Seriously? That doesn’t sound right at all. What I understood is that you can refuse to speak to the police, but they don’t have to stop talking to you just because you want your attorney. They can keep talking to you as long as it takes for your attorney to get there, right?
Yes and no.
They can talk NEAR you, but they can’t talk TO you.
I remember a case from Crim Pro class where the guy had requested his attorney present, and while the cops were driving him from one place to another they spoke “to each other” very loudly about what a shame it would be if the poor victim lay in the woods without a Christian burial, and, guiltridden, he told them to pull over and took them to the body.
That stood up, as I recall. I did, however, get a gentleman’s B in Crim Pro (and haven’t gotten there in BarBri yet), so take my “cite” with a grain of salt.
You’re probably thinking of Innis.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=446&invol=291
In other words, *Miranda * only limits custodial interrogation. If they aren’t interrogating, as the term is defined in the quoted matter, any statements are admissible.
I know that on “The First 48” whenever a suspect lawyers up, the detectives pretty much shut down and don’t say another word to the suspect. they also get pretty frustrated too, because then they have to go out and actually find physical evidence against the suspect instead of just getting a confession.
I hate it when people don’t make my job easy, too. 
Perhaps it’s the idea that I, an upstanding citizen, one who doesn’t run with the wrong crowd, one who leads an exemplary life, would need a lawyer when obviously the whole thing can just be cleared up right now (without needing to wait for a lawyer, etc) if I were just to cooperate with the policy. Obviously it’s all a misunderstanding, right?
Seriously, should I look for a criminal attorney now, give him a retainer, maintain a relationship with him on the off chance that someday I’ll be picked up for a crime I didn’t commit?
The first paragraph is for exemplary purposes. I’ll choose the lawyer route. But then the second paragraph is serious. What do you do in a situation like that? If you’re in the interrogation room and ask for a lawyer, but don’t have a lawyer, what’s the procedure? I can’t imagine they give a a net connection to let you research someone. They could call a public defender to be assigned to you, but unless you’re desolate, you still have to pay him for his time, and all he can do is refer you to someone that you’re going to want to some research on anyway. Do you just pay the public defender to secure some means of bail for you, and then you go off and look for your own guy or gal? Or is there not even any means testing for the public defender at this time, and you can use him for x services for y time at taxpayer cost?
My advice is yes. Get to know a lawyer you can call, just in case. I have two: one for the corporate stuff and one for personal stuff.
Just in case, you know.
Because as “everyone knows,” only guilty people need lawyers. You don’t want to look guilty, do you?
I remember how outraged the public was when the parents of JonBenet Ramsey refused to cooperate with the police without legal counsel; it was as if they had actively worked to stymie the investigation, and further convinced most people that they had to be guilty.
(Not saying the Ramseys were or weren’t guilty; just saying that retaining a lawyer was actually a perfectly reasonable and appropriate thing for them to do, regardless of guilt.)
Also, I think fear plays a big part. Talking to the police is scary for most people. We want to believe the cops are on our side, and if we do things their way they’ll play straight with us and everything will work out.
However much you may think you are innocent, maybe there is some crime you are guilty of. Some cops were hassling me in Redondo Beach or was it Hermosa?), I mentioned something about “a guy with a watch this expensive isn’t a hippy” so they made me take off my fairly expensive watch, found it had a scratch in the casing through the serial number and arrested me for “possession of an item with a marked or altered serial number”. Their probabable cause was that I admited I had a watch I couldn’t afford! It was thrown out, of course. Most police are straight up dues minde, you- but these weren’t. I found out later that had been “asked to leave the LAPD”! :eek: so joined the “small town” PD.
So you might start blabbing away to some cop, knowing you are 100% innocent of the crime they are asking you about, and inadvertently admit some other “crime”.
Yes, to some police “lawyering up” makes you look guilty, but so does “being too helpful”. :rolleyes:
Thanks,**Thalion **for this "For what it’s worth, DrDeth is right. Lawyering up is the only smart thing to do. I am constantly amazed at how many people don’t do that and end up giving me a confession"
Thanks to Gfactor for the great cites.
That was Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977). The Court actually ruled in that case that the “Christian burial” speech designed to elicit an incriminating response from Willaims, so it did constitute custodial interrogation in violation of his right to counsel.
Notwithstanding that, the evidence of the body came in on retrial. At his new trial the prosecution introduced the girl’s body but not the confession, and Williams’ lawyers argued that they couldn’t, reasoning that since it was the product of his unlawful interrogation, it was “fruit of the poisonous tree.” The Supreme Court ruled that the body could come in as evidence in Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984), saying that since search teams were moving toward the body at that moment anyway it would have been inevitably discovered. This was the first time the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the “inevitable discovery” exception to the exclusionary rule.
Tell that to the Duke lacrosse team.
You don’t need to have a lawyer at the point, you just need to invoke your right to one to cut off interrogation. If you’re not under arrest, they’ll have to let you go. If you are, you either bond out and find an attorney, have a family member find one for you, or make an application for a court appointed attorney or public defender.
The thing is there are “rights” and what really happens. As one poster pointed out your income level greatly effects this. Now some cities have started taping their entire questioning process but most don’t.
In the end it’s your word against a cops. The police’s most effective weapon is income. I commit a horrible crime, get taken in and call my fancy lawyer and post $25,000 bail because I have the ablity to get money.
Another poor slub gets taken in and can’t afford the $100 bail and can’t afford a lawyer so the guy get’s one appointed, but that can take a long time, because the public defender is busy. So the cops question you and you say no, the cops say “Fine, we’ll just put you in the holding cells with the drunks, murderers, addicts and other people who will beat the crap out of you,” OR you can answer our questions and be safe.
I recall once I got a ticket for going 5mph over the limit and hadn’t realized my driver’s license expired. So they actually took me in as I had nothing to give the cop. Normally you surrender your driver’s license for a ticket. This really hacked me off. I told them “I don’t have anyone to call and I don’t have $100 on me to post the bail.” They threatened me with all sorts of horrors, like locking me up for the weekend and taking me to the county jail.
I said “OK let’s go,” After five hours they “I-bonded” me out. Now it was stupid of me to be that stubborn and the cops were within their right, but it just hacked me off they could’ve I-bonded me straight off. It’s not like I ever had a criminal record or anything.
Yeah, Nifong was disbarred for that.
It gets worse.
How about, “Plead guilty to this felony, and we’ll recommend straight probation, no jail time. Plead guilty and you walk tonight.”
Now, if you can bond out, you can say to them, “Screw you. I’ll hire a lawyer and beat this crappy charge which will fall apart in a trial situation.” And you waltz into trial in a few months and beat the charge, or get a misdemeanor plea as a last-minute alternative to trial from a Commonwealth’s Attorney who knows his case is weak.
If you can’t bond out… your employer fires you after you don’t show up for work for three days 'cause you’re in jail. And your landlord evicts you, because you’re not at work earning money to pay rent because you’re in jail for the couple of months it will take for a trial date to open up. So, when the Commonwealth says, “Plead guilty, and you walk tonight…” which option do you think you’re going to take?
But not before his victims went through a year of horrible shit, and their families went millions of dollars into debt.
Yes, but he wasn’t allowed to lie. That’s why he’s no longer a DA, or even a lawyer. That’s also why he’s facing more lawsuits than most tobacco companies.
Well, he was allowed to lie until he wasn’t. A lot. For about 9 months. And it took extraordinary efforts by top notch lawyers to catch him.
DA’s at least in NC, have tremendous power. It’s true that they are not *supposed *to lie, but I suspect that many of them get away with a great deal of lying. Hell, it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that Nifong was a lying sack of shit almost from day one, but it still took almost a year to nail him. As late as November the Association of District Attorneys was offering to help him with his case.