Cali Supreme Court: Suspect's Silence Can Be Used to Demonstrate Guilt

Not when it's a cop of course lol

The California Supreme Court has ruled that the silence of suspects can be used against them.

Wading into a legally tangled vehicular manslaughter case, a sharply divided high court on Thursday effectively reinstated the felony conviction of a man accused in a 2007 San Francisco Bay Area crash that left an 8-year-old girl dead and her sister and mother injured

Comments

[Mokers]

"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,"

[ant1sthenes]

He never was.

As far as I can tell, the state argued that the fact that he remained silent after being arrested instead of asking about the people he hit proves that he is a giant dick, and therefore guilty. And even if he isn't strictly legally guilty, he's a giant dick and people are dead, so why not put him prison?

[Robert]

That's what I get out of it. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with determining the fact of manslaughter. I could see it if it were a case of this ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved_Indifference ? but that's not manslaughter.

[James123]

Please explain just how in the fuck this does not violate the 5th amendment.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

FYTW.

[Sevo]

The Peoples' Republic of Calli does not recognize such; that must be a rethuglican rule.

[Ichabod]

Scary. I guess the first words out of your mouth immediately after an incident must be "I invoke the Fifth Amendment." At least there is jurisprudence that definitively states that your silence is protected at this point.

Hopefully the appeal turns out a different way.

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Prosecutors said Tom's failure to ask about the Wong family while detained showed his guilt.

In this nation, we find you guilty for the things you don't do!

Idiots.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

In Soviet America guilty finds you!

[Brochettaward]

The rights are called natural and inalienable because they don't need to be 'invoked.' They just exist. This court is stupid on top of being authoritarian.

Someone also needs to explain to me how the prosecution used his silence and failure to ask about the victims as proof of guilt. Are they mind readers? Guilty or not, that's just a stupid argument to make.

[Acosmist]

The issue is that it seems to violate the 5th, not that it's not relevant evidence, because of course it's relevant.

[SusanM]

So it's now "anything you say or don't say shall be used against you"?

[Gluesponge]

Apparently that now included "not say"... thanks to the flaming morons on the California Bench.

Should we expect more from the Granola State? *shrug* I've given up trying to understand how people can simply feel morally compelled to tell me what to do. It's a pandemic.

[QuadGunner]

Ve haf vays of making you talk!

[Mark22]

Catch-22. If you ask about the victims, it must be because you feel guilty and remorseful. If you don't ask about the victims, it must because you feel guilty and ashamed. You can't win either way.

FWIW, I was once involved in an accident where the other person was injured and was 100% at fault; an attorney friend recommended not asking about how the person was because it would be interpreted as a sign of guilt.

[Old Man With Candy]

I read the court decision. Apparently, they invoked the docting of Pedicabo ego vos, ut 'quare.

[Old Man With Candy]

doctrine