The Police Would Like to Talk to Me. Should I give a Statement?

Five things to know about giving a statement to police.

The short answer is NO! Never.

The rules for police questioning are so one-sided and so unfair that it can only go badly for the person being questioned. This is why the right to remain silent and not answer questions is one of the most sacred and fundamental rights that our founding fathers put into the Bill of Rights. Here are the most important reasons that you should never talk to the police unless your lawyer is present.

Remember that in a case of the government vs. a citizen, the government writes the rules of procedure and evidence and passes laws that benefit the government to maintain the imbalance of power. The attorneys of the Working Law Firm can help you balance the odds. Here are five things to know before speaking to police about why you should hire an attorney.

First – You Cannot Help Yourself

Anything that you say in your favor or in your own defense that actually helps you cannot be used in a court of law. Any statement that helps a suspect is considered unreliable self-serving hearsay and is excluded from the trial as hearsay. Therefore, you cannot say anything that will help you in the long run. Why say anything at all?

Second – You Can Only Hurt Yourself

Anything that you say can and will be used against you. That means that anything that you say that hurts your defense and helps the government to convict you will be used at the trial. To sum up, anything that helps the government and hurts your case will be used at trial, but statements that help you and hurt the government’s case will not be heard by the jury. You can only hurt yourself by talking, so why speak to the police?

Third – You Are Outmatched

The meeting is a total mismatch. Police detectives are seasoned interrogators who are sent to learn advanced interrogation techniques in order to coerce suspects into giving an incriminating statement. Many citizens do not even know they are being manipulated by a seasoned professional. One police tactic called the Reid technique allows police to slip in information about the case in questions they ask. When a person responds by talking about the information they were just given by the police, they are arrested for knowing information that only someone at the scene of the crime would know.

Fourth – Police Are Allowed to Lie

The United States Supreme Court has stated that police are allowed to lie to a person being questioned. Not only are police allowed to lie, they do lie quite often to get a person being questioned to say something incriminating. Police use false promises of leniency and tell people that if the person will tell the police what they want to hear, the police can help that person get a lighter sentence or easier treatment. It is a total lie. The police almost never help a suspect get lighter treatment. The police can lie and feed the suspect information, and then arrest that person when they repeat back information that the police want to hear.

Fifth – This is Not a Game – It is Your Life

If I was to tell you that you could have a meeting with a highly skilled opponent and that person was allowed to lie to you, and if you said anything good it wouldn’t matter, but if you said something bad you could go to prison for the rest of your life? Would that be something you might be interested in? Of course not!!

Don’t call the police back. Call the attorneys of the Working Law Firm.