Also known as: 5th Amendment · Fifth Amendment rights · Amendment V
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional amendment ratified in 1791 that enumerates protections in federal proceedings. It requires grand jury indictment for serious crimes, bars double jeopardy, shields against compelled self-incrimination, guarantees due process before deprivation of life liberty or property, and requires just compensation for takings of private property.
Felicity French, a U.S. citizen living abroad, faced trial in a foreign military tribunal under an executive agreement that eliminated her right to a civilian jury. She challenged the arrangement in federal court. The court held that the agreement could not override Fifth Amendment due process protections for American citizens.
Fiona Foster and her same-sex spouse, married under state law, sought federal tax benefits available only to opposite-sex couples. The statute excluded their marriage from the federal definition. The court ruled that the exclusion violated the Fifth Amendment's equal protection component by demeaning a state-recognized marriage.
Francesca Fowler, a married woman, sought contraceptives from a clinic that state law prohibited. She challenged the ban after arrest. The court found that the Fifth Amendment's self-incrimination clause, read with other amendments, created a zone of privacy shielding intimate marital decisions.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseFusion Power owned Grand Central Terminal and sought to build an office tower above it. The city denied the plan under its landmarks law. The court determined that the restrictions did not constitute a taking under the Fifth Amendment because they left the property economically viable and served a public purpose.
In 1965 New York City enacted the Landmarks Preservation Law, which created an eleven-member Landmarks Preservation Commission and authorized it to designate buildings at least thirty years old that possess special historical or aesthetic interest. The law required owners of designated landmarks to obtain Commission approval before altering exterior architectural features and imposed an affirmative duty to keep those features in good repair. In August 1967 the Commission designated Grand Central Terminal a landmark and the city tax block it occupies a landmark site; the Board of Estimate confirmed the designation the following month. Penn Central Transportation Co. and its affiliates owned the Terminal, an eight-story Beaux-Arts structure completed in 1913 that served as the main station for the New York Central and Harlem lines. On January 22, 1968, Penn Central entered a fifty-year renewable lease with UGP Properties, Inc., under which UGP agreed to construct a multistory office building cantilevered above the Terminal and to pay Penn Central at least three million dollars annually after construction. Penn Central and UGP submitted two plans prepared by architect Marcel Breuer: Breuer I, a fifty-five-story tower resting on the Terminal roof, and Breuer II Revised, a fifty-three-story building that would have removed part of the 42d Street facade. After four days of hearings at which over 80 witnesses testified, the Commission denied this application as to both proposals. Penn Central filed suit in New York Supreme Court, Trial Term, seeking a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and damages for a temporary taking. The trial court granted the injunctive and declaratory relief. The Appellate Division reversed, holding that Penn Central had failed to prove deprivation of all reasonable beneficial use. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the Terminal could still earn a reasonable return and that transferable development rights provided significant compensation. The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseFarah Fox and her same-sex spouse sought a death certificate listing both as surviving spouses after one died in another state. State officials refused recognition. The court held that the Fifth Amendment's liberty interest, incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment, required states to recognize lawful same-sex marriages.
The petitioners were fourteen same-sex couples and two men whose same-sex partners were deceased. They lived in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. Those states defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman under their constitutions and statutes. The petitioners filed suits in federal district courts in their home states. They sought marriage licenses or recognition of marriages lawfully performed elsewhere. James Obergefell and John Arthur traveled from Ohio to Maryland to marry aboard a medical transport plane because Arthur suffered from ALS; Obergefell later sought to be listed as surviving spouse on Arthur's death certificate. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, Michigan nurses, adopted three children but could not both serve as legal parents under state adoption rules. Army Reserve Sergeant Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas Kostura married in New York before DeKoe's deployment to Afghanistan and later settled in Tennessee. Each district court ruled in the petitioners' favor. The respondents appealed. The Sixth Circuit consolidated the cases and reversed the district court judgments. The petitioners sought certiorari, which the Supreme Court granted. Same-sex couples had begun establishing families after substantial cultural and political developments in the late twentieth century. Earlier litigation had addressed the legal status of gays and lesbians, including challenges that reached the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas.
View caseFatou Fall, a juvenile, faced delinquency charges carrying potential institutional confinement. The trial court applied a preponderance standard. The court ruled that the Fifth Amendment's due process guarantee requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt for every element of the offense.
During a 1967 adjudicatory hearing conducted pursuant to section 742 of the New York Family Court Act, a judge in New York Family Court found that the twelve-year-old appellant had entered a locker and stolen one hundred twelve dollars from a woman's pocketbook. The petition which charged appellant with delinquency alleged that his act, if done by an adult, would constitute the crime or crimes of larceny. The judge acknowledged that the proof might not establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt but relied on section 744(b) of the New York Family Court Act, which provides that any determination at the conclusion of an adjudicatory hearing that a juvenile did an act or acts must be based on a preponderance of the evidence. After a subsequent dispositional hearing, appellant was ordered placed in a training school for an initial period of eighteen months, subject to annual extensions of his commitment until his eighteenth birthday, six years in appellant's case. The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Judicial Department, affirmed without opinion. The New York Court of Appeals then affirmed by a four-to-three vote, expressly sustaining the constitutionality of section 744(b). The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.
View caseYes. A grand jury witness who invokes the privilege and receives no immunity cannot have her testimony used against her in a later prosecution. The compulsion of a subpoena triggers the protection, and the absence of immunity renders the statements inadmissible.
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No. Such an instruction violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing an adverse inference from the exercise of the privilege to remain silent. The error affects substantial rights and may be noticed on plain-error review even without objection.
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Suppression is required when the suspect is in custody, subjected to interrogation, and receives no Miranda warnings. Threats tying cooperation to immigration or academic consequences can also render statements involuntary under the due process clause.
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No state may deny professional status to an individual who refuses to answer on Fifth Amendment grounds. Conditioning employment or licensure on surrender of the privilege violates the amendment.
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…proceeding classically associated with obtaining freedom from physical restraint. Cf. id. , at 444–445. In enacting the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Framers similarly chose to employ the “life, liberty, or property” formulation, though they otherwise deviated substantially from the States’ use of Magna Carta’s…