Understanding your Miranda rights is crucial if you end up in a situation where police want to interrogate or interview you.
What do you know about the protections that your Miranda rights offer, or how they apply?
Avoiding self-incrimination
Miranda Warning discusses your Miranda rights in criminal cases. These rights keep you from ending up in trouble by accidentally self-incriminating, which can happen even in the event that you say or do something that brings police suspicion upon you.
Note that self-incriminating can happen even to innocent parties. Despite this, officers often attempt to dissuade people from using their Miranda rights by saying that “only guilty parties” will make use of their right to remain silent. This is, naturally, a ploy to get information without running into roadblocks.
With your Miranda rights, you can invoke two main rights: the right to remain silent, and the right to legal representation.
Using your rights
With your right to remain silent, you do not have to worry about participating in an interrogation or interview with the police against your will. However, note that you need to actually remain silent after invoking this right. If you invoke it and continue to speak, officers can still use what you say against you.
As for your right to legal counsel, this ensures that you will have legal representation even if you do not have the money to hire an attorney privately. This is another way of protecting you from potential abuse and unfair treatment in a system you may not understand.