Amendment, Fifth

Amendment to the US Constitution protecting the rights of people involved in criminal cases. A well-known stipulation of the Fifth Amendment, used frequently in court cases, guarantees that people do not have to testify against themselves in criminal cases. It also contains the guarantee that people shall not be deprived of ‘life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’. Part of the Bill of Rights, it was ratified in 1791.

The amendment also states that, with some exceptions in military contexts, people do not have to stand trial for a ‘capital’ (punishable by death) or ‘otherwise infamous crime’ unless they have been indicted by a grand jury; that people do not have to stand trial for the same offence more than once (see double jeopardy); and that public authorities may not take private property without fair compensation to the owner. The guarantee that no person would not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law was expanded in the Fourteenth Amendment to restrict the power of the states.