A warning.

This episode contains descriptions of graphic violence and sexual molestation.

Please listen with discretion.

We are all familiar with the constitutional right of defendants to plead the fifth.

A principle that no one can be forced to testify against their own self-interest and

incriminate themselves in illegal proceeding.

This, however, is just a right.

A defendant in this country can waive that right and incriminate themselves under oath

all they like, and that testimony will be admissible in a court of law.

Did you know, though, that thousands of years ago, the law against self-incrimination was

established in ancient Jewish courts, but in a distinctly different way.

It wasn't considered a right that a defendant could exercise or waive.

Rather, self-incriminatory statements were not admissible at all, as evidence.

There were no evidence for any circumstance.

This rule was originally derived from the principle that no man is competent to testify in

his own favor, and therefore the converse should also hold true that no man can call himself

a wrongdoer.

But there were other reasons for the rule against admitting statements of self-incrimination.

First, because courts deemed anyone who would incriminate themselves as inherently untrustworthy,

and thereby unable to be a competent witness.

Some feared that people would deliberately incriminate themselves so the courts would find they

weren't credible and then disqualify them as witnesses.

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