This is just someone paying the cost they have to pay to protect their criminal brother.
Seems like due process working well AFAICT.
No, they have to make someone else believe you did. How else would this burden of proof be lifted? some form of brain scan that can just say "yeah, he willfully did it!"? no, they put fourth some motive/set of circumstances, and if a bunch of people believe the spin, its "proved"
No. Not alright.
If you think it’s fine I encourage you to go through it. Oh you’re not interested in spending 18mo in jail? Then STFU.
It’s all part of due process.
The prosecutors and judges have a lot of leeway with assuming "willfully". Plenty of people have been convicted because a prosecutor wanted to apply pressure / make an example and choose to believe an incorrect date was a willful lie.
Weddinga and photography have no relations to the substance of the article.
Terrible.
The people telling you otherwise are not interested in protecting you or anyone else.
That’s not true, you can invoke the Fifth anytime testimony might incriminate you, regardless of who it is directly against. If this is founded (which may itself be contested if it isn’t directly against yourself), you can’t be compelled to testify unless the potential for self-incrimination is neutralized by immunity.
However, in this case there was no real self-incrimination concern.
I wonder how many comrades were found insane after January 6th.
Is refusing to speak worse than the average felony?
“The government can’t possibly do [basic function of every government since dawn of tribal life], can it?”
Yes indeed it can.
But, I'm not sure you have the right to not speak in court when called to testify.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/two-supreme-court-cases-...
In particular, here's a quick overview of the idea that you need to speak to invoke your right to remain silent, rather than just remaining silent.
https://versustexas.com/blog/miranda-right-to-remain-silent/
Like you cannot walk into a bank with a gun yelling 5th amendment and not go to jail. It's not blanket. It protects you from statements of self incrimination.
Constitutionally, no, the right referenced by that phrase in, e.g., the Miranda warnings is the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination (“No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself”).
The belief that a more general “right to remain silent” exists may be a moral belief of some people, but, it is not a legal right, and judges can and will conduct questioning to assess if the legal right applies.
You can’t just say you are invoking the 5th and refuse to testify. If pressed, you actually have to get up there and invoke it — possibly to every question if needed.
The fear of perjury is an interesting twist, though. And the removal of immunity may affect things too.
(Although in your own trial you have the right to not testify, that doesn’t apply here).
Its a nice try, but the right not to testify against yourself is not a right not to testify in a situation in which you might be tempted to choose (perjury not being a crime you can connit accidentally) to commit a crime.
They might as well abolish this right anyway. As if every device we ever touch won't testify against us in the first place.