Quote Originally Posted by singsifu
The Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves. To "plead the Fifth" is a refusal to answer a question because the response could form self incriminating evidence. Historically, the legal protection against self-incrimination is directly related to the question of torture for extracting information and confessions

hes got nothing on you.
Please don't post blatantly false information as advice to this kid. He needs to man up, tell his parents that he ****ed up, they obviously have money. Once he does that he can get a decent lawyer and try to keep his liscense. The Lawyer isn't going to fight based on a fifth amendment violation. We have the right not to incriminate ourselves, which he CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY waived by replying to the question the officer asked. Admission of Guilt was OBVIOUS when the police officer presented the statement, and considering he was not detained but was stopped for a traffic violation observed by the officer, there is no neccessity to have read his Miranda rights prior to asking the question.

In the case of Miranda, Stops are usually an exception due to the nature of the situation. The Officer asked an open-ended question without requiring an answer of it. This is the same as a police officer walking up to you as you're coming out of a jewelry store with full bag of watches and asking you "Do you know why I'm stopping you today son?" and you replying "Oh yes sir, it's that Jewelry store I just robbed." At that point, the reason why he actually stopped you is only relevant in the sense of probable cause for having initiated the stop in the first place. Traffic violations have always been considered probable cause. In other words, the admission should stand in court because it was clearly voluntary AND obvious that it was an uncoerced admission of a crime.