The fifth amendment protects people from having to
a. testify against themselves in court.
b. allow their property to be searched.
c. accept a court-appointed lawyer.
d. answer questions posed by police.

The Fifth Amendment from the US Constitution protects people from having to:

(A) Testify against themselves in court.

Not to testify against yourself, self-incrimination, means that anyone is allowed to remain silent in case of arrest or judgement. It allows the person judged not to risk speaking too fast or to give false information because of fear or panic that can be felt during an interrogation. Sometimes you have to keep quiet and let the lawyer talk because he is trained to find the right word to use to convince the judges. On the other hand, the police have many techniques to force people to reveal all kinds of things, the possibility of not incriminating themselves is good security in this kind of situation.

This provision is not the only one of the 5th Amendment, which was promulgated in order to protect the citizen against the abuses of the authority of the government during the trials. It also helps to prevent someone from being tried twice for the same crime. When justice has done, the decision is final. It is not possible to return to the same subject later and thus risk to change the conclusions of a case, by asking questions differently to put the accused in a difficult position for example. This is called double incrimination.

Grade: 9 - 12

Subject: History

Chapter: The Constitutional Convention of 1787

Keywords: American constitution, the US constitution, the Fifth Amendment, justice,/p>