The Fifth Amendment bars criminal juries from inferring guilt when defendants refuse to testify. In Griffin v. California (1965) and Carter v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court held that criminal defendants have a right to jury instructions that silence isn't evidence of guilt. Civil cases operate differently. Federal law explicitly invites civil juries to draw negative inferences from Fifth Amendment invocations—the Constitution "does not forbid adverse inferences against parties to civil actions when they refuse to testify in response to probative evidence offered against them." While criminal juries must be ordered not to infer guilt from silence, civil juries often get instructions to do exactly that. There's one limit: under Supreme Court precedent, adverse inference can't be the only evidence supporting a ruling against the witness. This civil-criminal split means a witness can protect against criminal prosecution by invoking the Fifth in a civil proceeding, but that silence becomes ammunition in the civil case itself.