Silence is Golden

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Recommended: Injustice in the US justice system

Citizens are told to always cooperate with police officers, and people most often do, partly due to the belief that officers have a duty to serve and protect. Unfortunately, often there is a darker side of this coin. What if by extraordinary coincidence, yourself or someone close to you, became the possible suspect in the investigation of a crime? Do you know enough about your rights to make correct decisions, when your freedom and quality of life hang in the balance? Sadly, most people do not. If you think this could never apply to you, you are wrong. The first year of criminal exoneration by D.N.A. evidence was 1989. The University of Michigan performed a study on exoneration and wrongful convictions in 2004. “…the leading causes of wrongful convictions for murder were false confessions and perjury by co- defendants, informants, police officers or forensic scientists”. (Liptak) In 25% of DNA exoneration (a total of 255 to date), innocent defendants delivered outright confessions or plead guilty. (Innocence Project, www.innocenceproject.org) Do you think innocent people would never admit to committing a violent crime like murder? Statistics show that recently it is happening more often than you might think. An article about the causes of false confessions, appearing in the Chicago Tribune only days ago cites two recent occurrences in the Chicago area. Kevin Fox, and Jerry Hobbs III, both confessed to raping and murdering their own daughters after high-pressure interrogation. In both cases DNA evidence proved otherwise. (Mills) The best description of the Fifth Amendment I found is from Ohio v. Reiner in 2001. “One of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions is to protect innocent men who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous cir...

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...officer. Knowing the facts of the investigating process, and the monumental importance of my rights, it would be foolish to rescind my constitutionally given right of silence. Don’t fool yourself with the belief that it could never happen to someone innocent like you. I would wager that every one of the exonerated felt the same way, before losing over a decade of their lives on average (Liptak). There is a horrifying question that comes to mind, and continues to mercilessly nag at my brain. How many victims remain unknown?

Works Cited

Liptak, Adam. "Study Suspects Thousands of False Convictions." 19 April 2004. The New York Times on the web. The New York Times. 25 July 2010 .

Mills, Black. Chicago Tribune 11 July 2010.

Miranda v. Arizona. No. 384. U.S. 436. 13 June 1966.

Ohio v. Reiner. No. 532. U.S. 17, 20.

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