Courts Consistently Violate the Fifth Amendment
Courts have misread the Fifth Amendment for over two centuries and get away with it.
We have heard all our life about someone “taking the Fifth” so that they aren’t required to give testimony against themselves in court. But I believe that according to the way the Amendment is written, people have literally been getting away with murder and the courts illegally allow it to happen.
The amendment is divided into three parts. The first part pertains to military justice.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger;
Atrocities happen during times of war. We’ve heard of soldiers torturing civilians and killing them. This angers people and demands justice. In this case, military justice is the prescribed method to administer criminal court decisions.
Allowing the World Court to decide the fates of American soldiers is wrong. If some soldiers in Iraq were to accidentally kill a family of noncombatants while going after the enemy, instead of having them tried in the court of public opinion or by an angry member of Congress, a general court marshal hearing should be held to decide what type of punishment, if any, should be administered. If the family happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, their deaths might have been purely accidental. The soldiers shouldn’t be charged with a capital offense. Instead, they might spend time in confinement if they didn’t take precautions that might have avoided the tragedy. They might even be discharged. But if there was no way to prevent the killings because the target hid in the midst of the family so that he could shoot at the soldiers, then the case should be dismissed. The soldiers were doing their duty as soldiers.
Since our government also wants to have good PR, if possible, if a family member or two manages to survive, they should receive payment as our way of apologizing. It’s a good thing we weren’t doing that during WW II or else the costs for the war might have doubled due to unintentional suffering and death payments.
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