The Fifth and Sixth Amendments

* The Fifth

- No double jeopardy

-> Can't be tried twice for the same crime

- Can't be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process

-> Government has to follow clear, established, and fair rules

=> No summary execution

-> No imprisonment without trial

=> Time limits before indictment

-> Government can't just take property

=> Zoning, parks, wetlands, sidewalks, airports, etc. all at issue

=> Pollution control also affected

=> Government must compensate for takings

=> Drug dealer seizures an exception

- "Pleading the Fifth"

-> Can't be, "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself"

- Can't be prosecuted for any big crimes without a grand jury indictment

-> Stops harassing prosecution

* The Sixth

- Trial rights and more due process

- Right to a speedy trial

-> Time limits protect the imprisoned

- Right to a public trial

-> No secret trials or records

-> No longer a right for non-Citizens

- Right to an impartial jury

-> Jury must be of your peers

-> Jury can't be stacked

- Right to be tried in crime location

-> Avoids shipping trials to get a convicting jury

-> Defendant can ask to have trial moved if fair trial impossible there

- Right to information on charges (and evidence)

-> Prosecution must show evidence to justify a trial

- Right to confront witnesses

-> No secret TESTIMONY (shielded identity witnesses rarely allowed)

-> Can cross-examine witnesses

- Right to call and hear favorable witnesses

-> Subpoena rights

- Right to counsel

-> Defendant can have any lawyer they want

-> Can spend as much as they please on defense

-> Poor defendants will have a lawyer provided

=> Usually an over-worked and poorly-qualified one

* Sir William Blackstone's thesis:

- "It is better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly incarcerate one innocent man."