Six Legal Rights Every Person Must Know

The Bill of Rights is a set of rights found in the constitution that gives us a guaranty that certain areas of one’s life, liberty, and property cannot be messed with by the government’s iron hands.

The moment you are asked questions which you think might implicate you into the crime, you are said to be under custodial investigation. And here, you can invoke the rights reserved for you by the constitution. The Miranda vs. Arizona case has enumerated for us the rights guaranteed by the constitution, it is now recognized as the Miranda doctrine or Miranda rights.

We might have never found ourselves caught in a situation where we are being badgered to admit a certain crime we did not commit. But just in case, here are six rights a person must always know he has, in order not to bury his own grave.

• The right to remain silent; just shut up! Don’t think you can work your way out of the police by your debating skills. A crime has many elements and what you would say, thinking it has no connection to the offense, can be seen differently by the authorities. And we’re all familiar with the adage “A fish is caught by its mouth”.
• The right to be informed that anything you say can and will be used against you in court. So again, zip it!
• The right to consult with a counsel/lawyer and to have him/her during investigation; don’t try to save yourself, get someone who’s as manipulative as or more manipulative than the police.
• The right to be informed that if you cannot afford the services of a lawyer, one will be provided for you. The constitution is ideally for the rights of the accused. So if you think you are being pressured into admitting a felony, again, don’t try to save yourself thinking you don’t have a lawyer anyway. We have what we call pro bono lawyers.
• The right to have the interrogation stopped the moment you ask for a counsel, even after answering some questions
• The right to have what you said excluded as evidence in court if you were not warned of the rights above mentioned. You can also raise the defense that albeit the rights were said, they were said in a manner not fully understandable to you. It is the duty of the arresting officer to explain these rights in a comprehensible language.

There you have it, rights some of us might not know exist after all; let us not be ignorant of them, it can cost us our liberty, worse, our very lives. Knowing these rights can exculpate us from lifelong trauma. However, the best advice we can all have is simply-stay out of trouble.