comment rule
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 380 U.S. 609 - Griffin v. California · 1965Most cited · 9,800 citing opinions
comment on the refusal to testify is a remnant of the 'inquisitorial system of criminal justice,' which the Fifth Amendment outlaws. It is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly.
How often courts cite the case defining “comment rule”
Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “comment rule” — 9,798 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.