Invoke Right to Remain Silent
If you are con­tacted by law enforce­ment offi­cers con­cern­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, you should imme­di­ately retain coun­sel. The offi­cers may make it seem that you are merely a wit­ness, or that they want to hear “your side of the story.” Resist the impulse to “talk your way out” of the prob­lem, as this will only make mat­ters worse. Meet with an attor­ney first, and take the attorney’s advice as to whether you should speak with law enforce­ment, whether you are truly just a wit­ness, or whether you should invoke your Fifth Amend­ment right to remain silent. Remem­ber, if you invoke your right to remain silent, this can­not be used against you in any pros­e­cu­tion. This means that the pros­e­cu­tion can­not men­tion it to the jury should your case go to trial–i.e., the jury will not be informed that offi­cers attempted to speak with you, but that you refused cit­ing your Fifth Amend­ment privilege.

Take Notes
After you are con­tacted by law enforce­ment, it will be help­ful to your attor­ney if you make some notes about the encounter. What, exactly, did the offi­cers say? What was the rea­son they gave for attempt­ing to ques­tion you? What was the agent’s name? What gov­ern­ment agency was he or she from?

Don’t Obstruct Jus­tice or Influ­ence Wit­nesses
Finally, do not in any way attempt to obstruct jus­tice, or inter­fere with their inves­ti­ga­tion. If you do so, you could face pros­e­cu­tion for the crime of obstruc­tion of jus­tice, which car­ries seri­ous crim­i­nal penal­ties, includ­ing prison time. Do not attempt to influ­ence any wit­ness, or sug­gest that wit­nesses should not speak with law enforce­ment. Do not say or do any­thing that could be inter­preted as influ­enc­ing a wit­ness. There are many cases that get stronger when some­one sus­pected as a crime decides to “han­dle things” on their own by obstruct­ing jus­tice. The Martha Stew­art case is an exam­ple. The under­ly­ing finan­cial inves­ti­ga­tion against her was civil in nature. How­ever, her actions and per­haps “atti­tude” resulted in a pros­e­cu­tion for obstruc­tion of jus­tice and mak­ing a false state­ment to a fed­eral officer.

Dis­claimer: The legal infor­ma­tion pre­sented at this site should not be con­strued to be for­mal legal advice. Any results set forth here were depen­dent on the facts of that case and the results will dif­fer from case to case. Please con­tact Tim War­riner, Esq. for legal advice spe­cific to your sit­u­a­tion. This web site is not intended to solicit clients for rep­re­sen­ta­tion in crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings out­side of the State of Cal­i­for­nia, except for those mat­ters pros­e­cuted in U.S. Fed­eral Courts. Tim War­riner, Esq. is a licensed Cal­i­for­nia attor­ney. The infor­ma­tion con­tained in this web site is gen­eral in nature. It is pro­vided for infor­ma­tional, illus­tra­tive and adver­tise­ment pur­poses only. It is not legal advice. It should not be relied upon in mak­ing legal deci­sions or in place of a con­sul­ta­tion with an expe­ri­enced and knowl­edge­able attor­ney regard­ing a spe­cific mat­ter. Read­ing this site, send­ing us infor­ma­tion, or receipt of infor­ma­tion from us does not estab­lish an attor­ney — client rela­tion­ship. Our review of, and/or response to, your query does not mean that we are rep­re­sent­ing you or that we are your lawyers. State­ments, tes­ti­mo­ni­als and endorse­ments con­tained herein do not con­sti­tute a guar­an­tee, war­ranty, or pre­dic­tion regard­ing the ulti­mate result or out­come of your legal mat­ter. Links from this web site to the web site of another entity does not state or imply the exis­tence of a rela­tion­ship between Tim War­riner, Esq. and that entity. A writ­ten, signed retainer agree­ment is a pre­req­ui­site for Tim War­riner, Esq. to rep­re­sent you.