By Madison Ruppert: The Supreme Court’s decision in Salinas v. Texas on Monday
significantly undermines the traditional understanding of the right to
remain silent, even to the point of encouraging the kind of questioning
that can extract false confessions, according to a report.
In yet another disturbing recent Supreme Court decision, the court ruled 5-4 that the prosecution can use an individual’s silence in response to a question, if they responded to other questions, as evidence of their guilt at trial.
At trial, prosecutors described what they claimed was an uncomfortable reaction on the part of Genovevo Salinas, an individual who was questioned by police after the murder of two brothers in a Houston, Texas home.
There were no witnesses to the shooting, just shotgun shells left at the scene.
Salinas had been at the house the night before the shooting, agreed to give police his shotgun for testing when he was asked to come to the station to talk.
The police said he stopped talking, shuffled his feet, bit his lip and began to tighten up after they asked if the shells from the scene of the murder would match his shotgun.
Prosecutors brought this up at trial even though Salinas didn’t testify.
SCOTUS Blog explains the decision:
In yet another disturbing recent Supreme Court decision, the court ruled 5-4 that the prosecution can use an individual’s silence in response to a question, if they responded to other questions, as evidence of their guilt at trial.
At trial, prosecutors described what they claimed was an uncomfortable reaction on the part of Genovevo Salinas, an individual who was questioned by police after the murder of two brothers in a Houston, Texas home.
There were no witnesses to the shooting, just shotgun shells left at the scene.
Salinas had been at the house the night before the shooting, agreed to give police his shotgun for testing when he was asked to come to the station to talk.
The police said he stopped talking, shuffled his feet, bit his lip and began to tighten up after they asked if the shells from the scene of the murder would match his shotgun.
Prosecutors brought this up at trial even though Salinas didn’t testify.
SCOTUS Blog explains the decision: