Whether guilty as accused or not, every enlightened mind under criminal investigation will prefer to maintain their silence. The reason for this is that it is their fundamental human right which they wouldn’t like to throw away on a platter of gold. More so, they are aware that there is nothing like “off-record” during an investigation. So, they wouldn’t know what they will say that would be used against them in the court of law. While the poor ones among them usually strive to prove their innocence, hardened criminals with the financial buoyancy will keep mum throughout the process because they are certain of hiring the best attorneys in town to defend them. Puryear Law (2018) states on his website that: “When accused of a crime, most people will naturally wish to express their innocence and explain exactly how they have done nothing wrong. It is only human nature to want to defend oneself against accusations. However, doing so can be disastrous from a legal perspective, which is why it is best to remain silent and seek an attorney at once.” So, when criminals are privy to pieces of information as the one quoted above, they tend to remain silent, no matter the level of threat.
As a police officer or other official accuses a person of a crime, that person is generally under a great deal of stress. That stress will often make even the most intelligent and articulate person misspeak, thereby giving incorrect or otherwise harmful answers to the questions. Moreover, police officers are trained to ask questions in a manner that will produce useful evidence for the prosecution. Furthermore, human memory is imperfect, and the police and prosecution will try to use the smallest inconsistencies against the accused (Law, 2018). Taking all these factors into cognizance, criminals better remain silent. The stress criminals undergo while facing law enforcement officers make them lose their real selves and if they are to talk, most of their words will be inconsistent and they will most probably lose out on the case. Law testified to this by affirming that “Looking back at the hundreds of cases in which I have represented clients who spoke to the police before consulting with me, the majority of those clients caused some amount of harm to their case. Often the harm was small, and did not cause any real problems. Other times, the harm was great. For that reason, I always prefer to hear that a client has chosen to remain silent.” By now, it should by getting clearer to you why criminal suspects choose to play silence during investigation.
Another reason criminals prefer to hold their silence is that people have over time being punished for offences which they knew nothing about. In instances where law enforcement officers are in search of evidence before an arrest can be made, they rely on statements made by suspects. So, instead of implicating themselves, they had better remain silent. You might make mistakes when explaining where you were at the time of a crime that the police interpret as lies; the officer talking to you could misremember what you say much later; you may be tricked into saying the wrong things by cops under no obligation to tell you the truth; and your statements to police could, in combination with faulty eyewitness accounts, shoddy “expert” testimony, and sheer bad luck, lead to you being convicted of a serious crime (Cheadle, 2016). So, instead of being trapped in this innocent irretrievable error, you had better married the silence option.
Sacco (2018) notes that speaking during investigation is the first worst mistake any accused can make on earth. He advises people to maintain their calm and simply reply officers on the urge to talk thus: “I’m not talking to you without my lawyer.” The fact is that there have been huge enlightenment going on all over the world for people to always play silence during investigation and this, unfortunately, has been taken advantage of by criminals. Despite the fact that they are aware of being guilty, they will prefer to remain silent. What this does to the whole process is to delay everything and frustrate the officers. You know that officers can hardly do any tangible thing without obtaining statements from the accused. So, before they are begged, lured and threatened to talk, time would have been lost and when everything is later rushed, many vital instances would not be taken into cognizance. If care is not taken, the criminal who is certainly the offender would be freed on the grounds of technical defaults and this is a bad omen for the generality of the society.
A common problem most people battle with is workplace investigation. The difficulty with workplace investigations is that they are conducted without regard to an employee’s constitutional rights. For instance, if you work for a pharmaceutical company and get interviewed by compliance, you may have no idea what the investigation involves, and you may not realize that what you say could be turned over later to federal law enforcement. The company could use that interview against you without regard to your right to speak to law enforcement or your right to contact a lawyer. In short, workplace investigations are nothing but a tangled mess of trouble for employees. It can sometimes be difficult for a lawyer to decide what rights apply and when (SLF, 2018). So, this makes the process messier for the employee. If he is tricked to talk at that point to a law enforcement officer, they will definitely go offline and this is to the advantage of the company, even if they are innocent.
The first issue for you to consider is whether your employer provides a process for an investigation and your rights in it. For instance, if you are a member of a union, your union contract may give you the right to have a representative at some meetings with management. Similarly, your company may have published guidelines that it is supposed to use when conducting an investigation. These guidelines may, for instance, indicate that you have the right to bring a representative. Understand that there are no absolute rights in many instances. Strangely, there is nothing necessarily illegal about a private company choosing not to follow its own guidelines. Still, if you find yourself involved in an investigation, you know what the company’s internal rules are. You can often find these in the employee handbook and on the internal company website (SLF, 2018). So, until you establish all these facts, it is not advisable to speak during investigation.
References
Cheadle, H (2016). A Law Professor Explains Why You Should Never Talk to Police. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mvkgnp/law-professor-police-interrogation-law-constitution-survival
Law, P (2018). The Importance of Remaining Silent When Accused of a Crime. Retrieved from https://www.puryearlaw.com/2013/12/11/the-importance-of-remaining-silent-when-accused-of-a-crime/
SLF (2018). Surviving Workplace Investigations. Retrieved from https://www.spigglelaw.com/employment-blog/surviving-workplace-investigations/
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