Freedom Even in Handcuffs?

To be arrested is not to be criminal. Guilt must be proven in court. A person is legally innocent until a verdict is found against him. Hence, no matter what brought about the officer's charges, the individual has full legal rights even in handcuffs, as well as the legal assumption of innocence. It is his duty to himself and to his country to assert these rights. Officers of the law, being as human as those they arrest, are capable of error and some of making false charges. This is especially true in the situation where the officer shares the popular distaste for "perverts" and feels that guilty or not of these specific charges, the "unnatural" person should feel the vengeance of God and society, on principle. To cooperate with such a prejudiced person even out of fear, is to actively assist in one's own lynching and full encouragement to future behavior of this sort on the part of the officer. To interpret this insistence that the average citizen learn and uphold his rights as teaching a disrespect for the law, is to forget that true respect is founded upon mutual regard. When there is respect by the citizen and not by the officer, there is only fear. Peculiar to democracy is the citizen's voluntary respect of law and order because he is the government. What Does This Law Really Say?

The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, a part of the Bill of Rights, puts the privilege in these words: "No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." Chief Justice Marshall went further and ruled that,

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"Many links frequently compose that chain of testimony which is necessary to convict any individual of a crime No witness is compellable to furnish any one (such link) against himself." Judges have ruled that these laws protect any witness, whether before a court, a legislative committee or a grand jury. The constitutions of 46 states repeat them and the remaining two have adopted the rule by statute and judicial decision. In interpretation universally accepted, the witness need not answer questions or even take the stand to testify if he so wishes. Such is the actual law. Is It Really Necessary?

The need for these laws and privileges came out of England's infamous Star Chamber, a place decorated with gilt stars on the ceiling and various instruments of torture elsewhere about the room. Here the accused was "questioned" in such a way as to always give the desired answer-answers whether they were true or not. The rare stubborn left the room dead or dying. Even those who cooperated, left it mutilated.

But we should not discount the danger of such an institution as the Star Chamber only because it dates back to the early 1600's. The power to extract answers is a dangerous one in any period. Only a fine line divides its use and abuse. The right to question is only a hair's breadth away from the right to bully, threaten or use trick questions. This itself is directly related to physical coercion. The questioning officers frequently begin to think they have the right to extract the answer they want and continue until they get it.

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