Miranda Rights

Answer:

Miranda Rights are an important safeguard, but a lot of people will contact me and say that their Miranda Rights weren’t read to them. Let me explain how that works. In Texas, if you are given your Miranda Rights, what that really means is the officer warned you about your right to remain silent and that anything you say can be used against you. However, if they don’t give you your Miranda Rights, it doesn’t mean that your case is immediately thrown out. What it really means is that you might be able to get statements thrown out that you made that were the result of custodial interrogation. Why is that important? Let me explain what that means.

If you just tell an officer some facts, and they didn’t ask a probing question, then that statement will probably be able to be used against you, even if they didn’t read you your Miranda Rights. If the officer starts asking you questions in an interrogation, and you incriminate yourself and they haven’t read your Miranda Rights, we might be able to get those statements thrown out so they can’t use them against you. Today, very often, police officers will bring you into the police station, tell you you’re not under arrest, and they just want to talk and chat with you. They do that so that you’re not being detained, you’re free to leave, and they try to do that so that the statements that they get from you can be used against you, even with out Miranda Rights.