At 02:39 PM 9/21/98 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
False. You are never required to talk to a peace officer, Fed, or investigator unless you want to. They can arrest you of course (with probable cause ha ha). Even then, you still don't have to talk to them. In criminal cases you *never* have to talk to anyone.
The Supremes have, unfortunately, decided that police can hold you for up to 48 hours without getting around to charging you, and if there's a weekend around they can often stretch that. Some cops find that an interesting answer to the question "You've read me my Miranda rights and now you're insisting that I tell you what you want before I can speak to my lawyer who's in the next room?" "Yup, you can be as silent as you want in the county jail, and [since we're charging you with a bogus municipal charge anyway], we can charge you with a [bogus] misdemeanor instead.", which had a certain craftiness I hadn't really expected out of them :-) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639