Can a Lawyer Attend Your Arrest?

You get a phone call from the police, and they say, look, we want you to come in for questioning on a sexual assault. And you call our office and they said, well listen, I want to talk to a lawyer before I come in. That’s fine. You call our office and we say, well listen, this is the way to approach this, okay? I want you to phone back the police and ask them whether this is just for questioning  or if they intend to arrest you, because if it’s just for questioning, just refuse to go in, I don’t want you ever speaking to police about any charge. The police will typically tell you if it’s going to be an arrest, sometimes, they can lie of course but if they say it’s for arrest, then head in okay head and say nothing. You know, they’re going to bring in an interview room on any serious charge and trying to interrogate you absolutely say nothing. I have other videos about why you don’t want to cooperate at all with the police and that’s standard legal advice there’s no question about that. And you’re they’re going to give you a right to call a lawyer and the lawyer is going to say the same thing, call duty counsel, call us, we are going to tell you the same thing. Please shut up and don’t talk police and don’t ruin your defence. So in that situation, they say, well, can you do can you appear with me? Can you turn yourself in with me upon arrest and I said, look, we’ve all been watching American TV and in the states apparently, you know, lawyers will go in and go into the interview room and they seem to be there but the client will have been questioned which is idiocy in my view. I mean, it’s just American TV, but they are apparently entitled be in the interview room. We’re not here, okay. So there’s no utility having a lawyer hold your hand and go down to the police station, turn yourself and also where can do is taking the front desk and say here’s my client you know, he’s turning himself in there’s a warrant for his arrest, lawyers not allowed to do anything more than that. Can I go back to the back room? No, no, Mr. Kruse, you’ve been watching too much American TV, and you can’t do that. So we’re all a bit confused by that. So I say to clients, look, you know, there’s no need to pay a lawyer to go down and hold your hand. Well, you know, just present yourself at the desk. Get arrested, be polite, but not cooperating by talking  to them, be polite. State your name. Provide your ID. And frankly, don’t say another word after that. Don’t answer one question beyond that. And, you know, the police can lie to you. They’ll bring in an interview room, let them talk for an hour.  Put your head down on the desk and go to sleep. I mean, that’s, I mean, there’s some lawyers who tell people that, for cases.  I don’t necessarily recommend that it’s kind of impolite, but just sit there and say, look, I’m exercising my right to remain silent and being silent here. So you don’t need a lawyer to go down. It’s not allowed in fact, I could bring you down and present you the front desk, but we just tell people that’s just a complete waste of time. And I know some of the odd lawyer  does that is a heavy hand holding thing and covers the client but it’s just a complete waste of time and you don’t need that.  Just follow our advice. Ask the speaker a lawyer again, hopefully you get released if not, hopefully we can get you released on bail and go from there. So that’s some quick advice on, do I need a lawyer or can I have a lawyer attend with me? At the police station and there’s no utility of that whatsoever. So yeah, we were, I’m glad I was able to talk to you today about this, it’s is an interesting topic, this is a question that people often ask me which is kind of funny in a way about American TV. And you know, we have offices across the province if you have a need legal advice we have offices in Toronto, London, Kitchener in Windsor and we represent people throughout the provinces, all the territories in between. So for example, if you need to talk to one of our Toronto, sexual assault and drug lawyers, you can give us a call, or DUI lawyers we practice in all areas of law, but these are some of our big areas. Sexual assault, domestic assault and DUI are some other big areas and drug cases but we handle a full spectrum of criminal offences. Thank you for joining me today.