What is the state of the law regarding the physical act requirement and the constitutional right of a suspect not to answer police questions?

Even if these statements of law had been correct in the abstract, the district court's persistent refusal to provide any concrete guidance on the physical act requirement or a suspect's constitutional right to refuse to answer police questions is particularly misleading when viewed in the context of the jury's manifest confusion over precisely these issues. See, e.g., United States v. Velez, 652 F.2d 258, 262 (2d Cir. 1981) ("[T]he jury's note manifested its difficulties in comprehending the elements of the conspiracy offense. It was thus incumbent upon the trial court to clear them away with concrete accuracy. But here the district judge, over defense counsel's insistent objections, merely repeated what he several times described to the jury as the 'essential elements' of conspiracy, without informing them of the need to find willful membership. The judge, by his persistent refusal to recharge an 'essential' element at this late stage in the

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