BIG NEWS From Supreme Court and our Rights!!

wow that is great, when are they going to address Nazi traffic checkpoints where they say they are checking for sobriety and only ask for license, registration, and insurance cert? No out of car test, no breath test, just paperwork and in California they want to know where you're going and why. 

Yeah I am just looking for a bigger crimp. 

Pessimist? Meee???...lol

I always tell the wife if I am always right that makes me a physic not a pessimist.. hehe

@wrabbit2000,

The right to remain silent is pursuant to the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that you have to verbally claim that right, or else it's nullified, in Berghuis v. Thompkins To be on the safest side, I think it adviseable to make a verbal claim to all of one's rights, and another specifically claiming the 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination and the right to silence, and then just fall completely and utterly silent.

The presumptions, I think. It appears to me that in the absence of a definitive statement, it is presumed that the interrogated intends to incriminate himself. Just based upon a quick mental survey of the criminals I've known, I would think that to be an extremely erroneous presumption - I don't think ANY of them intend to incriminate themselves, and I believe THAT should be the proper legal presumption - in the absence of a definitive statement otherwise.

In other words, I don't think one should have to explicitly INVOKE the right, I think the right should be presumed to be in effect (as all rights should be presumed to be, in my mind), and one should have to explicitly WAIVE the right.

"In the moment?" No. Are there any others that cease to exist in silence, because of said silence?



Mirandizing someone is about more than a mere lawyer. One can exercise the rights specified in a Miranda warning with no lawyer anywhere within the reach of his fist. Originally, Miranda wasn't about lawyers at all - it was about a guy who ran his mouth because he didn't know that he didn't have to, or that when he did things were going to go harsh for him, whatever he said.



Could be. If you'd care to specify what you think that "something other" is, you might even get an "amen"!



Even the densest cop can tell when someone doesn't feel like talking to him - if they couldn't, they'd just be a hoot at cocktail parties, wouldn't they?

Now my personal opinion on the 5th Amendment is that it's been horribly abused - by the establishment, rather than the criminals. Anyone at all has a right NOT to talk to anyone they don't want to, regardless of "self incrimination" or not. While a protection against self incrimination is guaranteed in the 5th, I also have a right (not recognized by the courts, but existent nonetheless) to not incriminate (or exonerate, for that matter) anyone else, either, if it involves having to speak or otherwise interact with anyone else I do not want to in order to do so. Government (and many individuals, too) has taken the 5th to extremes, to the point that if someone doesn't want to talk to them, they automatically presume guilt and set about even harder trying to "prove" it where it may not exist at all. The Fifth Amendment is not about saying "I'm guilty as hell - but not going to tell you how", it's about saying "I don't have to say a goddamned thing about it, either way - it's YOUR job to figure stuff out!"


Sadly, in modern America, investigators and prosecutors all too often care only to get a conviction regardless of guilt - too many of them no longer have any desire at all to "arrive at the truth", which is what I was taught law enforcement was about... but I was taught that many years ago. In a climate where only a conviction matters, truth be damned, it just not safe to say ANYTHING, because anything you say can and will be used against you - nor is it any longer safe to rely on the 5th Amendment, because the clause against self incrimination is all too often used as an admission of guilt, prompting a search for, and discovery of "evidence" where it does not even exist.

Admittedly, I'm probably a little biased here. I've been questioned as a suspect a couple of times for thing I did NOT do, and some of those investigators are convinced to this day that I DID do it, meaning the actual culprit got away scot-free. I went to jail once for something I did not do - the law no longer cares about facts or truth.

On one occasion, while under interrogation I flat out told the investigator "I don't know you, mister. Stranger Danger - I don't have to talk to you!" and clammed right up. Now, I hadn't been Mirandized, because in that case I was only being questioned,not under arrest, but I STILL don't have to speak to anyone I don't want to... however one runs the risk of being jailed for "obstruction of justice" in some places if he doesn't feel like talking.

You can usually tell when an investigator is just out for a conviction regardless of fact, and you can tell when he's got one for YOU. In those cases, it's best not to say anything at all, ever. In the same way, if that investigator is not a complete idiot (which some actually are), he can tell when you're done talking without you having to say "I'm done talking".

Here's an example of the complete idiot variety of investigator: Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was hauled in for questioning on a theft. By the third time I was hauled in for questioning, it was kinda apparent who he thought was guilty, but just to make it clear, the dumbass leaned across the table and said "I KNOW you're guilty - just fess up". Yeah. As if. So I leaned back across the table at him until I was just a couple inches away - this pretty much defines face-to-face - and said "lookit here, hoss. I already told you WHO did it, HOW they did it, and WHEN they did it, and WHY they are the only possibility, and you have not so much as turned over a pebble checking into that. I gave you the case on a silver platter, and you just threw it away. SO - you've stated you have a good set of prints, and I have a good set of fingers. Let's get this show on the road. PRINT me and match them up if you think I'm guilty. Put up or shut up."

So he printed me as per my request, and I never heard from him again, not even for the apology I told him I had coming. The guilty party actually DID get away scot-free on that theft. I know exactly who did it, because that person was the ONLY possibility. he wound up going to jail some time later on another theft where he didn't have enough victims to throw blame on and away from himself.

Now, I knew that investigator had it in for me. He TOLD me he had it in for me to confirm that. He didn't give the smallest damn about truth - only a conviction, and he thought he could convict the little fish easier than the big fish, and that is ALL it was about. I had the right to remain silent, but I also had the right to NOT remain silent. It was MY decision to make, no one elses. Had I decided to remain silent, I could still be sitting there today, 20 years later, being silent - and they would have used that silence as "evidence" of my guilt and tried to use the false testimony (from the guilty party - go figure why he'd do THAT!). Sometimes, silence is the best course, and sometimes it isn't. We have that option, Miranda or not, investigator's "expectations" notwithstanding.

Just to balance things out, I'm not a hardass - unless that's called for. I've also cooperated to the farthest extent possible. It all depends on what the investigator is after. I've also turned over "illegal" documents (how the hell can information be "illegal" when there is a First Amendment?) on condition that they be returned, just to broaden an investigator's horizons so that he had a better idea if what he was looking for. To that investigator's credit, he was an honorable man, and did exactly as he promised. Oddly enough, in that case I also gave consent for a vehicle search, and did not make them hold me there until they could get a warrant out there.

It always depends on what the investigator is after, and how he treats you. Respects usually gains respect, and should be the FIRST resort. Arrogance is just going to get itself returned as well. Too many officers (investigators included) have yet to realize that. Not ALL, by any means, and I've dealt with some truly honorable lawmen, but that one rotten core you run into every so often can turn the perception of the whole barrel some times.