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 offence 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.
The source of the Self-Incrimination Clause was the maxim “nemo tenetur seipsum accusare,” that “no man is bound to accuse himself.” The maxim is but one aspect of two different systems of law enforcement which competed in England for acceptance; the accusatorial and the inquisitorial. In the accusatorial system, which predated the reign of Henry II but was expanded and extended by him, first the community and then the state by grand and petit juries proceeded against alleged wrongdoers through the examination of others, and in the early years through examination of the defendant as well. The inquisitorial system, which developed in the ecclesiastical courts, compelled the alleged wrongdoer to affirm his culpability through the use of the oath ex officio. Under the oath, an official had the power to make a person before him take an oath to tell the truth to the full extent of his knowledge as to all matters about which he would be questioned; before administration of the oath the person was not advised of the nature of the charges against him, or whether he was accused of crime, and was also not informed of the nature of the questions to be asked.1
The use of this oath in Star Chamber proceedings, especially to root out political heresies, combined with opposition to the ecclesiastical oath ex officio, led over a long period of time to general acceptance of the principle that a person could not be required to accuse himself under oath in any proceeding before an official tribunal seeking information looking to a criminal prosecution, or before a magistrate investigating an accusation against him with or without oath, or under oath in a court of equity or a court of common law.2 The precedents in the colonies are few in number, but following the Revolution six states had embodied the privilege against self-incrimination in their constitutions,3 and the privilege was one of those recommended by several state ratifying conventions for inclusion in a federal bill of rights.4 James Madison’s version of the Clause read “nor shall be compelled to be a witness against himself,” but a House amendment inserted “in any criminal case” into the provision.5
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Footnotes
- 1
- Mary H. Maguire, Attack of the Common Lawyers on the Oath Ex Officio as Administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts in England, in Essays in History and Political Theory in Honor of Charles Howard McIlwain 199 (C. Wittke ed., 1936).
- 2
- The traditional historical account is 8 J. Wigmore, A Treatise on the Anglo-American System of Evidence § 2250 (J. McNaughton rev. 1961), but more recent historical studies have indicated that Dean Wigmore was too grudging of the privilege. Leonard Levy, Origins of the Fifth Amendment: The Right Against Self-Incrimination (1968); Morgan, The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, 34 Minn. L. Rev. 1 (1949).
- 3
- 3 The Federal and State Constitutions (F. Thorpe ed. 1909) (Massachusetts); 4 id. at 2455 (New Hampshire); 5 id. at 2787 (North Carolina); id. at 3038 (Pennsylvania); 6 id. at 3741 (Vermont); 7 id. at 3813 (Virginia).
- 4
- Amendments were recommended by an “Address” of a minority of the Pennsylvania convention after they had been voted down as a part of the ratification action, 2 Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 628, 658, 664 (1971), and then the ratifying conventions of Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York formally took this step.
- 5
- Id. at 753 (August 17, 1789).