• Nougat@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Declining to answer questions alone doesn’t legally allow you to be arrested. If you end up in the back of a squad car “because” of that, you would have ended up in the back of a squad car anyway, in which case you extra shouldn’t waive your right to counsel.

    • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Good to know, out of curiosity. How would that proceed? Would they ask you to call your legal council? Would they have to come in person? Would the cop just give you an appointment time and place to talk to you with your legal council? I don’t think ignoring any questions they may have is gonna end well in any way. Even if you’re extremely polite and respectful in your declining.

      • Nougat@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        It would proceed one of two ways:

        • If you don’t have any open warrants, officer stops asking you questions, cites you for whatever violation they pulled you over for, and you go on your way, dealing with that citation in the normal way.
        • Officer stops asking you questions, finds cause to arrest you, and you take a ride. You get to consult with an attorney from jail.

        If there was cause to arrest you, you were going to take that ride anyway. Waiving your right to remain silent only firms up the officer’s grounds for arresting you and makes it more likely that you will be convicted.

        Declining to answer questions without legan counsel and “ignoring any questions they may have” are two very different things. The former is an active assertion of your rights; the latter is not.

        Also of note, police are not required to read you the Miranda warning immediately after arresting you. Often they do, to cover their ass, but they only need to read that warning before asking you questions related to the cause of the arrest. They can not read you the Miranda warning, and ask about what you had for lunch yesterday, get you talking about other things, in the hopes that you’ll get comfortable and spill some information related to the reason for your arrest.

        tl;dr: Shut the fuck up.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You tell them to stop asking questions if they don’t you just don’t answer. You act like you have an obligation to answer.

        You don’t.

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          That’s not my concern. Are you just supposed to ignore cops then? What do you think will happen if you just stonewall them? Do you think they’ll just let someone who is ignoring them go? ACABs they’ll make it hell for you if they feel like it. I just give the bare minimum I can to not get fucked over more than they could.