2 ms·
In some states you are required to identify yourself and a recent court ruling showed that merely remaining silence was not enough to invoke one's right to sile
by jdhopeunique 14y ago
In some states you are required to identify yourself and a recent court ruling showed that merely remaining silence was not enough to invoke one's right to silence. One must paradoxically, speak up to have the right to remain silent. Here are 2 relevant links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence#United_States
- gwillen 14y agoI've never seen this as especially paradoxical. As long as you choose not to speak, you are free to remain silent. As soon as you start speaking, you are choosing to speak, and not be silent. The only effect of verbally invoking your right to remain silent, as far as I'm aware, is that the police have to stop interrogating you. It would make sense for the police to have to stop after you refuse to answer their questions for some defined period, but it also makes sense (and this is more or less the reasoning of the court as I understand it) to say that, while you are free to be silent, the cops are free to keep asking questions unless you affirmatively indicate your desire that they stop. The main problem remaining, I think, is the fact that people do not know they can so ask.