American law outlines a series of protections for those accused of crimes but not yet convicted. (Like the 4th-6th amendments)
Does your country have any unique/novel protections of the rights of potentially innocent people accused but yet to be convicted?
If not are there any protections you think should be in place?
People have rights.
Rights do not disappear just because you get accused.
In addition, the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” applies, and it is only the judge who decides what is proven and what is not (this protects from prejudice at the police)
I don’t know all your amendments, but there is a thing like your 5th. just stronger: The accused is free not to help the police in any way. He may say things or remain silent, he needs not to give them things, and they may not create any kind of disadvantage for him from that. Also the court must not interpret this against him. Also spouse and family are not required to help or testify.
It is Germany here.
As an American this is an interesting comment.
Traditional American understandings agree with the notion of innocent until proven guilty and that rights exist regardless of accusations. But here it is not a judge but a jury of your peers who decides the facts based on evidence shown to them. Here judges decide matters of law not fact.
(Unless you choose to have a judge rule on the facts (likely because you are probably unpopular in your community because of the nature of the accusations and you feel it’d be more fair for a judge to decide the fact in your eyes))…
Well, from American movies you usually get the impression that all rights disappear suddenly as soon as the police comes into the picture… This is really very, very different here. Even as an accused you can talk to policemen like to normal people in 99% of all cases.
The legal rights come into play exactly when the police come into the picture.
All of these are included in the 5th (except for subpoena of non-spouse family, but as a practical matter prosecution has a hard time forcing an unwilling family member to testify in any useful way), and on top of it the Miranda warning requirement exists to inform people of the rights. A lot of people just have a really, really difficult time shutting their mouths even when told to.
Movies are works of fiction not law. In America if you choose to temporarily waive your right to silence and speak to police you may at any point reassert that right.
I couldn’t blame cinematographers for attempting to tell a story. But they are artists not lawyers.
You may talk to police that way in America but any good lawyer will tell you not to because the strength of the fact that your silence can’t be used against you often will offend out weigh any defense you might argue.
When guilt must be proven absence of evidence is the defendant’s friend.
You are saying this with so many words… do you really need to speak it out loud, like “I assert my right…”? I mean, can’t you simply tell a thing or not tell it, at any time?
Great question. In theory/practice you can just shut up from square one. But asserting your rights by doing so in clear unambiguous terms for is advisable. Judges understand someone saying “I wish to invoke my right against self incrimination as protected in the 5th amendment” better than the do pure silence.
You have to actually say that you are asserting your right (in the US) to stop interrogations.
There was a case recentlyish (you can search for details if you’re interested, I can only recall the broad strokes) where an accused said “I want a lawyer, dawg” and this was interpreted as “I want a lawyer dog”, as in a dog who is a lawyer, and this was not found to be an assertion of the right to remain silent. The whole thing was eye rollingly stupid, but when in America…
The “lawyer dog” case did not hinge on that.
The suspect,Warren Demesme, did not unequivocally demand a lawyer. He said: “If y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog cause this is not whats up.”
The finding was that he asked a question rather than making a statement. The “dog” was completely irrelevant in the decision, but you know Internet pop news sites are going to be Internet pop news sites.
You can still think the outcome was expecting too much precision by a suspect and disagree with it, but let’s at least be accurate in criticism/discussion instead of perpetuating meme tier inaccuracy.