[Theforum] RE: Member stats
Madhu Menon
webguru at vsnl.net
Mon Nov 19 17:22:47 CST 2001
At 04:45 AM 11/20/2001, spinhead opined:
>Legally (in the US) I believe 'he who is silent is understood to
>consent.'
Not so. While I'm not American, I do have more than a passing interest in law.
Silence cannot be treated as either consent or admission of guilt, and the
law is fairly clear on that. If I send you an email saying that I'm going
to ship an IBM mainframe to you, and that if you stay silent, you consent
to it, that wouldn't be a valid contract. For a contract, you need (among
other things) both an offer AND an explicit acceptance.
Ditto with crime. The "you have the right to remain silent" right exists
because silence cannot be construed as admission of guilt.
We really didn't need a law lecture here, did we? :)
Regards,
Madhu
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Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net
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