Be Smart and Lawyer‐​up!

Last week we hosted a book forum for Professor James Duane’s new title, You Have the Right to Remain Innocent. In addition to teaching you something about constitutional and criminal law, this lecture offers valuable practical advice that can help you and your friends to avoid prosecution and imprisonment and save thousands of dollars in legal fees. As Duane notes, the key thing to remember is that there is a fundamental discrepancy between what the police say to us and what they say to their own children regarding police investigations.


Here’s an excerpt from his book:

There are many ignorant sentimentalists who believe that our government is deserving of our loyal cooperation and support, and that every good patriot with an innocent conscience should be glad to answer any questions from government agents. That is hogwash.…You cannot write tens of thousands of criminal statutes, including many touching upon conduct that is neither immoral or dangerous, write those laws as broadly as you can imagine, scatter them throughout the thousands of pages of United States Code–and then expect decent, law‐​abiding, unsuspecting citizens to cooperate with an investigation into whether they may have violated some law they have never even heard about. The next time some police officer or government agent asks you whether you would be willing to answer a few questions about where you have been and what you have been doing, you must respectfully but very firmly decline.

The slim book is just 120 pages. Read the whole thing so you’ll have the confidence to assert your rights under pressure.


Here is the lecture:

Don’t keep this valuable information to yourself. Blast it out to friends and family members on social media.


Related Cato work here and here. The full book forum, with comments from Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett, here.