Every week I receive some question concerning the significance of law enforcement’s failure to read someone his/her rights. Sometimes the question explicitly asks if all of the charges can be dismissed, but most of the time the question is searching for some hope that the failure to read the rights might benefit the person that has been arrested. Because it appears to be on the minds of so many people, I decided to just address it in its entirety.
First, the rights that everyone is thinking and talking about are referred to as the Miranda warnings. When law enforcement reads the Miranda rights, they tell the accused:
You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, then everything you say can (and will) be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one may be appointed to represent you. Do you understand these rights?
Although those are the rights, the most important question comes at the end of those rights, which puts you on notice as to why the police are reading the rights in the first place:
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