HOME

TheInfoList



Click Here for Items Related To - Brogan v. United States
OR:
Brogan v. United States on:   [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Amazon]

''Brogan v. United States'', 522 U.S. 398 (1998), is a
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
case in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment does not protect the right of those being questioned by law enforcement officials to deny wrongdoing falsely.


Majority opinion

The case determined the ultimate status of the “exculpatory no," a right found by several circuit courts, which courts claimed that Section 1001. of
Title 18 of the United States Code Title 18 of the United States Code is the main criminal code of the federal government of the United States. The Title deals with federal crimes and criminal procedure. In its coverage, Title 18 is similar to most U.S. state criminal codes, ...
should be interpreted as the law not applying to those who simply deny wrongdoing. In the majority opinion, Justice Scalia explained that although others have interpreted the law to apply only to situations in which the lie "pervert government functions," the language of the statute is clear, and the court had no power to overrule the wording of the statute, as created by Congress, even if the law was being used beyond its intended purpose. The court also ruled that the Fifth Amendment does not apply in this situation. The Fifth Amendment must be explicitly indicated. It gives the person involved the right to remain silent but not the right to make an explicit lie.


Concurring opinion

Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Souter, argued that although Section 1001 is written such that its relevance in this case is incontrovertible, the current wording of Section 1001 leads to unreasonable and unintended circumstances like that of Brogan and so it should be rewritten. She detailed the circumstances of the case, recalling that investigators arrived unannounced at Brogan's home, already having secured evidence that he had received illicit cash payments. They asked him if he had received the illicit payments he had received, and Brogan replied, "No." The investigators then concluded the interview, stating that they knew he was lying and that his lie was a crime. In other words, the interview had not served to gather information but simply to coerce Brogan into committing an additional crime.


Dissenting opinion

Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Breyer, followed the reasoning given by Justice Ginsburg but argued that logic gives the court the right and the means to exempt the application of Section 1001 from cases involving an "exculpatory no." They showed a willingness to go against the literal meaning of the law, as enacted by the legislature, in the interest of sustaining the spirit of the law.


See also

*
textualism Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, th ...


References


External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''Brogan v. United States'', {{ussc, 522, 398, 1998, el=no , cornell =https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1579.ZS.html , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/522/398/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep522/usrep522398/usrep522398.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1997/96-1579 1998 in United States case law United States federal criminal case law United States Fifth Amendment self-incrimination case law United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court