{"id":1120,"date":"2018-10-01T13:48:01","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T18:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.texasdivorceattorneyblog.com\/?p=1120"},"modified":"2021-09-30T13:38:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T18:38:47","slug":"the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a Texas civil case can \u201cplead the Fifth\u201d during discovery to avoid answering questions in a deposition if the party reasonably believes the answer might incriminate him in a criminal case. A plaintiff cannot, however, use the Fifth Amendment to prevent the other party from obtaining information they need to prepare a defense.\u00a0 A trial court can impose sanctions when a party uses the Fifth Amendment privilege offensively, but the court must consider whether remedial steps could solve the issue.\u00a0 The court may also impose sanctions when a party wrongfully invokes the Fifth Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent Texas <a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/texas\/sixth-court-of-appeals\/2018-06-17-00108-cv.pdf?ts=1533131221\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">divorce case<\/a>, the husband faced serious sanctions after raising the Fifth Amendment during his deposition.\u00a0 In June 2015, the wife filed for divorce and the husband filed a counterpetition.\u00a0 The wife alleged the husband had assaulted her and committed adultery.\u00a0 She also alleged he hid community assets, wrote fraudulent checks to third parties and cashed them himself, and conveyed community property to his sister.\u00a0 The husband alleged the wife also secreted assets and filed false charges against him for family violence assault.<\/p>\n<p>When the wife\u2019s attorney sent notice of the date of the husband\u2019s deposition, his attorney responded it would be \u201cfutile\u201d because the husband\u2019s criminal attorney was likely to advise him to \u201cplead the fifth\u201d due to the pending criminal charges.\u00a0 During deposition, the husband refused to answer many questions on the grounds his answer might incriminate him in the pending criminal case, including some that would not be covered by the Fifth Amendment privilege.\u00a0 He repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege regarding \u201canything that has to do with financials\u2026\u201d\u00a0 He refused to answer questions regarding his income, assets, and a list of property.\u00a0 He also refused to identify documents.\u00a0 There was no record of either the wife\u2019s or the husband\u2019s attorney explaining to him why he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege in response to many of the questions asked.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/#more-1120\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a Texas civil case can \u201cplead the Fifth\u201d during discovery to avoid answering questions in a deposition if the party reasonably believes the answer might incriminate him in a criminal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-divorce"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; October 1, 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a &#8212; October 1, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; October 1, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a &#8212; October 1, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"McClure Law Group\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; October 1, 2018","description":"The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a &#8212; October 1, 2018","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce &#8212; Texas Divorce Attorney Blog &#8212; October 1, 2018","twitter_description":"The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from being \u201ccompelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.\u201d A party in a &#8212; October 1, 2018","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"McClure Law Group","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/"},"author":{"name":"McClure Law Group","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/cc788ee45d62b5f4a4fd383744a4ce11"},"headline":"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce","datePublished":"2018-10-01T18:48:01+00:00","dateModified":"2021-09-30T18:38:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/"},"wordCount":1017,"articleSection":["Divorce"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mcclure-lawgroup.com\/blog\/the-fifth-amendment-and-death-penalty-sanctions-in-texas-divorce\/","name":"The Fifth Amendment and Death Penalty Sanctions in Texas Divorce &#8212; 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