At one point during the interrogation, the investigators even threatened to have his pet Labrador Retriever, Margosha, euthanized as a stray, and brought the dog into the room so he could say goodbye. “OK? Your dog’s now gone, forget about it,” said an investigator.

Finally, after curling up with the dog on the floor, Perez broke down and confessed. He said he had stabbed his father multiple times with a pair of scissors during an altercation in which his father hit Perez over the head with a beer bottle.

Perez’s father wasn’t dead — or even missing. Thomas Sr. was at Los Angeles International Airport waiting for a flight to see his daughter in Northern California. But police didn’t immediately tell Perez.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1571·
    6 months ago

    Unfortunately, there has been precedent for the argument that the right to remain silent is one that needs to be continuously and positively invoked.
    So if they keep interrogating you and you choose to start talking, that can be interpreted as you waiving your right to remain silent.

    https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/questioning-after-claiming-miranda.html

    https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-how-invoke-your-right-silence.html

    Remaining silent is not enough, you have to articulate that you want to invoke your right to remain silent, unambiguously request a lawyer (no “I think I should have a lawyer for this”), and request a lawyer generally (no “I want a lawyer before I answer any questions about where I was”).

    “I am invoking my right to remain silent and I want a lawyer” is basically all you should say.

    The ACLU remains an excellent resource for being aware of your rights.

    https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/stopped-by-police

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.eeEnglish
      95·
      6 months ago

      My father-in-law is a defense attorney for juveniles, he always said that the best thing to say is " I understand you guys are just doing your jobs, and I really would like to cooperate, but to do so I need a lawyer present".

      Otherwise they can basically classify you as a combative witness, or claim that you are interfering with an ongoing investigation.

      By saying that you really want to help, it puts the imperative of wasting time on their end. If you guys need the information that bad, you should be rushing to get some representation here as fast as possible.

    • Thrashy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      381·
      6 months ago

      It’s fun to mock sovcit whackos, but this is the sort of thing that gives them the idea that there are magic words they can invoke that let them wallhack through the legal system. The judicial system has spent literally hundreds of years working hand-in-glove with police and prosecutors to make it as difficult as possible for the everyday citizen to exercise the legal rights that protect you from them, and only by knowing exactly how to navigate the legal labyrinth set up between you and those rights can you actually use them.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        171·
        6 months ago

        A lot of it’s not intentionally for that purpose, but a side effect of hundreds of years of arguing over wording and what exactly the law means in different situations.

        The cases that caused the “disagreeable” (most polite phrases I can think of) changes to Miranda protections happened only in the past few decades.

        It’s still preposterous that the system, which is constitutionally pretty obviously slanted against the government, is so eager to find loopholes in protections for people to the advantage of the government.