Know Your Rights

How to Deal with the Police

By: Michael Chesbro

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“Any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.” (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson writing in Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1949))

While we all still have rights under the law, rights that are intended to protect the innocent, the average person does not understand those rights. While police must inform suspects of their legal rights once a person has been taken into custody; police are also trained to work around those legal protections and will do whatever they can to get suspects to waive their rights and make statements against their own interests, or even to confess to crimes that they did not commit. This book is intended to help you understand your rights when dealing with the police.

Throughout this book we will repeatedly emphasize three basic principles when dealing with the police:

1. Ask for a lawyer.
2. Never consent to a search.
3. Invoke your right to remain silent – make no statement to the police under any circumstances.

To protect yourself when dealing with the police you must retain your rights, and to do that you must first know your rights.