When Are Your Miranda Rights A Factor During An Arrest?

Interviewer: How does this play into Miranda rights? Do you have a right to remain silent and, at what point if you make statements, can or can they not be used against you?

Kevin: You don’t ever have to provide statements to a police officer. Once you’re arrested, a police officer can ask you questions about your pedigree information, which includes address, phone number, date of birth.

Frankly, you still have no obligation to answer those questions. However, there may be no particular harm in answering those questions.

What Are The Police Actually Looking For During Questioning?

Conversely, once you start answering those questions during a DUI investigation, the police officer may claim that your speech was slurred or that you appeared incoherent or that the responses were not appropriate answers to the questions being asked.

At the time of the investigatory detention, those pedigree questions would not be asked generally. Those questions come into play when somebody’s been arrested. Prior to arrest, few questions are generally being asked of the driver.

As I explained previously, some of the questions pre and post-arrest concern the consumption of alcohol, where the person was coming from, where the person was going, or if the driver knew why he was being pulled over by the police officer.