Our high school basketball coach and world history teacher used to always say, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut than to open it and remove all doubt.” This is a shortened version of the quote, “It’s better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you’re an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt.” Over twenty years later, this is so much more important in my career today, and I want to scream this to my clients when the police want to talk to them.
Television and movies show that anytime police make an arrest or come into contact with a suspect, they read out the Miranda rights. You all know them: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, you have the right to have one appointed to represent you.” That is not what happens in real life. Two things have to happen before police have to read those warnings: 1) You must be in custody, and 2) They must be interrogating you.
If you choose to start talking, it doesn’t matter whether they read you those rights. If you aren’t under arrest, they don’t have to read you those warnings. If they aren’t asking questions, they don’t have to give you those warnings. Another issue with this warning is that it implies that you will get an attorney to be present during the questioning, but that is not how it works. When you say you want an attorney, they should stop questioning, but that likely means that you will be arrested and once charges are filed, you can have an attorney appointed to represent you. This scares a lot of people, but it is better to get arrested than to give them the evidence to convict you AND get arrested.
The biggest problem I have with defending people is that they admit things to the police. You may genuinely think you have done nothing wrong and you just want to answer the police’s questions, but this is the wrong approach. There are thousands of laws on the books and you can’t possibly know them all. You may be admitting to something you didn’t even know was a crime, and unfortunately, ignorance of the law is no defense.
Remember if police want to ask you questions, it’s better to keep your mouth shut!
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