Amendment 5
- Protection of Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
This is another in the patriotic series in which a flag can be seen from the GZ. This is my last of the series that will be a traditional cache as I am a bit bored with these types of caches. From now on in this series there will be multis, letterboxes, wherigos and mystery caches.
The Fifth Amendment (1791) to the U.S. Constitution covers procedural safeguards designed to protect the rights of the criminally accused and to secure life, liberty and property. Similar to the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment is divided into five clauses, representing five distinct, yet related, rights.
- The grand jury provision requires a body to make a formal indictment of a person accused of committing a crime against the laws of the federal government. The proceeding is not a trial but rather a hearing in which only one party, the prosecution, presents evidence to determine if the government has enough evidence to carry a case to trial. If the grand jury finds sufficient evidence that an offense was committed, it issues an indictment, which then permits a trial.
- The second section is commonly referred to as the “double jeopardy” clause. It protects citizens against a second prosecution after an acquittal or a conviction, and thus prohibits multiple punishments for the same offense.
- The third section is commonly referred to as the “self-incrimination” clause and it protects the rights of the criminally accused from being forced to testify against themselves. In the U.S. judicial system, a person is presumed innocent and it is the responsibility of the state or national government to prove guilt. Words, like other pieces of evidence, can be used powerfully against a person. But words can be manipulated in a way that many other objects cannot. Information gained from sobriety tests, police lineups and such is constitutionally permissible while evidence gained from compelled testimony is not.
- The fourth section is commonly referred to as the “due process” clause. It protects the fundamental rights of life, liberty and property from impairment by the federal government. Any deprivation of life, liberty, or property must occur in accordance with procedural safeguards. As long as the rights of the accused are adequately protected, then the government may deprive a person of these fundamental rights but only if a crime has been committed.
- It was understood that individual rights must sometimes yield to societal rights and that representative governments must accordingly provide the greatest good for the greatest number. The growth and development of the United States ultimately would bring challenges to existing property lines, and it was necessary for an amendment to provide rules governing the acquisition of property. As such, the takings clause empowers the government to exercise eminent domain in order to take private property, but to do so the property must be for public use and landowners must be adequately compensated.
“That it is better one hundred guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer is a maxim that has been long and generally approved.” Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, March 14, 1785