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'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

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1–10 of 101 posts

Re: 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

#3
It's not really about being silent. It'd make much more sense if the Miranda copy was "you have the right to not be interrogated without a lawyer present; if you invoke this right, your silence in response to further questions asked without your lawyer present cannot be held against you. Anything else, can."

Re: 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

#6

I have always thought it best to specify that you don't understand. If you are not a lawyer how can you know the ramifications for anything you do or do not say.

IANAL, but my guess is that asking for an attorney is the equivalent of asserting your right to remain silent as the police are not allowed to continue your interrogation. The right to counsel is a part of the 6th amendment though, not the 5th.

Re: 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

#7
post #4

Some states require you consent to sobriety tests to keep your drivers license. You have the right to remain silent. But they reserve the right to ruin your life.

I'm from a state that does this and I have to confess, I'd never really thought about it this way before. There are so many other ways this sort of principle can be exploited: your ability to have a cell phone contract could be contingent on allowing the police to search your cell phone at any time, remotely; your ability to have a computer could be contingent upon the same; your ability to have an ID card could be continent upon consenting to constant facial recognition tracking.

It's pretty insidious. Obviously nothing is going to be done about it.

Re: 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

#8
post #5
post #4

Some states require you consent to sobriety tests to keep your drivers license. You have the right to remain silent. But they reserve the right to ruin your life.

A drivers license has always been a privilege, not a right.

Likewise, having a cell phone is a privilege, not a right, but it's nearly impossible to survive in modernity without one, so restricting access to one becomes a form of coercion. No matter how you spin it, this is an attempt to coerce people into incriminating themselves.

There's nothing stopping these states from going further and saying that driving a car implies consent to have that car searched at any time, or impounded to be emissions-checked at the state's leisure.

Re: 'You Have the Right to Remain Silent.' or Do You?

#10
There's a really terrible trend of requiring magic spells to be cast to "invoke" 4th and 5th amendment rights. You have a right to remain silent, as the Supreme Court has codified it; it doesn't make any sense to talk about "invoking" it specifically. You don't have to declare "I invoke my First Amendment rights" as a magic spell to avoid being prosecuted for writing something on the internet.
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