A New Jersey Criminal Defense Lawyer Explains Your Rights

Know Your Rights

If you were arrested on criminal charges and made a confession, chances are you didn’t have an experienced criminal defense lawyer by your side. If you did, you probably would have been advised not to talk to the police. However, even if you made a confession, that doesn’t mean your case is over. Your criminal defense attorney will want to closely examine how that confession was made to see if it was coerced. If so, your lawyer can argue that it be thrown out as evidence.

Understanding Coercion

A criminal defense lawyer will understand that being brought in for questioning by the police is very stressful. For instance, as your criminal defense lawyer will point out, if your family was threatened during the questioning, then anything you said could be invalidated. This holds true if matters of child custody or loss of government benefits was used as a bargaining chip by the police. If that happened, your criminal defense attorney will make a motion to the judge to keep that evidence out of the case, as such conduct is improper coercion.

For a confession to be valid it has to be voluntary. In some cases, if you were in pain from an injury or under the influence of drugs or alcohol and confessed, that could be considered involuntary. Additionally, the police can’t make up evidence to trick you into a confession. That might work on television shows, but many courts have found the practice to be coercion. All of this points out the need for a skilled criminal defense lawyer working on your side.