Knock Knock: Its the FBI

[markpkessinger]

32. Wikipedia has a pretty good discussion of this that might clarify things for you . . .

. . .it is drawn from Black's Law Dictionary and from Barron's, as well as from Supreme Court rulings (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-incrimination#cite_ref-12 ).

Here is one particularly pertinent passage from that discussion:

Truthful statements by an innocent person

An incriminating statement includes any statement that tends to increase the danger that the person making the statement will be accused, charged or prosecuted – even if the statement is true, and even if the person is innocent of any crime. Thus, even a person who is innocent of any crime who testifies truthfully can be incriminated by that testimony. The United States Supreme Court has stated that the Fifth Amendment privilege:

protects the innocent as well as the guilty.... one of the Fifth Amendment’s basic functions . . . is to protect innocent men . . . who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances..... 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.(12)

The U.S. Supreme Court has also stated:

Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege.(13)

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[font size=1](12) Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17 (2001) (per curiam).
(13) Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 426 (1956) (footnote omitted)