Good Old American Justice

In 2007, a court-martial at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base north of San Diego sentenced [Sergeant Lawrence] Hutchins to 15 years in military prison after finding him guilty of unpremeditated murder, larceny and other crimes.

[...]

Witnesses had testified that Hutchins and another marine shot Awad and placed an AK-47 and a shovel next to the corpse to suggest he had been planting a bomb.

Earlier, Awad had been bound and gagged at another location, according to a finding by a lower court of appeal for the military.

[...]

Three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Wednesday found […] Hutchins gave a statement to a US Navy investigator while in custody that should have been ruled inadmissible.

The court ruled that it "was an error for the military judge to admit the statement made by Hutchins," which was used at his court-martial.

"Therefore, notwithstanding the other evidence of Hutchins' guilt, there is a reasonable likelihood that the statement contributed to the verdict," the court said.

  alJazeera

Apparently his right to remain silent was violated. And that brings me back to another interesting piece of work from the Supreme Republicans.

If you want to invoke your constitutional right to remain silent, you’d better not be silent.

That’s the circular logic of a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that simply remaining silent is not enough to protect American citizens from self-incrimination. Though it’s received scant media attention, the decision has serious implications for criminal prosecutions, legal experts say.

[...]

In January 1993, Genovevo Salinas was brought in for police questioning about the murder of two brothers. Police found shotgun shell casings at the scene, and Salinas -- who was not arrested and not read his Miranda rights -- agreed to let police inspect his shotgun. When police asked if the shells would match his shotgun, Salinas did not answer the question. He stayed silent, looked down at the floor, shuffled his feet and bit his bottom lip.

[...]

The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where in a 5-4 decision last week, the court found that Salinas’ self-incrimination privilege had not been violated, mainly because he never flat-out said, “I’m invoking my right to remain silent.” This despite the fact that Salinas was not under arrest at the time of questioning, and was therefore not read his Miranda rights.

  IBTimes

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.