Attn Lawyers: Is this legit re Lerner waiving her right

[spursncowboys]

Issa said that because Lerner made an opening statement professing her innocence, she in turn waved her fifth amendment right. I heard that if you plea the fifth, you can't answer any questions. But how accurate is this (not my example but the situation at hand)
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/darrell-issa-irs-lois-lerner-91755.html?hp=t3_3

[boutons_deux]

IRS official Lois Lerner invokes Fifth Amendment. Why won't she talk?Lerner, however, denies she did anything wrong. In brief comments before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/U.S.+House+Committee+on+Oversight+and+Government+R eform) prior to her invocation of the Fifth, she said, “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee,” said Lerner.


The committee chairman, Rep. Darryl Issa (R) of California (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/California), said she was entitled to exercise her right to refuse to speak.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0522/IRS-official-Lois-Lerner-invokes-Fifth-Amendment.-Why-won-t-she-talk-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29

0.1%er Issa is today's Joe McCarthy

[spursncowboys]

IRS official Lois Lerner invokes Fifth Amendment. Why won't she talk?

Lerner, however, denies she did anything wrong. In brief comments before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/U.S.+House+Committee+on+Oversight+and+Government+R eform) prior to her invocation of the Fifth, she said, “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee,” said Lerner.


The committee chairman, Rep. Darryl Issa (R) of California (http://www.csmonitor.com/tags/topic/California), said she was entitled to exercise her right to refuse to speak.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2013/0522/IRS-official-Lois-Lerner-invokes-Fifth-Amendment.-Why-won-t-she-talk-video?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29

0.1%er Issa is today's Joe McCarthy

[scott]

Can you waive your right to invoke your right in the future? Serious question.

[boutons_deux]

taking the 5th means one refuses to incriminate oneself

denials, negatives such as

“I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee,”

is not incriminating, imo.

[spursncowboys]

Sounds stupid but I just remember it in a mafia documentary where after the mafia guy was answering questions, he tried to use the fifth and it didn't work. I have no recollection of the circumstance or tv show, so I only bring this up to explain the idea of my OP. What's funny is if she doesn't have to go back and answer questions then she'll write a book and make millions.

[CosmicCowboy]

The legal issue as I understand it is that testimony before a congressional committee may not be subject to the same rules as testimony in a court of law. In a courtroom setting she would have probably lost the ability to take the 5th because of her voluntary prepared statement of innocence prior to refusing to answer questions that might prove otherwise.

[spursncowboys]

REP. TREY GOWDY (R-SC): Mr. Issa, Mr. Cummings just said we should run this like a courtroom, and I agree with him. She just testified. She just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege. You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross examination. That's not the way it works. She waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an open statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions.

[spursncowboys]

HkxYwSzJnu4

[RandomGuy]

Issa said that because Lerner made an opening statement professing her innocence, she in turn waved her fifth amendment right. I heard that if you plea the fifth, you can't answer any questions. But how accurate is this (not my example but the situation at hand)
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/darrell-issa-irs-lois-lerner-91755.html?hp=t3_3

The fifth amendment priveledges are not considered waived, no.

But then, I am not a lawyer.

I would find it hard to beleive that any court would find that way.

You can refuse to answer any questions, to my understanding, no matter how many others you choose to answer.



Legal proceeding [edit]The Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination applies when an individual is called to testify in a legal proceeding.[40] The Supreme Court ruled that the privilege applies whether the witness is in a federal court or, under the incorporation doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment, in a state court,[41] and whether the proceeding itself is criminal or civil.[42]

The right to remain silent was asserted at grand jury or congressional hearings in the 1950s, when witnesses testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities or the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee claimed the right in response to questions concerning their alleged membership in the Communist Party. Under the Red Scare hysteria at the time of McCarthyism, witnesses who refused to answer the questions were accused as "fifth amendment communists". They lost jobs or positions in unions and other political organizations, and suffered other repercussions after "taking the fifth."

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisc.) asked, "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party," while he was chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Admitting to a previous communist party membership was not sufficient. Witnesses were also required to "name names," to implicate others they knew to be communists or who had been communists in the past. Academy Award winning director Elia Kazan testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities that he had belonged to the Communist Party briefly in his youth. He also "named names," which incurred enmity of many in Hollywood. Other entertainers such as Zero Mostel found themselves on a Hollywood blacklist after taking the fifth, and were unable to find work for a while in the show business.

The amendment has also been used by defendants and witnesses in criminal cases involving the Mafia.

The privilege against self-incrimination does not apply when an individual testifies before a self-regulatory organization (SRO); an SRO is not a court of law, and cannot send a person to jail. SROs, such as the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), are generally not considered as state actors subject to the restraints of the fifth amendment. See United States v. Solomon,[43] D. L. Cromwell Invs., Inc. v. NASD Regulation, Inc.,[44] and Marchiano v. NASD,[45] SROs also lack subpoena powers, so they rely heavily on requiring testimony from individuals by wielding the threat of a bar from the industry (permanent, if decided by the NASD) when the individual asserts his or her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

This is such a fundamental right, I can't see any serious judge or court acting to weaken it without a really really good cause or argument, and this doesn't seem to meet that, despite what the Right Wing Outrage Machine wants everybody to believe.

IMO.

[RandomGuy]

HkxYwSzJnu4

LOL Krauthammer.

Wake me up when someone with some actual legal creds speaks up. Otherwise, it is little more than pablum for the converted.

http://www.babypost.com/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/is_pablum_necessary.jpg

[RandomGuy]

In Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17 (2001), the Supreme Court specifically rejected the argument that Congressman Issa is making here about people who testify to their own innocence and then take the 5th. In that case, the United States Supreme Court overruled the Ohio State Supreme Court and held that:


"But we have never held, as the Supreme Court of Ohio did, that the privilege is unavailable to those who claim innocence. To the contrary, we have emphasized that one of the Fifth Amendment's "basic functions ... is to protect innocent men ... 'who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.'" In Grunewald, we recognized that truthful responses of an innocent witness, as well as those of a wrongdoer, may provide the government with incriminating evidence from the speaker's own mouth. The Supreme Court of Ohio's determination that [the criminal defendant] did not have a valid Fifth Amendment privilege because she denied any involvement in the abuse of the children clearly conflicts with Hoffman and Grunewald."
So there you have it. Yes, it is possible to assert your innocence AND plead the 5th. You do not, as Congressman Issa suggested, "waive" your right to plead the 5th by stating that you are innocent of any wrongdoing.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: It should be noted, however, that in a criminal trial if a criminal defendant pleads the 5th then they cannot take the stand and answer some questions and then refuse to answer others. It's all or nothing. If, on the other hand, a witness in a criminal trial takes the stand, they can answer some questions and plead the 5th on others. Even though there are key differences between criminal trials and Congressional hearings, Lois Lerner appeared before Congress as a witness, not as a criminal defendant.]

http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2013/05/did-irs-official-lois-lerner-waive-her.html

The case cite is a good step.

Still a tad ambiguous, given the circumstances.

Given that I seem to remember a criminal probe being asked for or begun, it would seem very reasonable for that right to be protected in this case.

[RandomGuy]

In 1966, the Supreme Court found, as part of its historic Miranda v. Arizona decision, that the right to protect against self-incriminating testimony existed outside of a courtroom.

“There can be no doubt that the Fifth Amendment privilege is available outside of criminal court proceedings and serves to protect persons in all settings in which their freedom of action is curtailed in any significant way from being compelled to incriminate themselves,” the court said.

A later Supreme Court case, Ohio v. Reiner, stated that the Fifth Amendment “protects the innocent as well as the guilty” and that any information “which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant” is valid cause to invoke Fifth Amendment rights

http://news.yahoo.com/irs-official-fifth-amendment-congress-controversy-133021953.html


It would appear my understanding was flawed, concerning criminal defendants.

Interesting question, though. Thanks SnC.

[Th'Pusher]

The military grunt getting a tee potty boner contemplating the possibility she'll be forced to testify. Nothing more.

[spursncowboys]

The military grunt getting a tee potty boner contemplating the possibility she'll be forced to testify. Nothing more.
Awww, you called me a grunt...Thank you. :cheer

[spursncowboys]

So if they made her stay, I think she had given her 5th up by making a statement. But if she came back and just stated the fifth, I wonder if the first one applies. Which I think is what scott meant.

[RandomGuy]

So if they made her stay, I think she had given her 5th up by making a statement. But if she came back and just stated the fifth, I wonder if the first one applies. Which I think is what scott meant.

Why would you want to weaken the 5th amendment? Do you hate the constitution and our freedom?

[ChumpDumper]

What is she charged with?

[boutons_deux]

What is she charged with?

Taylor, a criminal defense attorney from the Washington firm Zuckerman Spaeder (http://www.latimes.com/topic/economy-business-finance/legal-service/zuckerman-spaeder-llp-ORCRP0000015893.topic), said that the Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation, and that the House committee has asked Lerner to explain why she provided “false or misleading information” to the committee four times last year.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-top-irs-official-fifth-amendment-20130521,0,6645565.story

[spursncowboys]

Why would you want to weaken the 5th amendment? Do you hate the constitution and our freedom?
How would I have any impact or effect towards this situation?

Do I hate freedom? I'll have you know I've worn an American flag lapel atleast three times.

[elbamba]

Issa said that because Lerner made an opening statement professing her innocence, she in turn waved her fifth amendment right. I heard that if you plea the fifth, you can't answer any questions. But how accurate is this (not my example but the situation at hand)
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/darrell-issa-irs-lois-lerner-91755.html?hp=t3_3

Not a constitutional lawyer but you cannot make someone testify against themself. I am not sure what rule of law/procedure is followed in congressional hearings but I doubt they can do anything more than subpeana her and make her actually invoke the fifth amendment to each question. Probably just a big waste of time but it looks good for the cameras and Lerner is already guilty in the public eye by not testifying.

[elbamba]

Can you waive your right to invoke your right in the future? Serious question.

If I understand you correctly I am not aware of ever being able to waive your right permanently unless you have already said something on the record. For example, police arrest suspect and read him his Miranda rights. Suspect then proceeds to tell cops his story and answer their questions, including an admission of guilt. That statement would most likely be admissible unless the police made a mistake along the way (i.e. denied attorney, illegal interrogation).

However, different scenario, suspect begins to answer questions but then stops before admitting guilt and requests an attorney. Police can not then force suspect to admit guilt due to suspect's previous cooperation in the interview. Suspect can stay silent and is not obligated to testify at trial.

Any statements made by a suspect may be used against them at trial, even if they invoke the 5th. There are rules of evidence that come into play but I will leave that to another discussion. Hope I did not just make it more confusing.

[TeyshaBlue]

Do I hate freedom? I'll have you know I've worn an American flag lapel atleast three times.

:lol:lol

[Das Texan]

The only amendment that seems to be protected from anything is the 2nd and to an extent the 10th.


The first has been so watered down and fucked over in the past 10 years, its not even funny. And we can go on about the others and how they have been weakened especially in the last decade.

[RandomGuy]

How would I have any impact or effect towards this situation?

Do I hate freedom? I'll have you know I've worn an American flag lapel atleast three times.

:wow

Humor and stuff, in response to an equally non-serious question, and an interesting, thoughtful question in the OP. Looks like SnC's account has been hacked. :p

Well-played sir.

[boutons_deux]

The only amendment that seems to be protected from anything is the 2nd and to an extent the 10th.


Freedom! :lol

Liberty! :lol

Water the Tree! :lol

Marans! :lol

Happiness Is A Warm Gun! :lol

[spursncowboys]

:wow

Humor and stuff, in response to an equally non-serious question, and an interesting, thoughtful question in the OP. Looks like SnC's account has been hacked. :p

Well-played sir.
:lol
Yeah I must of been under the weather.

[SA210]

.
Reality Check: Connection Between IRS management Lois Lerner & Cindy Thomas


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot1HJPbhsFA