Police and Miranda Rights
Most of us are quite familiar with Miranda rights, having learned about them in school and heard cops recite them on TV. The Miranda warning is given to prevent suspects from incriminating themselves and to remind them of their right to an attorney, as well as the danger that a suspect’s statements can be used against him or her.
At first glance, some of us might think that only the guilty need the warning; after all, they have something to hide, and you, an innocent, do not. Unfortunately, you’re sorely mistaken if you think talking to police or federal agents will get you out of trouble. The reason is simple: If you are under arrest, that means you are suspected of being a criminal and those who arrested you assume you’re guilty — you’re the bad guy.
You could accidentally, out of fear, tell the officers an untrue statement, which would be bad for you later on, as contradictions and lies will “prove” that you did it. (By the way, lying to police is a crime, another charge for the prosecutor to throw at you.) Worse yet, you might pretend to be smarter than your interrogators and try to outsmart or frustrate them by blabbering. Remember, anything, and that means anything, can and will be used against you, whether it is an outright confession or an apparently innocuous statement.
To further illustrate my point, Robert Jackson, who served as attorney general and a Supreme Court justice, claimed in 1949 that “any lawyer worth his salt will tell [a] suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.”
His statement was a response to a court case in which the defendant was convicted of murder after confessing to the crime under duress. So egregious were the circumstances under which the confession was made that the Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Since then, we have developed oversight over police interrogations, but the police will gladly intimidate you with prosecution and manipulate you with all sorts of tricks. But once you’ve made it unambiguously clear that you will remain silent, the mind games and intimidation will stop and you’ll hold an advantage over the officers.
The right to remain silent and to have legal counsel is one of the very few tools we citizens have at our disposal to keep cops in check. Acting like the good guy when in custody won’t get you anywhere because your interrogators probably know much more about manipulation than you do.
You might think that you’re as innocent as it gets, but those who arrest you clearly think otherwise. Refusing to destroy your own defense is not an admission of guilt, and the prosecution cannot present it as such, so zip it, get a lawyer and flex your rights!
Gonzalo Molinolo is a junior history major. He can be reached at gmolinolodbk@gmail.com.
