he Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and, among other things, protects individuals from being compelled to be witnesses against themselves in criminal cases. "Pleading the Fifth" is thus a colloquial term for invoking the right that allows witnesses to decline to answer questions where the answers might incriminate them, and generally without having to suffer a penalty for asserting the right. This evidentiary privilege ensures that defendants cannot be compelled to become witnesses at their own trials. If, however, they choose to testify, they are not entitled to the right during cross-examination, where questions are relevant to their testimony on direct examination. The Amendment requires that felonies be tried only upon indictment by a grand jury. Federal grand juries can force people to take the witness stand, but defendants in those proceedings have Fifth Amendment privileges until they choose to answer any question. To claim the privilege for failure to answer when being interviewed by police, the interviewee must have explicitly invoked the constitutional right when declining to answer questions.
