Right, but not Ability, to Utilize the Fifth Amendment, Florida-style

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution gives all of us the right to be free from self-incrimination. We don’t have to testify against ourselves in a criminal prosecution. We can plead the Fifth even before we get to court, when we’re being investigated.  It is one of the most cherished, most hallowed rights we have as Americans.  It is almost sacrosanct in common-law jurisprudence.  It even flows to non-citizens who are in our courts.

Mr. Rice, with mouth unhelpfully shut

But just because we have the right to not incriminate ourselves, doesn’t mean we have the ability. At least some of us. Especially some of us in the Sunshine State.  Some criminals just blurt things out when the police start asking questions.  It takes a unique kind of ineptitude to leave behind your ID at a crime scene, and then, to remove all doubt that it was you who did the robbery and weren’t some poor guy who happened to drop his ID at a crime scene, to post pictures of yourself with the loot on the internet.

That’s just the sort of ridiculousness that Travis Rice, a resident of Plantation, Florida, pulled. The Sun Sentinal reports that two guys pulled off a heist at Arion Motors. They stole files, license plates, 44 car keys and four cars.  The files, probably for identity theft.  The plates for future crimes. The keys, who knows.  The cars, that’s obvious. But when Rice pulled out his phone (this was seen on the surveillance video), his ID fell out and landed on the floor and he didn’t know it. 

When investigators showed up to do their CSI-style work, the dealership owner handed them the ID.  To confirm, they went onto Facebook, and saw pictures of Rice with the loot, on a public posting.  He’s even wearing the same clothes as the guy in the surveillance video.  Shrewd.  Very shrewd.  So shrewd you may think he wanted to be in prison. Why would I think this?  He had just gotten ID three weeks earlier, at the suggestion of his probation officer.  He’d just been let out of prison for a prior conviction of armed robbery. 

The quote of the story is this: “[The owner] says he's been watching the surveillance video repeatedly since the burglary because he finds the suspects' behavior funny. "They went back [out] through the broken window when the door [right next to it] was unlocked," he said with a chuckle. "It didn't make no sense."

It only makes sense if you figure he wanted to go back to prison.  Which is sad.  Or if he really didn’t and is really this inept, that may be even more sad.  We are given rights against self-incrimination. We don’t have to testify against ourselves.  Some among us never get that far because it’s totally unnecessary.