Our right to silence?

recently one of my coworkers was taken in for questioning. he told me he exercised his right to remain silent and was threatened to be charged with failure to cooperate and impeding an investigation. i was surprised he could stay quiet for five hours. so my question is do we really have the right to remain silent? and could the police actually charge him like that?|||As Americans we do have the right to remain silent. When any police officer have a lot of questions needed to be answered they use a tactic like the one you stated. If they have no information they can only detain you for 72 hours without a reason to. they will play good cop/bad cop. if you exercise this right they will have no option but to release you.





If this was a group of X people all it in the group takes is one person to talk and they can hold you longer and try to gather more pieces of the puzzle by trying to make you talk. If you remain silent in this case and it is found that you are a part of this crime. you can be charge with withholding information(or some charge like this) and any charge brought up in this case. most of the time if the police think you have information they will charge everyone and hope one person comes out and talks(the person who talks get a plea bargain)





We have this right but any piece of Evidence(Physical or Verbal) could result in a charge. so it really is up to you weather you want to talk and have the process go faster. or remain silent and the charges if any will start at the maximum charge/crime





if you know you are innocent talk. do not with hold any information. if you are doing this for a family member or friend i would not advise it.|||I suppose they could get him with obstruction of justice|||No they cannot charge him for invoking the 5th. That is a technique used by cops when the right to remain silent is not paired with a request for a lawyer. The only reason they could keep speaking to him is because he did not ask for a lawyer; he has the right to remain silent, but cannot force the cops to be silent. Always ask for a lawyer upon invoking the 5th amendment, then they cannot ask anything more than your name, and the interrogation must halt until the lawyer is present. It does not matter if you are a suspect or a witness, the 5th Amendment is the 5th Amendment, protection from self-incrimination, it is the right to remain silent, regardless of the circumstances.|||He never asked for an attorney, so yes they can drill him with as many questions as they like. His choice to answer or not. Surely won't make matters any easier not talking and not asking for an attorney though, but his choice none the less.|||you have the right to remain silent, but remaining silent is sometimes an indicator of guilt, the police wear a badge and are sworn to uphold the law at all cost,but some of them i would definately not trust, They can make up the law as they go,and sometimes they do and almost always defend each other even if the officer broke the law. RULE 1 DONT TRUST THE POLICE|||Your right to remain silent is your protection against SELF-incrimination. You do not have the right to refuse to answer questions about a matter where YOU are not in jeopardy of being charged with a crime. Yeah, I was amazed the first time I bumped into that one myself.|||He had the right to remain silent. He also had the right to call for a lawyer.


What he should have done is give then personal information for identification and that's all .


Police will threaten to charge you with everything under the sun, but not with a lawyer present. In 75% of the criminal cases the "client" convicts himself because he can't keep his mouth shut, brags, or justifies actions he took.





When interviewed.....know nothing


When charged .....,lawyer up.