this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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But until fairly recently you could plead the 5th and they couldn't use it as proof of wrongdoing.
You still can’t use the 5th to infer anything about the defendant in a criminal case. In a civil case, the court can take a person’s refusal to answer into account.
What changed?
Some rulings that pleading the 5th can be considered cause for a warrant if not directly an admission of guilt.
The past decade or so has also weakened rights in regards to you having to plead the 5th directly, and of course the "War on Terror" led to the Supreme Court more or less saying "No, actually, torture doesn't count, plus we're going to ignore that it's been the official position of America for centuries that Constitutional rights are human rights (for a changing definition of human)."
Taken as a whole the past couple decades have severely reduced the protections the government wants to admit the 5th offers.