A commonly held belief is that if you are arrested and the police fail to read you your rights, your case will be invalidated and possibly dismissed.  This belief is not, however, accurate.  If police fail to read you your Miranda rights, the relevance of that failure is that the prosecutor cannot use any statements obtained from you following your arrest in their prosecution.

 

To have your Miranda rights

One legal concept I frequently get questioned about is the statute of limitations.  Different offenses have different applicable statutes of limitations, meaning that different offenses have different set time limits for the filing of charges.  Some offenses, of course, have no statute of limitations at all.  Should a statute of limitations apply and charges not be filed within the pertinent time period, then charges cannot be filed at some later

In December 2012, Katie Couric reported on two highly emotional stories, in which innocent victims lost years of their lives in prison for crimes they did not commit. The case of Thomas Kennedy sounds so outrageous it might be the stuff of a soap opera. Unfortunately, it is all too real. Kennedy, a Washington State scrap yard worker, was accused of raping his then 11-year-old daughter, Cassandra. Kennedy and

Recent legislative actions and court proceedings have brought the right to bear arms and self-defense into the national limelight. Most people live with the understanding that they have the right to own a gun and to defend themselves with it if the need arises. It’s important to note, however, that these laws aren’t all encompassing, and they even vary depending on which state a person calls home. Without knowing the

Typically, a warrant is required to search inside of a home or in the area immediately surrounding and associated with a home (an area known, legally, as the curtilage of the home).  However, there can be exceptions to that general rule.

 

One situation where a warrant is not needed to search a home is where what is known as “exigent circumstances” exist.  Exigent circumstances are an exception to the