Help me settle a little debate. I think most Americans, even educated ones, don’t really understand their Miranda rights (e.g. right to remain silent, etc.). My friend disagrees, and feels the answers to the following questions are common knowledge:
When, if ever, must the police warn you of your Miranda rights?
What is the legal consequence of their failure to do so?
If you invoke your right to remain silent, must the police stop questioning you?
So, if you don’t mind, help me test this thesis. No cheating! * Please spoiler your answers*. Law dopers, feel free to chime in (I’m sure each question and answer will get nitpicked, but I think the answers are as black letter as this stuff gets).
You must be warned about your Miranda rights before custodial interrogation. The police often want to question you immediately after your arrest, and thus mirandize you at the time of your arrest. But there is no requirement that they do so. They could plop you in the patrol car, take you to jail, and never mirandize you at all if they don’t want to interrogate you.
The legal consequence is that the prosecution may not use any statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation. So, for example, if the police fail to warn you and you confess that you killed your wife and the axe is in your car, then the prosecutor can’t use this confession (but can use the axe as evidence!).
If you invoke your right to remain silent, interrogation must immediately cease. [/spoiler]
When, if ever, must the police warn you of your Miranda rights?
After the arrest and before any questioning. I think there’s exceptions for some questioning about immediate safety issues or routine information.
What is the legal consequence of their failure to do so?
Any information developed from non-Mirandized questioning cannot be entered as evidence in court. Again, I think there’s exceptions where a judge can rule evidence would have been discovered anyway.
If you invoke your right to remain silent, must the police stop questioning you?
Not sure. You have the right not to answer but I’m not sure you have the right not to be questioned.
[spoiler]1) When, if ever, must the police warn you of your Miranda rights? Before interrogation, if you are in custody as a suspect (i.e., not if you are being questioned as a witness).
What is the legal consequence of their failure to do so? Information collected after such failure, or as a consequence of such information, cannot be used as evidence in court.
If you invoke your right to remain silent, must the police stop questioning you? Police must stop interrogation if you request an attorney; I don’t think merely invoking the right to be silent will stop interrogation.[/spoiler]
For the record, I am not an attorney, but I did take the first year courses in criminal law & criminal procedure several years ago.
The police must read you your Miranda rights once they consider you a suspect, before questioning you, regardless of whether you are in custody or not.
Once they consider you a suspect, and don’t advise you of your rights, they can’t use anything you say against you from that point forward. .
I don’t believe the police have to stop questioning you then. Once you have an attorney, or if you invoke your right to an attorney, they may not question you without the attorney present.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]1- When you are subjected to custodial interrogation. The police do not need to read you your rights when they arrest you if they do not intend to interrogate you.
2-The only legal consequence is to have your answers excluded from your trial or evidence found as a result of your answers. But if you lie on the stand then your answers can be brought in on cross examination through the impeachment process.
3-Yes.
The answer to these questions is most emphatically NOT common knowledge. Every day I here “They didn’t read me my rights so they can’t convict me” I ask if the cops asked any questions and they say “No”. Then I have to spend 30 minutes explaining why it does not matter that they were not read their rights.
[/spoiler]
I am regular at a legal advice forum, this issue is brought up daily. I am surprised that folks don’t really know their rights or they believe what they see on police shows as fact. The answers given by askeptic are virtually identical to the answers given in the legal forum.
Interesting to read the responses so far. On a point of divergence between askeptic’s obviously informed answer and my own:
[spoiler] I mentioned off-hand in my answer that the prosecution *can * use physical evidence they obtain as a result of your un-mirandized statements. I’m pretty sure this is true, but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. I believe this is the holding of Patane, in which Justice Thomas wrote that your right against self-incrimination “cannot be violated by the introduction of nontestimonial evidence obtained as a result of [unmirandized] voluntary statements.” So while the 14th amendment is still a check on whether that evidence is admissible, the 5th, and hence Miranda, is not.
Also, I made no effort to list exceptions (like public safety, impeachment, etc.) but I think all of the exceptions mentioned so far are accurate.
[/spoiler]
If the evidence is found as a result of your unmirandized statement or a warrantless search (many exceptions)it will be “fruit of the poisonous tree” and therefore inadmissible unless the state can successfully argue inevitable discovery. I don’t see how the XIV amendment is at all implicated. The Miranda rule is a court created prophylactic rule (Thanks Rhenquist) to enforce the 4th 5th and 6th amendments.
Maybe you should ask that this be moved to GQ or GD since many of the answers in this thread demonstrate the this subject is poorly understood. That way we could stop all this spoilering sillyness.
Edwards v. Arizona holds that the invocation of the right to counsel must trigger the end of interrogation until an attorney is present – with the further exception that the SUSPECT may initiate further conversation without an attorney and that such conversation is admissible. But the invocation of the right to remain silent, while it does require the police to “scrupulously honor” the request and end interrogation, does not permanantly end the process. In Michigan v. Mosley, the accused invoked his right to silence in response to questions about a robbery. After a two-hour delay, police again gave Miranda warnings and resumed interrogation, this time about a murder. The accused made several inculpatory statements which were ultimately admitted against him, and the Supreme Court upheld this process as not violative of Miranda guarantees.
But in Mosely the issue was that the interrogation concerned a different crime. The police could not go back and question the def. concerning the crime for which he invoked but that he must re-invoke as to the new crime.
I’m from the UK, but have watched a lot of Law and Order.
I guess:
When, if ever, must the police warn you of your Miranda rights?
When you are suspected on a crime. A witness doesn’t need cautioning, unless they say something suspicious. :eek:
What is the legal consequence of their failure to do so?
They can’t use anything you say either in court or to gather evidence through a warrant. “Mr. McCoy, I’m excluding the gun because the search warrant used to find it is invalid and so the gun is ‘fruit of the poisonous tree!’”
If you invoke your right to remain silent, must the police stop questioning you?
I believe they can keep talking. You should ask for a lawyer, or a break if you want to stop.
Like most of the others, my knowledge is based on tv and then is no doubt completely wrong.
When, if ever, must the police warn you of your Miranda rights?
When you are arrested.
What is the legal consequence of their failure to do so?
The arrest is invalid. And… the charges are dropped? OK, that makes no sense, so I’m probably wrong about that or the answer to #1.
If you invoke your right to remain silent, must the police stop questioning you?
Um. No? You just need to keep not saying anything?
I hope you have the real answers in one of these spoiler boxes.
