ABSTRACT
When the above clause from the Fifth Amendment was written, it addressed several issues pertaining to compulsion to incriminate oneself. The Framers of the Bill of Rights knew that torture had been used throughout history to obtain confessions and information, and they were determined to outlaw such practices. Torture by burning, drowning, or the rack (a wheel-and-pulley device for stretching a victim’s body and causing excruciating pain) were not from the remote past but had been used within the memory of living persons.1 The Framers knew of the brutal practices employed by the English Star Chamber and the Continental European Inquisitions.
