Christine: I didn’t mean to say that citizens will conclude it is “ok” to torture someone to death, but rather than we would be likely to immunize the officers who tortured in the ticking time bomb context – especially if the torture led to usable, life-saving, information. We immunize people we think made “mistakes” all the time in criminal/civil rights law – it doesn’t mean that we fully endorse the conduct.

“Ambimb”: The constitution does not say that you have a right to be silent, it says that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” There is a different, perhaps without a difference under modern interpretations of the clause. My point was more modest, I hope. I just meant to argue that the defense team’s invocation of the right to be silent in this circumstance felt at the rhetorical edge of what the country is willing to imagine the right to be. The judge’s unwillingness to accept the defense team’s argument suggests that she, too, wasn’t convinced.

Not to be pedantic, but do you have any numbers for that one? And even if you find numbers suggesting an “overwhelming majority” would approve torture on known-suspected-whichever terrorists, I see a possible distinction between convicting someone on the basis of not speaking and punishing them after conviction for the same, one which could make a critical difference in popular attitudes.

The right to remain silent is a trial right: the statements can’t be used against you in court to prove your guilt. There is no existential right not to speak when interrogated, it’s just that if you do, you’re protected.

I think in the ticking time bomb scenario, the defense of necessity could be pled by the torturer, though it would be interesting to see how it played out (must there have been a bomb? must the torture have resulted in finding it? If the torturer had a reasonable belief that there was one when there wasn’t, can the torturer claim the necessity defense?)

If the government can prove that you (1) were part of a conspiracy and (2) did not speak up (and thereby renounce the conspiracy), then you are still a part of the conspiracy and I don’t see any Fifth Amendment problem there.

The Constitution does not “celebrate” silence for any purpose; rather, it guarantees the right of the accused to remain silent…. The argument here seems to be that we should allow law enforcement to compell the accused to speak (even via torture…

The Constitution does not “celebrate” silence for any purpose; rather, it guarantees the right of the accused to remain silent. It contains no qualifiers or caveats. The argument here seems to be that we should allow law enforcement to compell the accused to speak (even via torture!) simply because “the overwhelming majority” thinks the accused’s right to remain silent has a limit. If that majority feels so strongly about that, perhaps it should use the political process to amend the Constitution; short of that, it seems the defense argument here is on very firm Constitutional ground.