Miranda Rights and Custodial Interrogation (cont’d)
Unlike what is portrayed on television, police have absolutely no obligation to read you your Miranda Rights just because you were arrested. The only thing that invokes this obligation is when the police try to question you in custody. Such questioning is referred to as “custodial interrogation.”
If the police make a mistake and fail properly advise you of your Miranda Rights,
any statements made to the police become inadmissible in court.
Moreover, any additional evidence discovered as a result of your illegally obtained statements also becomes inadmissible.
For example, in a possession with intent case, if a suspect admits to having large sums of cocaine in his warehouse, but the police failed to advise him of his Miranda Rights before questioning him and obtaining this confession, the cocaine cannot be used against the suspect because it would not have been discovered by police, but for the illegally obtained confession.
This is referred to as the “but-for test.” In other words, “but for” the illegal actions taken by police, the evidence would not have been discovered. Whenever this occurs, such evidence is inadmissible.
The consequence of rendering the evidence inadmissible was created to prevent police from abusing their power and conducting illegal interrogations. Conceptually, if the police know in advance that the evidence they are trying to obtain is worthless, because it becomes in admissible, they should be motivated to act in accordance with law.
As we all know, this system is anything but perfect. Police routinely write “creative” police reports and many outright lie, even in court. Despite these limitations, the best criminal defense lawyers are able to flush out problems with Miranda Rights and help their clients by filing motions to suppress evidence.
At the same time, it is important to realize that your arrest is automatically thrown out by a judge simply because the police failed to read you your Miranda Rights. Again, these warnings only apply to custodial interrogation, not arrest.
However, when a criminal defense attorney identifies illegally obtained statements,
he/she may be able to seriously weaken, if not entirely destroy, the prosecution’s case.
When this occurs, suppression of illegally obtained statements may force prosecutors to drop their case, reduce the charges, or offer substantially mitigated sentences, such as probation in lieu of prison. The final impact to your case will depend entirely on the importance of the illegally obtained statements to the prosecution’s case, assuming you made incriminating statements that were unlawfully obtained by police.