What kinds of sanctions would be applied if you wrongly invoked the Fifth Amendment? Under the Fifth Amendment, one might say at a hearing, "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it would incriminate me." Suppose the subject matter were embarrassing, but not necessarily criminal. Examples follow: I refuse to comment on an adulterous affair with the defendant. I believe, that adultery is illegal. (In fact, it is illegal in 22 states, although it is almost never prosecuted.) I decline to comment, even though I was a witness to the action, because to get there in time, I would have to admit to speeding. "Speeding" is, in fact, illegal, but "trivially" so. Would someone be within their rights to "take the Fifth" in either or both cases? If they were not lawyers and honestly believed that they were properly invoking the "Fifth" would they get off with a warning?
In the US, a person is "within their rights" to invoke the Fifth Amendment, i.e. refuse to self-incriminate. However, the government can give a person immunity from prosecution for offenses having to do with the testimony, in which case he can be compelled to testify. A person is not required to guess about whether they could actually be convicted based on their testimony. It is the privilege of the court (judge) to determine whether a witness has "a reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer" (Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17).
The Seventh Amendment's jury trial provision does not apply to the states. The Bill of Rights does not inherently restrain the states at all, merely the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment does restrain the states; notably, it forbids a state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Courts have read into "of law" the added requirement that the law be compatible with the fundamental rights that are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty; this means that most stuff that would violate the Bill of Rights if done by the feds violates due process if done by the states. However, not all provisions of the Bill of Rights have been incorporated (i.e. applied to the states); the requirement for a jury in a civil trial is one of the few that hasn't been incorporated, because courts do not consider it a fundamental right (merely one protected in the federal courts). Now, many traffic tickets are actually misdemeanor offenses, and a jury-trial requirement for crimes is incorporated. However, even for federal offenses, the courts have generally found that the Constitution doesn't require jury trial for petty crimes (those with a maximum sentence under 6 months).
The Fifth Amendment, in pertinent part, reads: "nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;" which suggests that Crime B is still fair game under double jeopardy. However, if B is a lesser included offense under Blockburger, i.e. A is Aggravated Robbery and B is Robbery, then a prosecution could be barred by Double Jeopardy. Barring that, and jurisdiction specific law, the State isn't barred by the Double Jeopardy clause of the 5th (and 14th) amendment. That does not foreclose Person C from finding an ethical, equitable, statutory remedy or controlling case enforcing a plea bargain. As far as I can tell, commutation is the equivalent of a conviction while a pardon is equivalent to an acquittal. I also imagine if the prosecution isn't barred and tried C for B, the Executive may just pardon/commute C again. Edit to add: Under Santobello, it would appear C may have an additional remedy enforcing a plea bargain. Santobello didn't involve a case dismissed in a plea bargain, nor commutation or pardon. A court might find that commutation or pardon are essentially a breach of the agreement.
There are venue restrictions where political speech is restricted, such as on military bases; content restrictions (transmitting classified information to the world); you cannot defraud by saying false things in order to get something, you cannot defame a person, you cannot speak obscenely (though it's hard to tell what counts as "obscenity"). You cannot appropriate other people's property in speaking (i.e. copyright law is a restriction on speech). The type of speech restrictions seem to pertain to speech and violence caused by such speech. A classic limitation is that you cannot speak "fighting words" (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 315 U.S. 568), which in 1942 meant calling someone a "damned racketeer" and "damned Fascist", which the court characterized as "inherently likely to provoke a violent reaction". The court subsequently refined its position on "provocative" speech. In Virginia v. Black 538 U.S. 343 a law against cross-burning was found to run afoul of the First Amendment as a restriction on political expression, but it would be fully consistent with The Constitution to outlaw "cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate". This states may "prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm". The current position is that you cannot incite to the imminent use of force. In Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444, the court stated that the First Amendment does not "permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". There are myriad laws against threats, for instance in Washington you may not "knowingly threaten(s) to cause bodily injury immediately or in the future to the person threatened or to any other person", and you can't do that ("knowingly cause another to believe that the offender will cause serious physical harm to the person or property of the other person") in Ohio either. You can't get away with threatening "to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person" in California. This class of restrictions on speech seems to be quite robust. You may not induce panic in Ohio, e.g. shout "fire" in a theater -- I don't know if any other state has such a law.
The potential problem is if there is a form which you had to sign which says "I am a US citizen", and you signed the form (who reads the fine print, anyhow?). Unfortunately, that statement is false, and there are consequences for making a false statement. However, that law penalizes false statements with the intent to deceive, not mistaken statements. Nevertheless, this is a matter that a professional really needs to deal with. If there was no form and they didn't verbally ask you to assert that you are a citizen, then there is less of a problem (for you), but still one needs to be extremely cautious in dealing with the court. [Addendum] It is highly likely that the form contained wording like "swear" or "certify" and mentions "perjury", so the error would be in the ballpark of perjury. Perjury is making "a false statement under oath or swears to the truth of a false statement previously made and the statement is required or authorized by law to be made under oath". Aggravated perjury is perjury which "is made during or in connection with an official proceeding and is material". The term "material" means "matters; is not inconsequential". The consequence of a non-citizen improperly serving on a jury is that a mistrial has occurred, which is not inconsequential. Aggravated felony is a third degree felony. The penal code says that An individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree shall be punished by imprisonment in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years. (b) In addition to imprisonment, an individual adjudged guilty of a felony of the third degree may be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000. I must emphasize that an essential element is "intent to deceive and with knowledge of the statement's meaning", an element that cannot be present if there is no awareness of such a statement. Thus an innocent mistake could be legally excused. When you become aware that a statement made under oath was false (assuming such a statement was made), then in maintaining the falsehood, that would be intentional deceit. This is why it is necessary to consult with a lawyer. On the Houston form, you would have to check the "are a US citizen" box. The Fort Bend county form has you certify and sign on the front page: it does not require you to certify that you are a US citizen, only to certify (and sign) if you are not – so if you failed to read the back side, that isn't a literally false statement. I can't locate an online form for Tarrant county, so dunno if that out is available.
The Constitution does not define any crimes (except for an explicit limit on what can be considered 'treason.') It places limits on what penalties the government may apply for crimes and how crimes are tried in court, but it does not itself actually create any criminal offenses. Rather, state and federal law do that. Having said that, if a state government creates a crime of murder (which, obviously, they all do,) the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment does require that that law protect all people within the jurisdiction of that state. That is, a state cannot make a law criminalizing the murder of a white person, but not of a black person, for example. States can't just pick and choose who is protected by their laws. It would not violate the U.S. Constitution if a state completely decriminalized murder, though. It's exceptionally unlikely to happen, but it would not be a violation of the Constitution. Depending on exactly what you mean by 'murder,' it could be argued that murder by the government is unconstitutional, though. The 14th Amendment bans states from depriving anyone of life without due process of law: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Similarly, the 5th Amendment provides an equivalent protection from the federal government: No person... 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
That's basically correct. The Double Jeopardy clause prevents the federal and state governments from trying you again for a crime that you've already been acquitted of, no matter what new evidence turns up. Even if you confessed to the crime, you could still not be tried. The relevant text of the Fifth Amendment reads: No person shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb. The case of Mel Ignatow is probably among the most famous examples. He was charged with murdering a woman, but acquitted at trial. About a year later, a guy laying carpet at his house pulled up floorboards and found the victim's jewelry, along with pictures of Ignatow murdering the victim. Ignatow confessed, but the state couldn't charge him with murder again, though they could charge him perjury for testifying that he hadn't killed her. So the answer is yes, the Fifth Amendment generally prevents the government from trying you for a crime you've been acquitted of. There are two main caveats here. First is the dual-sovereignty principle, which accounts for the fact that almost anywhere that the Fifth Amendment applies, a person is subject to the laws of two sovereign governments: the federal government and that of whatever state the person is in. For example, robbing a bank in Los Angeles would violate the laws of both the United States and California. If California put you on trial, but you were acquitted, the Double Jeopardy Clause would bar California from trying you again, but it would not be a defense if the federal government wanted to try to charge you again. Second is the language about &quot;the same offence,&quot; which is not as clear as it might sound at first. In the course of committing a crime, a person can easily commit many other crimes without thinking of it. In your bank robbery, for instance, you could easily break the following additional laws: trespassing, menacing, carrying a concealed weapon, brandishing a firearm, larceny, grand larceny. This raises the question of what affect your acquittal on the robbery charge has on the possibility of charging you on these other offenses. The answer can be found in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932): The applicable rule is that, where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not. This is easier to understand in practice than in theory. If you want to bring charges for the same conduct without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause, you need to be able to make a Venn diagram where the first charge and the new charge each has at least one element that the other does not. So map out the following possible offenses involved in a robbery: theft: unlawfully taking the property of another person aggravated theft: unlawfully taking the property of another person, when the property is worth more than $1,000 menacing: threatening to injure another person aggravated menacing: threatening to injure another person while brandishing a deadly weapon robbery: unlawfully taking the property of another person, facilitated by a threat to injure another person aggravated robbery: unlawfully taking the property of another person, facilitated by a threat to injure another person while brandishing a deadly weapon So now you have a Venn diagram that looks like this: If you've been acquitted of robbery, a prosecutor who wants to charge you again needs to find an offense that (1) requires proof of a fact that robbery did not, and (2) does not require proof of a fact that robbery did. This means the prosecutor can't bring a charge for the &quot;greater offense&quot; of aggravated robbery, because the earlier robbery charge didn't require proof of anything that aggravated robbery would not. The prosecutor also can't bring a charge for theft or menacing, because neither requires proof of anything that robbery did not. These are called &quot;lesser included offenses.&quot; But a charge for aggravated theft would be allowed. Although there's a shared element between aggravated theft and robbery (taking the property of another), there are also unique elements to both aggravated theft (property worth more than $1,000) and robbery (a threat to injure another). A charge for aggravated menacing would also be allowed, as it requires proof of brandishing a deadly weapon, but does not require proof of taking the property of another.
The answer to this question will be almost entirely informed by the why that you've asked us not to consider. If the prosecutor or judge is a witness, the defendant should be able to call them, but that also means they would have to withdraw from the case under either Rule 3.7 or Canon 3. If the defendant believes the prosecution is tainted by some improper motive, the defendant may raise that objection under Crim. R. 12, but he must do so pretrial. I can't think of any circumstances where the defendant could question the judge or prosecutor in the jury's presence.