Limits to Type of Questions During Interrogation
Question: Are there limits to the types of questions that police officers can ask during an interrogation?
Answer: There probably are not limits; the question really is if someone says that they don’t want to speak to an attorney that probably gives law enforcement at least the free reign to ask questions that would be in the scope of what it is that they’re investigating. So if someone is confronted by law enforcement and they decide that they’re going to waive their rights, not speak to an attorney or have an attorney present, that’s probably going to give the investigating law enforcement officer free reign. I would think that they would ask questions that are relevant to the crime that they’re investigating. And remember: just because the person initially waived their rights and decided that they want to speak to law enforcement doesn’t actually prevent an individual from then later invoking the rights. So, if somebody says, “Yes, okay, I’ll speak with you.” And then a half-hour into the conversation they come to their senses and they’re like, “I really don’t want to continue to talk anymore,” they can re-invoke their rights and say, “You know what officer, you read me those rights, I want to stop talking.” And that often does happen in situations where an individual who’s the target of an investigation feels that they’re being intimidated by law enforcement in questioning or the questioning goes down an area where they’re like, “Eh, I’m not going to talk anymore.”
