Miranda vs Az. SCOTUS held that state violated the 5th amend. right against 'Self incrimination' and the 6th amend. 'Right to counsel'. (para)

Berghuis vs Thompkins. SCOTUS held that suspect MUST EXPRESSLY STATE THAT THEY ARE INVOKING THIER RIGHT.(para)

We had cards that had the Miranda on them and we were REQUIRED to read them to ANYONE we arrested, had to initial that they understood their rights, or, if they remained silent or said they did not, we wrote, "Does not understand his/her rights" and we could no longer them any questions, period. If they did start to talk, we had to stop them and re read their rights to them, period..
Advocate, absolutely they are read to protect the cops, to keep the integrity of the case AND to protect the suspects 5th amend. rights, AND it is mandatory, most Police depts have the suspect sign a form that either invokes or waives those rights.

Aladdin. You're making me dizzy. Sorry, I'm not going to get into a pointless argument with you, Peace out.

Rew, the CG deals with everything from dunks to drug smugglers to assaults accident investigation to murders.(All of which I'v responded to, and have certificate to prove it). They are Federal LE and can enforce all Federal laws. Many places, like one unit I was at, we were also deputized by the County Sheriff to enforce some State and local laws. We mostly just detained for local LE.
I guess it is a 'form' of LE. Not criticizing you, most people don't know the MANY missions of the CG.

Another thing.... You must specifically state that you "Demand to remain silent..." or it is not honored . I remember reading that in a court decision a while ago...

I stand by what I said - it does not matter that you had a friend that said i know about military life and you said no you don't - that does not make that argument valid. You cannot tell someone else not to have an opinion simply because they have not experienced something first hand. Second of all I do not remember getting your RSO status info (why would I want that in the first place?) And I am not an RSO but I sure have a lot of opinions about it

true Wisconsin - I heard a detective on TV the other day saying that he was trying to get a particular suspect to talk - he said so I went about becoming his new best friend to get him to talk - that is what they do and most people respond to someone saying I want to help you as much as I can ....

First off, POINT OUT WHERE THE HELL I TOLD YOU OR ANYONE ELSE they can't have an opinion. I'm getting pretty fed up and pissed. Go back and re read my posts. all I'm going to say on this before I lose my temper.

Second. I pm'd it a few years ago when someone on here was accusing me of being a phony SO to stir up trouble. You know who I am talking about.

Coastie - (sigh) Before you get all riled up again I'm honestly trying to explain something to you and trying to calm things down

The problem is you have said multiple times now nobody can criticize or comment on anything unless they have been on both sides. At best this is telling anyone reading your posts they can have an opinion but they don't have the right to ever voice that opinion under any circumstances unless they too have been on both sides.

That's a generous interpretation of your comments. The average person reading your comments is going to take them to mean they can't have any opinions about you or police in general or anything else unless they have been on both sides of whatever is being discussed. Why? Because an opinion is absolutely worthless unless one can act on it by doing something like voicing it and you're telling they can't.

So while technically you haven't specifically stated no one can have an opinion you have told everyone they cannot voice any of them and because of that by extension whatever opinions they might have are worthless.

If you apply this logic to comments you make versus how others perceive them then you can certainly have an opinion but unfortunately you have absolutely no right to voice that opinion and criticize how others take your comments. You are not and cannot be on both sides in this case. I'm sure you're going to accuse me of making a pointless argument but I'm not. I am however making an absurd point because it's the absurdity of the logic - the idea you can't criticize others unless you have been on both sides that Advocate has been trying to point out. By criticizing her you're making yourself out to be a huge hypocrite because the circumstances and the logic dictate you have no right to.

You get angry here all the time because you think people are being stupid or they're attacking you or something you said. They really aren't but there is a severe disconnect between what you say - how people perceive what you're saying and how you perceive what they are trying to say. Instead of attacking or blowing it all off try slowing down, take a deep breath and try to look at things differently or from a different viewpoint. I can guarantee that if you do you won't get nearly as angry nearly as often and you won't royally piss off nearly as many people.

Coastie, this is what you said. "I said what i said and I mean't it just like you interpreted it. You can have your opinions, in fact, how many times now have I said that?? However, no, you can't criticize some one for their motivations unless you've been there, sorry, but that's just how it is."

A criticism is also an opinion... Which you clearly state here, one can't have. You can tell people to 'go away' you can tell them that they don't understand, but you can't take away their ability to form an opinion with the information that they have been presented with and sought out. That is the constitutional right that you and your friends fought for in those wars and police actions. So for you to say that seems to go against everything you appear to stand for.

I am glad to hear that Miranda is alive and well in the CG the last time you worked for them, since you are no longer a CG officer then I would assume you are not in the 'know' of their current policies and procedures. But there appears to be several officers throughout the US that do not advise their suspects that they are arresting of their Miranda rights. Nor do they make clear when you are are and aren't being detained by the way they lead you around the station, where they place you in a room where they close the door (usually an interrogation room). Please do not try to blow sunshine up my butt by saying that LE keeps my rights and my best interests at heart otherwise they would have believed you, one of their own, when you said you had no knowledge of that piece of CP that was in a TEMP folder on your computer and you wouldn't have done any time on the registry. Although I guess you got a break because you never actually went to prison. Right?

Can we beat this bush anymore? Its stomped on, beaten, run down. But really???? Look at it. One will say it just needs a little caring. One will say it is a dead bush get rid of it. One will say...maybe i will give it a little care and if it dont shape up i will throw it out. One will give it water. One will give it a chance. One will throw it in the garbage. So this is where we are? We base this on our own life experiences. Is anyone better than the other? What is the goal here? Is it to save the bush? Or is it to put it to rest? Is it to tell our neighbors how to take care of it? Think about it.

We are from all different walks of life. We all have opinions, thoughts, ideas and experiences. Some we feel passionate about while others we dont. I will be the first to admit i get angry when people do not agree with me. We all want acceptance. We all want our family and friends to embrace and support our ideas. So what happens when we disagree? We can argue and not see the other persons point of view. We can hate each other. We can agree to disagree.

We are here for a reason. We can gain so much from each other. OMG!!!!! I sound like a tree hugger! Let us keep the communication going......and the compassion and caring all of us have!

Wisconsin,
Did you look up the SCOTUS cases I posted?
Miranda vs AZ and Berghuis vs Thomkins?

The Supreme Court held that it is MANDATORY that a person be advised of their Right to Remain Silent and that once the suspect invokes his/her right, questioning has to be stopped, period.
If your husband was not informed of his rights, he should have told his lawyer and that would be grounds for a dismissal. It's called the 5th amendment and has been upheld by the highest court in this country, even POTUS can't circumvent it.

You know what? Of all people on here, you were one of the last that would attack me and put words in my mouth on something you very little about.
One of their own? FYI, I hadn't been in LE for almost 10 yrs when this happened and never mentioned it.Of course they found out in the course of their investigation. Did you ever think, in fact when I first joined this group I put my story out and maybe I didn't go to prison because I was only charged with a fucking misdemeanor. Attempt. Poss. because they couldn't prove 'Knowingly".

I don't know what happened on this group, it has turned from a SUPPORT group to an 'I HATE cops, I HATE Christians, I HATE conservatives, I HATE anyone who disagrees with me group.

Cops certainly have to tell people of their rights, but then they use every trick in the book to try and get people to go against what is in their best interest, which is to shut the heck up. I do not blame cops, it is a sort of gamesmanship, if someone I loved was harmed I certainly would have no problem with the police using such tactics. Does that make cops bad people? I don't think so, but it does make them people you shouldn't talk to if you are thought to be a suspect in a crime. Like Rew has always said there are three people police are mainly interested in, victims, witnesses and suspects. If you aren't a witness or a victim, you need to get a lawyer before you talk to the police. Exercise your right to shut the heck up, even if you are innocent the police will try and find wrong doing.

Again I do not think this is wrong what the police are doing. Our legal process is an adversarial one, where you take innocence on one side and guilt on the other and you ram them into each other and see what comes out the other side. They're there to do their job, do they go overboard, no question. I can certainly see when police have stepped over the line and bent and downright broken the protections we are supposed to have in place. My heart goes out to the people that have been on the wrong end of that.

The question that I think Coastie and I have is a matter of degree and definition. I do not define the police trying to talk someone into giving up their rights as a bad thing. If you are stupid enough in the first place to commit a crime, and then stupid enough to talk to the police about it, well I just see that as Darwinian justice. What I consider a much greater evil is that the majority of Americans are unaware of the rights that we do have. I see this as a mix of a lot of apathy and poor education. We have so many freedoms in this country but we don't even take the time to read about them!

There is also no way to know the prevalence of police misconduct, what I was suggesting earlier but I do not think many understood what I was trying to say is we are pretty biased when it comes to the police. My point to show that was say lets pretend we are in a courtroom and we are jurors for a trial about police misconduct. We are star jurors for the prosecution, they want us because most of us see the police in a very negative fashion. The defense hates us, they think we cannot fairly look at the evidence of their client based on our prior experiences. They will attempt to ask questions during voir dire to try and illicit information about our prior police experiences. As soon as they find a negative experience they can challenge for cause. Each side has a number of preemptory challenges they can use to get rid of jurors they do not like, but if you challenge for cause you can remove a juror and wouldn't lose your preemptory challenges. What I am saying is that we would all most likely be challenged for cause and be kicked off the jury in a case against a police officer of misconduct because of our prior bad experiences with the police.

To further drive that point home, I said look at someone like Val. She does nothing all day but look at stories of sex offenders screwing up. It is no wonder she thinks all sex offenders are scum, because all she reads are articles of sex offenders breaking probation, re-offending, etc. When you try to tell her, "Hey Val, look at the recidivism rates!" She just says that does not match up with my personal experience nor does it match up with the daily headlines, so you must be cooking the books. This is information bias and cognitive dissonance to the max and I was just wondering if maybe some people here may also have that same issue but we are too blinded by our own prior bad experiences to see that.

I do not disagree with either side here, for me it comes down to the prevalence of police misconduct, and I don't see that happening as much as some people here think.

West - LOL! but what is wrong with tree huggers ... ? lol

Advocate,

In the prison world, tree hugger refers to a child molester or a rapist.

Tree hugger as a slang word for someone in there for a sex crime is a little more "dignified" than chomo.

rewdiazepam

oh duh! I thought a tree hugger was a liberal nature lover! lol

I don't need to read SCOTUS documents to know that human beings are not perfect and just because they are told to do something that it is REQUIRED, that they will actually do it... You are putting words in my mouth, coastie... Also I don't recall anyone saying they hate Christians or conservatives other than you, in your most recent statement here. What I do recall saying is that religion has played a huge role throughout world history as a means to control the masses, I never said Christianity, I included all as well as my own religion. From the Inquisition, to the Crusades, to before Jesus was born. It is an easy and effective way to reach the common citizen no matter what era in time you come from. To deny that is to have never studied history and I know you are a smart guy, coastie.

It is my understanding that once in law enforcement and the military that you are essentially part of a brotherhood of sorts where benefit of the doubt is given more readily unless there are extenuating circumstances. Even when they don't know each other. I have seen this with military folk that have never met but when they are introduced and their common ground established their demeanor changes between the two of them. That sense of brotherhood and camaraderie. So being out of the CG for 10 years doesn't seem all that long when I see men that haven't served since Viet Nam garner the same reaction from other fellow junior military folk.

I have not attacked you here at all Coastie... just stated my opinion and quoted you once after you asked, 'where did I say that?!?' You can take it as you will, because that is your opinion and point of view you are entitled to that.

Independent, the problem lies when a person hasn't done anything but they are coerced, bullied, tricked, misinformed, or whatever by society, their parents, the schools, the cops themselves in to not exercising their rights. How many times have all of you told the young children in your life that if they are in trouble or someone is scaring them that they should go to the nearest police officer? They are taught to trust LE completely without caution. That they are always there to help, even if really what they are there to do is gather information, whether it is being gathered to complete a scenario that they believe has happened or because they are investigating something you know nothing about, unknowingly incriminate themselves, not really realizing the damage they are doing to themselves until it is too late. Is this ignorance of the individual or something far more sinister that is perpetuating from childhood and all the teachings that are done during that time?

I don't believe that all cops are 'bad' or 'untrustworthy' but I have seen the damage a few bad apples in a department can do and realize that even one here and there through out the country can do an enormous amount of damage to a large number of people.

West asked a great question, what is the point here... From the 12 pages of responses I would say the predominant themes here are...
1. Bad apples are in all houses of law enforcement.
2. The methods used to interrogate citizens has been proven to be not as effective as hoped, but is still used for any number of reasons, from cost to preference of methods regardless of data.
3. While this is a support group, there are times when we all need to learn to handle the challenge of what others will say outside this group. If we can't learn to deal with it civilly here then how are we ever going to go up against the Valigators without loosing our cool. The question is asked by almost every newcomer here, "how do I deal with the family and friends that argue with me about why I am staying with this person?" And yet we can't even hold a conversation among ourselves in a safe place without it turning into some pissing match, even among the veterans who of all people should know better.

As for talking to the police if you are a witness or a victim, you should still have an attorney. NEVER talk to law enforcement without an attorney, they can tell you it makes you look guilty, but really, it is only protecting your constitutional rights, what's left of them.