If you are charged with or suspected of committing a crime . . .
You have the right to remain silent. Never talk to the police until you’ve had the opportunity to speak with a lawyer. The police very often lie to suspects in an effort to get them to talk, threatening harsher consequences if you exercise your right to remain silent and easier treatment if you talk. Don’t be duped by this tactic. Any promises the police might make to you are worthless, since what ultimately happens to you is not up to them. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
Although the police may lie to you, you should not lie to the police, which could get you charged with obstruction of justice. Instead, you should remain silent, except to ask to speak with a lawyer.
Don’t talk to the police because you think by doing so you will avoid spending a night in jail. Very often, talking to the police will cause you to be kept in jail longer than if you had remained silent. The case of a client represented by John Kindley illustrates this reality perfectly. The client had been driving a vehicle that was stopped because his passenger was wanted by the police for questioning. After the client pulled over, the passenger fled on foot, and was apprehended by the police about a block away. The police found drugs dropped by the passenger nearby the place where he was apprehended. The passenger then told the police that the client had sold him the drugs. The client was arrested, but no drugs were found on his person or in his vehicle. At the jail, the client made the mistake, after being informed of his right to remain silent, of agreeing to a recorded interview with detectives. During the interview, the client initially lied to detectives and denied having sold drugs to his passenger, but eventually changed his story and confessed to selling the drugs. The client was charged with drug dealing as a Class B Felony, and sat in jail while his case was pending because he could not pay the bond for a Class B Felony. Fortunately, John Kindley was able to arrange a favorable plea bargain for the client, under which the client pled to simple drug possession as a Class D Felony, and was eligible to have his conviction dropped to a Class A Misdemeanor upon satisfactory completion of one-year probation. But the results could have been far worse. If the client had been convicted of a Class B Felony, he could have been sentenced to up to twenty years in prison. On the other hand, if the client had simply exercised his right to remain silent, it is very likely that the prosecutor would not have been able to charge him with a crime at all because of lack of evidence, and that the client would have been released from jail in very short order.
If you are charged with committing a crime, sometimes accepting a plea bargain will be in your best interests, but sometimes your interests will best be served by requiring the prosecution to prove its case at trial. You are presumed innocent until you plead guilty or until a unanimous jury of your peers finds you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. John Kindley will advise you about the law as it relates to the factual circumstances of your case, but ultimately the decision whether or not to plead guilty is yours alone. Whether you choose to plead guilty or to go to trial, John Kindley will zealously represent and advocate your interests at all stages of the process.