You Have the Right to Remain Silent
Video Transcript: So they slapped the cuffs on you and you’re getting hauled off to jail. What should you do? My name is Brian L. Jackson. I’m an Oklahoma lawyer with the Wirth Law Office, and I want to give you some quick tips on what to do if you ever get arrested.
First thing to remember is that anything you say can and will be used against you. So your best course of action if you’re being arrested, is shut your mouth. Do not talk to the officer. I don’t care what they tell you or what they promise you about mitigating it, in most instances, if they’re arresting you for a crime, then they have very little discretion as far as what happens to you after the arrest. That will be up to the prosecutor, not the cop. So it’s always in your best interest to shut up.
Now, the other thing to be aware of, you also don’t want to talk to anyone else in custody like fellow prisoners, for example, because they could become potential witnesses against you. There’s a couple rules of evidence. There’s a rule covering party admissions, which in a criminal case, if you’re a defendant, you’re a party, and if you admit to something unfavorable to you, that can be admissible over the hearsay objection. Another rule to be aware of is statements against penal interest.
Again, that is an exception to the hearsay rule, and basically what that means is if you make a statement that tends to incriminate you, it is, generally speaking, admissible over a hearsay objection because the theory behind it is the idea that you probably wouldn’t admit to that if it wasn’t true. So it’s something to be aware of. It’s not just the officers you don’t want to talk to. You don’t want to talk to anybody else in lockup, anybody else you encounter while you’re in custody.
As soon as you’re able to, call a bondsman. Get yourself bonded, and then call a good Tulsa criminal defense lawyer immediately. If you’ve been arrested, you need counsel, and one place you can find counsel is at makelaweasy.com and we’ll help you out.
