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Former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, through his lawyers, today invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to hand over documents subpoenaed by a Senate committee.

The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Flynn's personal documents on May 10, after he declined to cooperate with its April 28 request in relation to the panel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump campaign associates. Before the April request, Flynn said through a statement from his lawyer that he wouldn't submit himself to questioning from the committee "without assurances against unfair prosecution."

The Fifth Amendment gives criminal defendants the right to refuse to testify at trial. No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, according to the U.S. Constitution.

Although a congressional investigation is not a criminal matter, Flynn would still have the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment with regard to certain questions that could potentially incriminate him in a future criminal case. But he does not have the right to refuse to testify before Congress altogether.

As a general matter, the Fifth Amendment applies only to testimony and does not give criminal defendants or witnesses in congressional investigations the right to refuse to turn over subpoenaed documents. But there is an exception when the act of producing a document is itself incriminating.

The fact that the content of the documents are incriminating does not give you a Fifth Amendment right not to produce them, explained Michael Seidman, a criminal law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. But the mere act of producing them can be incriminating if the government doesnt know that they exist or that you have them.

If the government already knows that certain documents exist, it could turn into a complicated legal question about whether Flynn must release them, said Seidman.

In a letter to Sens. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and the Senates Select Committee on Intelligence dated May 22 obtained by ABC News, Flynns lawyers argued that [p]roducing documents that fall within the subpoenas broad scope would be a testimonial act, insofar as it would confirm or deny the existence of such documents.

The context in which the Committee has called for General Flynns testimonial production of documents makes clear that he has more than a reasonable apprehension that any testimony he provides could be used against him, the letter reads.

Seidman said this is a standard legal strategy and that any competent lawyer would tell Flynn that if he might have a Fifth Amendment privilege he should assert it. Also, if he produces documents and makes statements, he risks inadvertently waiving his rights against self-incrimination as the Russia investigation progresses, Seidman said.

Legal experts also pointed out that if Flynn is granted immunity from criminal prosecution, then he would no longer have Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and could be compelled to answer all questions and release all documents.

In the same way that immunizing a low- or mid-level person in a crime ring can lead to fingers pointed all the way up to the Don, said Akhil Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale Law School, who said the Don pun was intentional.

Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said today that they would use all available tools to get information from Flynn, including holding him in contempt of Congress, which could open him up to criminal charges.

We're going to keep all the options on the table, Warner told ABC News.

We're going to help honor the constitutional rights but we still have to be able to get to the facts. We can't just step back and say, Oh, OK we can't get it, added Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Lankford also suggested that the committee will still try to negotiate with Flynns lawyers to get access to the information he is currently refusing to share.

Warner added that there might be a legal gray area that prohibits Flynn from using the Fifth Amendment to protect his refusal to provide documents, versus his clear constitutional right against testimony that might incriminate him.

We know there's a Fifth Amendment right on testimony but I think there's an open question on documents and we're looking into that right now, he said.

ABC News' Ali Rogin and Mary Bruce contributed to this report.

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What you need to know about the 5th Amendment and ... - ABC News

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- TV courtroom dramas have made the work of lawyers and police part of our culture.

Above all, our founders wanted to keep government power limited and out of the people's lives.

Part of making sure government stays in check is the Fourth Amendment's enshrining the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

The idea was that the founders wanted to prevent political enemies from using the government to punish opponents or others who might just be unpopular in society.

This is why to search you or your property, law enforcement usually has to get a writ of permission, otherwise known as a warrant, from a judge. Involving judges in the process was intended to spread the power to investigate and punish potenial wrongdoers among multiple branches of government.

Of course, the Fourth Amendment's key term is here "unreasonable." where law enforcement can make a case that there is probable cause to believe that someone committed a crime, warrants are quickly issued.

And, it might interest you to know that there are over 20 exceptions to requiring a warrant to do a search. These include the plain sight and exigent circumstances doctrines and they deal with situations in which law enforcement see a crime in progress or believe one is imminent.

The founders also codified rights against self-incrimination, or testitfying against youself, in the Fifth Amendment. This is where the phrase "pleading the fifth" comes from. Meanwhile, the Fifth Amendment also prevents double jeopardy-which is being tried for the same crime twice. And, perhaps most importantly, states clearly that no one shall be denied life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.

Our justice system isn't perfect of course, and people may still fall victim to corruption and incompetence in criminal investigations, but the Fourth and Fifth Amendment go a long way to securing some key safeguards of individual liberties.

(Brian Calfano)

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Analysis: How the Constitution Limits Government Power - OzarksFirst.com

PHOENIX A new ruling Monday from the U.S. Supreme Court could prove good news for the mother of a Mexican teen hoping to sue the Border Patrol agent who shot her son.

In an unsigned order, the justices directed the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at its decision in a similar case where a Border Patrol agent in Texas shot and killed a teen who was in a culvert on the Mexican side of the border. The justices said the appellate court needs to consider certain new legal issues.

Potentially more significant, the Supreme Court said there was no basis for lower courts to conclude the Border Patrol agent is entitled to qualified immunity.

The ruling is a victory for the plaintiffs in that case: The appellate court had previously ruled that they had no right to sue in U.S. courts. It gives the parents of Sergio Hernandez a new opportunity to make their case that Border Patrol Jesus Mesa Jr. who fired across the border can be found liable.

But Robert Hilliard, attorney for the victim's family, told Capitol Media Services that what the justices wrote in connection with his case should also benefit Araceli Rodriguez who is suing Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz over the 2010 shooting of her son.

"Reviving our case, and determining no qualified immunity (for the Border Patrol agent) is the first step in what I believe will ultimately be constitutional protections to those shot and killed (in Mexico) by Border Patrol agents standing in the United States,'' he said.

Swartz shot Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez who was standing on the Mexican side of the border at Nogales, through the border fence. Swartz has not denied the incident but said the 16-year-old was throwing rocks at him.

After hearing oral arguments last year, the judges of the 9th Circuit decided not to rule whether her case could go forward. Instead they said they would wait to see what the Supreme Court ruled in the Texas case.

There are several issues that are key in both cases.

Potentially the most crucial is whether a Fourth Amendment claim of wrongful search and seizure in this case, encompassing wrongful death can be brought in federal courts when the victim was killed in a foreign country.

The full 5th Circuit said no because the victim was "a Mexican citizen who had no significant voluntary connection to the United States'' and "was on Mexican soil at the time he was shot.''

But Hilliard noted the Supreme Court said it's not that simple. He said the justices want the issue reconsidered, with the lower court considering things ranging from the rank of the officers involved to how disruptive it would be to have judges intruding into the function of other branches of government.

And Hilliard insisted those factors favor not only his client but also Rodriguez in her case against Swartz.

In Monday's ruling, the justices also resurrected the claim that Hernandez's Fifth Amendment rights were violated because he was deprived of life or liberty without "due process of law.''

That claim does not require someone be in the United States to bring. But the appellate court concluded that the Border Patrol agent was entitled to qualified immunity because Hernandez was "an alien who had no significant voluntary connection'' to the United States.

The justices, however, said that assumption has no legal basis.

"It is undisputed, however, that Herandez's nationality and the extent of his ties to the United States were unknown to Mesa at the time of the shooting,'' the high court wrote.

Swartz, through attorney Sean Chapman, has raised the same defense of qualified immunity. But U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins, in an earlier ruling, reached the same conclusion as the Supreme Court in the Hernandez case, saying Collins cannot claim qualified immunity for his actions, particularly as the agent could not have known at the time of the shooting that the victim was not a citizen.

If nothing else, Monday's court action means it will likely be at least October if not later before the justices rule in the Texas case. And that keeps the civil lawsuit against Swartz on the back burner, even as a criminal trial against him is set to begin Oct. 12.

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High court rules against immunity for agent in Texas cross-border shooting - White Mountain Independent

From Texas Standard:

Plaintiffs have fileda new lawsuitchallenging the University of Texas at Austin's race-based admission rules. Unlike a well-known case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the new suit was filed in state court, and bases its claims on the Texas Constitution and state statutes. Because the Supreme Court ruled in Fisher v. University of Texas that UT-Austin could retain its race-based admission system, it is unclear how the new case will fair.

In 2008, Abigail Fisher, a Caucasian woman from Sugarland, applied for admission to UT-Austin. She didn't qualify for automatic admission because she wasn't in the top 10 percent of her class. She competed with others in the the normal pool of in-state applicants and didn't get in. Fisher claimed that if the university had not used race as a factor in admissions, she would have been admitted.

The Supreme Court found that UT-Austin's practice of using race as one factor in admission decisions was narrowly tailored to promote diversity and therefore acceptable under the U.S. Constitution.

A group that backed Fisher in her case, the non-profit Students for Fair Admissions,filed a new complaintin a Travis County court on behalf of a new set of plaintiffs. They are arguing that affirmative action, as used by UT-Austin, is invalid under the Texas constitution.

Lynne Rambo, a professor of law at Texas A&M University Law school, who is a specialist in equal protection, affirmative action and constitutional law, says the plaintiffs base their suit on three state provisions, including two found in the Texas Constitution.

"The main part of the Texas Constitution that they're relying on is the Equal Rights Amendment that Texas adopted back in 1972, when [it] was being advanced by women [nationally.] That has been interpreted by the Texas Supreme Court to go beyond the Equal Protection Clause," Rambo says.

Cases based on Texas law could fail because the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause places adherence to the U.S. Constitution over state law. But Rambo says the fact that the Texas Equal Rights Amendment grants more rights could help the plaintiffs' case.

"Classically, the states have been allowed to expand broader constitutional rights than the U.S. Constitution," she says. "In many states, there are broader Fourth Amendment protections. Texas, for example, has a broader Fifth Amendment self-incrimination privilege than the U.S. Constitution affords."

Students for Fair Admissionwas created by Edward Blumto seek plaintiffs to challenge university admissions policies at UT-Austin, Harvard, the University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin.

"He's a UT grad, and he apparently has a real dislike for the consideration of race in any number of areas," Rambo says. "He was behind Shelby County, for example, the case challenging Sections 4and 5 of the Voting Rights Act."

Written by Shelly Brisbin.

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UT-Austin Faces Another Affirmative Action Lawsuit - KUT

Do We Really Want People to Learn How to Spot Micro Facial Expressions?

Paul Ekman Group

By definition, micros leak emotions that people dont want others to know they are feeling. Sometimes, even the person showing the micro is not aware of the emotion that is leaking out. My Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) enables those who study it to take this information from people attempting to conceal their emotions (and, in a sense, they are stealing this information).

Who has the right to do that, to tear away the curtains disguise? Certainly the Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs), although I have argued (a bit rhetorically) that LEOs who have been trained to spot micros should offer those they talk to the opportunity to wear a mask or facial cover.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protects us from self-incrimination, but micros may provide the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) who took our training just such incriminating information- just what the person involuntarily showing the micros doesnt want a LEO to know. Would it be in the spirit of the Fifth Amendment for LEOs who have learned how to spot micros to at least inform those they interview that they have been specially trained to take this information- to invade privacy without consent? Should they offer criminal suspects the right to wear a mask to preserve their Fifth Amendment protection?

Many people (lawyers, business operators, salespersons) whose interests are not always the same as those whose micros they learn to spot, can now (without forewarning) invade privacy, taking information without permission that the provider would not want them to have. I never thought about these issues when I developed METT, but I recognize that my training courses enable an invasion of a very private realm of peoples lives: the feelings they dont want everyone (and sometimes, no one) to know they are experiencing.

And yet, such an invasion of privacy can serve the public good. It helps the health care provider doctor, nurse, or other caregiver tune in and, therefore, be better able to help.

I once thought that I might be able to control who else would be able to use METT, but I learned from my colleagues in the Department of Defense that there is no way to do that. A tool, once created and accessible on the internet, is available to everyone who pays the nominal price. All I can hope, my Defense Department colleagues advised, is that it will be used more for what I consider to be good, to help people, than to harm or exploit people.

The proverbial cat is out of the bag, free to go anywhere!

Dr. Paul Ekman is a well-known psychologist and co-discoverer of micro expressions. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2009. He has worked with many government agencies, domestic and abroad. Dr. Ekman has compiled over 40 years of his research to create comprehensive training tools to read the hidden emotions of those around you. To learn more, please visit: http://www.paulekman.com.

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The dangers of reading micro expressions - HuffPost