|
This is a purely educational website. Nothing here is legal advice or creates or implies an attorney-client relationship. If you have a specific legal issue, PLEASE talk to a lawyer who practices where you live—laws vary from place to place, and how they're applied varies from courthouse to courthouse. Your local county bar association can probably refer someone who handles matters like yours.
By using this site, you agree that you are awesome. Use of this site also constitutes acceptance of its Terms of Service and Privacy Policies, which are known to medical science as a cure for insomnia.
It's best to keep all discussions in the comments. But if you really need to reach Nathan privately, go ahead and email him at n.e.burney@gmail.com. He won't mind.
THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO LAW and the PEEKING JUSTICE logo are pretty damn cool trademarks and should probably be registered one of these days.
© Nathaniel Burney. All rights reserved, though they really open up once you get to know them.
|
|
I get the feeling that many, if not most, people will in fact talk even if told they have the right to remain silent. I mean, even if you didn’t, it’s still obviously in your best interests to keep your mouth shut.
Pretty much what I was going to say. Most people under stress can’t stop talking if their life depends on it.
this reminds me of the folks on fox news talking about whether to read a terror suspect his miranda rights saying that if they tell him he has the right to remain silent he won’t talk and trying to make it sound like reading the miranda rights is what gives you those rights, and not reading them means they DON’T have the right to remain silent.
And as though these terrorists, often having been planning the attack for quite a while and sometimes even being leaders of large groups, just have no clue what to do if we catch them.
But to play devil’s advocate, sometimes when they say “we shouldn’t read them their rights” they mean “we should put them in a military trial where they’ll have fewer rights.”
Actually, I think this is the Tarnaev case. If I’m correct, I’m pretty sure they *didn’t* know what to do. I’d say their escape plan involved shooting a cop to steal his gun and then carjacking a cab, except I don’t think they had a plan.
I’ve been arrested exactly twice in my life, once for being in the wrong place at the wrong time & the other for an expired fix-it ticket (which is another discussion) In the wrong place/time incident the arresting officer did not read or otherwise indicate to me my Miranda rights. I waited quietly (okay, I loudly yammered my innocence for all to hear) for those rights to be read & when I went before the judge a few days later I mentioned this little oversight, as well as pleading innocent on all charges.
After the judge reamed the arresting officer around the court room a few times I was let off. They caught the actual perp the next day (or two, I’m a bit fuzzy on this after 30 years) committing pretty much the same crime with pretty much the same M.O. in pretty much the same neighborhood. I wonder if they would have noticed had I been compelled to admit to a crime which I had no previous idea had happened.
I’m also inclined to wonder if he had just admitted to a crime he had not committed as seeming like the easy way out. The lawyer they gave me wasn’t worth the paper his degree was printed on. If that guy got the same P.D. he might have.