The 5 th Amendment

1. The 5th Amendment By: Ruth Kelner, Dylan Branam, and Carissa Biggs

2. Official Wording • Indictment by a Grand Jury: • This amendment protects you by guaranteeing a Grand Jury when you commit a serious crime. • Double Jeopardy: • Once you are sentenced after committing a crime, you cannot be tried for the same offense. Unless there is evidence or a mistrial.

3. Pleading the 5th: • When you have the right to not incriminate yourself when being questioned. • Property Rights and Takings Clause: • If the government wants to use your property, they must give you equal compensation for your land and house.

4. Irwin Halper was the manager of a company that provided medical services to patients eligible for Medicare benefits. He was charged and convicted in criminal court of summiting separate false Medicare claims. He was sentenced to 2yrs and 5,000 dollar fine. • The US brought additional civil charges to the False Claims Act, which authorized to collect 2,000 dollars for each offense in addition to attorneys fees and twice the damages sustained. The total ended up being 130,000 that Halper would have to pay. • The question was where the penalty authorized under False Claims Act is “entirely unrelated” to the damages actually suffered by the government, does imposition of the penalty amount to a “punishment” governed by the Double Jeopardy Clause of the 5th amendment? • This concluded that Halper had already been jailed and fined, The Court remanded the case to the District Court so that the government could challenge the original assessment of its attorneys fees. • Decisions: 9 votes for Halper, 0 votes against • Legal provision: Double jeopardy Court Case

5. Court Case # 2 • John Barron was co-owner of a profitable wharf in the harbor city of Baltimore. As the city expanded, large amounts of sand accumulated in the harbor. Depriving Barron of the deep waters, which had been the key to his successful business. He sued the city to a recover a potion of his loses. • Does the 5th Amendment deny the states as well as the national government the right to take private property for public use without justly compensating the property’s owner? • The Court announced its decision without even hearing the arguments of Baltimore. The court had no jurisdiction in this case since the 5th Amendment was not applicable to the states. • Decision: 7 votes for Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 0 votes against • Legal provision: US Const Amendment 5