Arrest

If you were arrested on suspicion of committing a crime you can protect your rights and limit your exposure by invoking your right to remain silent. DO NOT talk to the Police. They can and will use your statements against you. Tell the Police you want to speak with a local  Santa Barbara Criminal Defense attorney . Contact our office immediately, before contacting a bail bondsman.

An arrest is the action of the police, or person acting under the law, to take a person into custody, usually so that they may be forthcoming to answer for the commission of a crime. In many legal systems, an arrest requires mere verbal information to persons that they are under arrest; the laying of hands or restraints upon the arrested person is usually not required to affect an arrest. Also, there are certain non-criminal arrests that allow for the seizure of representatives not present in the legislative body lacking a quorum, and the forfeiture of property.

For serious crimes, the police typically take suspects to a police station or a jail where they will be incarcerated pending a judicial bail determination or an arraignment. In other instances, the police may issue a notice to appear specifying where a suspect is to appear for his arraignment.

While an arrest will not necessarily lead to a state sanction such as imprisonment, the arrest itself may have serious ramifications, such as a loss of a job due to inability to pay bail, loss of public housing, and social stigma. Such effects are termed the collateral consequences of criminal charges.

Legal cautions

The reading of the Miranda warning or similar "caution" to an arrestee advising him or her of rights is not legally required upon arrest. A legal caution is required only when a person has been taken into custody and is interrogated. Legal cautions are mandated in the US, most Commonwealth and other common law jurisdictions, and countries where the right to legal counsel, the right to silence, and the right against self-incrimination have been clearly established.

“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. ”

The person must also be told what crime they are being arrested for and why it is necessary to arrest them, and they may be asked if they understand the caution. Some officers, however, do not ask this question so the suspect does not have the option to claim he or she did not understand the caution as a form of defense.

"Whether a person has been arrested depends not on the legality of his arrest but on whether he has been deprived of his liberty to go where he pleases."