How to Assert Your Right to Remain Silent

hi everyone my name is Tim Zarrillo and I'm shooting this video from Zorilla law LLC in our offices at 103 Exchange Street in Portland Maine on September 2nd 2011 thank you for watching this video in this particular video I just want to point out to you a distinction of a number of issues that I've discussed in previous videos on making sure to assert your right to remain silent as I've told you before silence is golden what how do you assert your right to remain silent well in 2010 in a five-to-four decision in the United States Supreme Court authored by Justice Kennedy the case of Berghuis V Thompkins came down and really sort of in my opinion at least created a situation where an ordinary waiver of silence would that would seem to apply doesn't apply I'll say what I mean by that it's a little complicated I know in that particular case there was approximately a three-hour interrogation related to a murder of a murder suspect the murder suspect Thompkins did nothing and said nothing that related to the case during those three hours in effect he just stood silent while questions were asked then the law enforcement officer decided to take a religious tract and started asking him questions about God culminating in the question of do you pray to God for shooting those boys down to which Thompkins said yes now his defense attorney quite properly and properly said that the that he had waived Miranda or that he had not waived Miranda but that he had asserted his right to silence during the three hours in which he said nothing it would make sense right they asked a bunch of questions he said nothing eventually you should come to the point where you would think that this means that the person who's saying nothing wants to remain silent however that's not what the Supreme Court said the Supreme Court said that you need to clearly and unequivocally assert your right to remain silent so just saying nothing under Berghuis V Thompkins is not enough when the police are asking you questions if you intend to remain silent so what do I tell my clients well sometimes what I do is if they're really concerned I give them the actual language on the back of one of my cards and I can do that for you if you're if you're concerned about a case you might be facing but essentially the language says this I am asserting my right to remain silent I am asserting my right to counsel I do not wish to answer any questions at this or any other time please do not answer me any questions please contact me any questions please contact my attorney Timothy Cirillo and direct all questions to him I'd like the opportunity to make a phone call to my attorney and that's about all it says and I you know I'll write that out for them on the back of one of my cards if they're concerned about the language of it so just remember that if a law enforcement officer questions you and you want to remain silent saying you want to remain silent is pretty important as screwy as that sounds but that's the United States supreme courts interpretation of it so we live with it so if you have any questions about this matter or any criminal case or a potential criminal case you think you might be facing you of course give me a call we have there are three other lawyers who practice criminal law at zero law who work for me all very confident and very skilled lawyers and of course I do as well myself but we have a number of people in our practice who can who can help you out myself included for the office number it's three for 76063 three four seven six zero six three in the 207 area code we're in Maine and we serve the entire state of Maine I have cases all over the state actually from Aroostook County to Ellsworth to of course a lot in Portland and elsewhere you can also go on the web to find out more about myself or about other lawyers in the firm or about the firm in general at WWF mellow calm that's wwg t zr i ll calm hope to be talking to you soon and thanks for watching this video

Channel: Zerillo Law, LLC

Views: 80,288

Rating: 4.9107294 out of 5

Keywords: Attorney, Lawyer, Maine Criminal, Police, Rights, Court, Cops, Portland

Id: _GzKXOWxtJo

Length: 4min 32sec (272 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2011