Union? Sounds like someone wants a police state.
Do not pass it. It’s a joke frankly. Why should anyone be forced to testify?
If the judge has to state if it’s self incriminating or not, is it really a trial?
If it passes just say ‘I don’t remember’
Shall still refuse
I am afraid I am going to have to disagree on this one. I’m not sure if you are aware of how testifying works in the United States, which is fine but allow me to explain if I can. Essentially, you can (and more than likely going to be, depending on the situation,) be forced to testify unless you meet certain circumstances, such as being asked self-incriminating questions, or if you are married (the courts like to call this privilege) if you are a defendant in a criminal trial, just stuff like that.
I am going to cite BOR.V as it is now:
"All individuals shall have the right to remain silent. No individual may be charged or prosecuted for retaining silence. No individual shall be forced or held to commit any act without the due process of law. No individual shall ever be forced or held to answer or speak to authorities, whether it be to prevent self-incrimination or for other reasoning. ‘Self-incrimination’ refers to: 'acts or declarations either as testimony at trial or prior to trial by which one implicates himself/herself in a crime, or having committed a crime. All individuals have the right not to testify against themselves, and any testimony provided by an individual against themselves while being coerced by force or threats shall not be admissible as evidence for conviction of a crime."
Simply ignoring a question in court can lead to punishment, so that is not what this is doing. Effectively, the amendment adopts a procedure of the United States in the way that people can be forced to testify against people other than themselves with exceptions.
Self-incrimination is defined within the amendment, and it’s easy to understand.
(this was typed on mobile, so excuse me)
The number one thing I believe in as being more important than quite literally anything else in this world is free will. All of my beliefs stem from an original belief in free will.
I don’t believe that a person should be forced to speak regardless of what their reason for silence is. Freedom of speech shouldn’t just be the freedom to say what you want, it should also be the freedom to not speak if you do not wish to.
Further, as Jef pointed out the other day, think about what is at stake here:
Now, this brings me to my biggest issue with this legislation:
This legislation forces civil defendants to do the civil equivalent of self-incrimination.
If you’re suing somebody for X act, and you say “Did you commit X act?” they quite literally can’t defend themselves. They can’t refuse to answer. A good lawyer will word this type of question a bit better in a series of questions to force a civil defendant to essentially confess. There is absolutely no protection against forcing civil defendants to confess in this amendment. None.
Hard pass on this one.
I find it odd how my previous poll on this received respectable support, but now it seems the opposite. I will reveal each aspect of this amendment, I feel as this post didn’t adequate explain it; this is very one-sided.
For those lazy to read, I’ll sum it up for you, this amendment essentially changes one aspect: Witnesses cannot refuse to answer all questions. The only questions that can be left unanswered are those that inflict self-incrimination.
This amendment was created for the betterment of the court of law, this aims to make testimony evidence much more reliable and cohesive. This type of evidence is almost as important as physical evidence in many cases, it plays an important part in our jurisprudence. However, our current BOR.V is extremely lax to the point where witnesses can refuse to answer any question. This advantage has been trite from my perspective as a lawyer, I felt as this should be lessened in power to provide the court some viable testimony in future cases.
This amendment maintains the right to remain silent, both with officers and the court of law, you cannot be forced to speak against yourself; induce self-incrimination. However, especially as a citizen, it would be in favor of your civic duties to deliver competent testimony whenever called up to the stand as an official witness for a case. Without proper testimony, the court cannot make a decision that is not injudicious; they lack knowledge of certain aspects of the case at hand which makes it difficult to render a just decision.
I hope you are all transparent and reasonable to this amendment, I highly encourage you to direct message me on any other issues regarding this amendment, thank you for reading this.
I will look into the possibility of making the repercussions of a civil case for officers more lenient, probably through nullification of the ‘ineffective law enforcement’ legislation.
That is because your poll contained a full length argument supporting your side and no counter-argument right above the poll. This one was unbiased.
And no, before you say it, nobody reads the comments before voting.
This is blatantly false. The legislation keeps intact the right against self-incrimination, it does NOT keep intact the right not to speak against yourself. You can still be forced to confess to civil offenses (which may result in penalties as harsh as POST certification revokes) against your will. There is no protection for civil defendants here; this only keeps criminal defendants rights intact.
Speaking against yourself is quite literally self-incrimination, if you’d like to elaborate?
This post isn’t unbiased, he didn’t present any counter-argument either. My original post was neutral, pointing our certain aspects of this amendment; the rationale rather than being persuasive for support.
“Self-incrimination” only applies to criminal offenses. Hence the term “incrimination,” and hence how your own amendment quite literally defines self-incrimination as “a statement that implicates that they committed a criminal offense.”
It doesn’t apply to civil offenses, and civil defendants thus aren’t protected under your amendment.
Further on the definition of ‘self-incrimination’ it states: “…or perpetrated something”. The purpose of this additional piece of text was to include civil proceedings as well (e.g. perpetrated false arrest or a BoR violation). In relation to that, I also included that all individuals shall have the right to not self-incriminate, this would mean both civil and criminal defendants. I’m interested to see how the Judiciary will use its discretionary on objections revolving around questions that may be self-incriminating.
As it may be a matter for my court to interpret if it manages to squeak through Congress, I must abstain from commenting too much on how a court would interpret the “or perpetrated something” section of that definition.
Since it is still a matter which hasn’t passed Congress yet, however, I will say only that I doubt Congress will get their hoped for result out of that sentence. Please take the careful hint.
The good ol’ “I don’t recall” is always good
this is something i’ve always been against in firestone. shouldn’t lose your job because of something like that. it’s a game, and frankly it’s stupid to have to do all that again for forgetting to say some words.
Passed. Sad day for Firestone. Many people did not support of this. Contact your local congressman on your concerns going forward.
@moderator Lock.
OP requested