Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

What happens now is you get a lawyer. Not being read your rights may or may not have an impact on the entire case, but the bottom line is you were arrested and potentially face criminal charges that could land you back in jail. it's time for a fade to face consultation with a local criminal defense attorney.

I agree with Mr. Dane. An attorney is going to want to evaluate the statements you made, and determine whether you were in custody and properly given a Miranda warning. If not, the statements may be subject to a motion to suppress.

What happens now is that you get to defend the criminal charges in court.

When arrested or charged with any crime, the proper questions are, can any evidence obtained in a test, search or confession be used against you, can you be convicted, and what can you do? Raise all appropriate defenses with whatever witnesses, evidence and sympathies are available for legal arguments, for evidence suppression or other motions, or for trial. If you don't know how to represent yourself effectively against an experienced prosecutor intending to convict, then hire an attorney who does, who will try to get a dismissal, charge reduction, diversion, program, or other decent outcome through plea bargain, or take it to trial if appropriate.

If serious about hiring counsel to help in this, and if this is in SoCal courts, feel free to contact me. I�ll be happy to help you fight the criminal charges and get the best outcome possible, using whatever defenses there may be.

I agree with Messrs. Dane, Roach and Nelson. In particular, I agree with Mr. Roach that you may or may not have been in custody when you spoke with the deputy. That matters because you were only entitled to a Miranda warning if you were in custody.

Deciding whether someone was or wasn't in custody at a given moment can be a surprisingly difficult question. You should discuss your case in detail with a lawyer and see what she thinks.

But even if you should have been given a Miranda warning, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win your case. It should get your statements to the deputy excluded from evidence, along with any other evidence they obtained solely because of what you told him. But the government will still be able to use other evidence against you. That includes statements from other eyewitnesses.

If the fire marshal saw you toss the couch onto the fire, that will be pretty strong evidence against you. It may very well be enough to get you convicted even if your statements to the deputy are not allowed into evidence. Even if the marshal didn't see you, other people might have and they might be called to testify.

You should get a lawyer right away.

Good luck.