(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)FILE - The Bill of Rights is displayed at the National Archives on Sept. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)FILE - The Bill of Rights is displayed at the National Archives on Sept. 16, 2025, in Washington. Over the course of U.S. history, the Fifth Amendment has expanded beyond federal criminal cases to the state court level, and to civil cases as well. In criminal cases, if someone on trial invokes the amendment and refuses to testify, the jurors must be told that they can't assume that silence equals guilt. In the 1950s, when Sen. Joe McCarthy held anticommunist hearings, some witnesses used the amendment when being questioned.