I don’t have any problem with reading something into a person’s refusal to testify in his own trial.
What I have trouble with is the warning “anything you say can and will be used against you.” It’s the WILL part that is chilling. It sounds like they’re saying, “who cares about truth, we’re going to try to twist everything you say.”
Most of my commanders and I in the military would always tell our young troops to say nothing to CID. CID has a problem of some really over-the-top agents. They seemed to be breathing, talking examples of the “we’re gonna twist what you say...”
I think someone once said that military justice is to justice as military music is to music. Once while standing waiting for a liberty launch to carry me back to the aircraft carrier I was looking out on the bay of Naples when I heard a smack behind me. When I turned I saw a petty officer getting up off the ground and yelling to the shore patrol to, “Put that man on report, he just hit me.” The man he accused of hitting him was my buddy who had been out barhopping with me. This ended with my pal being restricted to the ship for a while by order of the Captain of the ship even though there was no evidence against him other than the statement in writing by the petty officer who was on another ship. No testimony of any kind. I had been ordered to appear at the Captain’s mast even though I had seen nothing. The division CPO told me flat out that he thought I was lying to protect a friend but I was not allowed to testify because I had made it clear that I did not see anything and was not going to say otherwise. The CPO asked me if I could say that my friend did NOT hit the other man and I told him no, I had heard a sound that could have been a blow, I turned around and I saw the man rising from the ground and claiming that he had been hit but I did NOT see anything. I know the blow was struck because the acccused told me that he had in fact struck the other man because of something that had been said to him but I was not going to volunteer that and I was not asked about such a possibility. Restriction to the ship with no liberty was not a big deal but it made me wonder if there would have been any more protection for the right of the accused if there had been more at stake.