Reading Your Rights
In many countries, a suspected criminal being arrested must legally be read their rights as a suspect. The exact procedure, wording and overall intention of Reading Your Rights varies between countries. For country-specific forms of this, see You Do Not Have to Say Anything for the UK version and Miranda Rights for the US style.
Please only include examples on this page if they are either fictional or lacking a specific page.
No real life examples, please; let's not duplicate Wikipedia's list here.
Anime and Manga
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Fate and Chrono tell Vita and Shamal, respectively, that if they don't resist arrest, they will be allowed to plead in their defense.
- In StrikerS, the heroes merely tell the Numbers that they're under arrest, sometimes, but not always, stating the charges.
- Erio gives a similar reading of rights to an Evil Poacher in StrikerS Sound Stage X.
Comic Books
- Top Ten has Smax trying to do this to Commissioner Ultima while getting the crap pounded out of him. At one point, Ultima brings a heavy load on his head, and he just says, "Okay, let's try this again. You have the right to remain silent..."
- When Nodwick is arrested in a rather not-nice alternate reality:
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Legionnaire: You have the right to confess your transgressions. Any deviation from the truth will result in swift retribution and possibly death. Telling the truth is no guarantee of safety. You have the right to scream and beg for mercy, but that is often counter-productive. You have the right to die, but not until an agent of the state has utilized a weapon of some kind on your person. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you? |
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- And the refusal of a 'right to die' is not idle, in a world with ready access to resurrection spells.
Literature
- Discworld:
- Parodied in Guards! Guards! when Carrot makes an arrest, and begins the list of rights with things like "You have the right not to be summarily thrown into a piranha tank..." (Of course, this being Ankh-Morpork, the laws there might actually say that.)
- Also referenced by Vimes:
- Parodied in Guards! Guards! when Carrot makes an arrest, and begins the list of rights with things like "You have the right not to be summarily thrown into a piranha tank..." (Of course, this being Ankh-Morpork, the laws there might actually say that.)
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"Remember, the prisoner has rights. That means you do NOT put the boot in, even where it doesn't show." |
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- In Thud!, Vimes asks Sgt Colon if he read the prisoner his rights, and Colon replies that he did, but the prisoner didn't want his tea and biscuit. (Rights 5a and 5b. Prisoners only get Right 5c if Colon's remembered to buy the fancy biscuits.)
- In Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, New Crobuzon has a style of arrest requiring the presence of witnesses, usually dragooned by the militia into assisting in an arrest rather than acting under their own volition. Interestingly, this style of arrest was detailed in a Real Life situation in Robert Little's The October Circle as being in use in communist Bulgaria, complete with press-ganged witnesses.
- The Adjudicators' version of reading your rights in the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures is pretty close to "you have no rights" anyway, but Roz Forrester still adds her own spin:
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"I am obliged to inform you that your words, guestures and postures are being recorded and may form part of any legal action against you. Under the terms of the data protection act 2820, as amended 2945, I am also obliged to inform you that you and any appointed legal representative will be able to purchase a copy of all recordings upon payment of the standard fee. I am obliged to tell you that, but I won't bother. Just don't piss us around." |
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Live-Action TV
- Red Dwarf has the Space Corps. rights:
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You are formally charged with [crimes]. Anything you say now or do not say now may be used at a board of enquiry against you. Do you require any form of aid? |
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- The Doctor Who story "Frontier In Space" features an example where the statement more closely resembles the disclaimers found on competition forms and essentially means you have no rights at all.
Newspaper Comics
- An old editorial cartoon from the 1980's satirized the justice system of the Soviet Union by showing the KGB arresting someone while reading them the "rights" of "You have been set up, you have the right to remain set up. Everything we say can and will be used against you in a sort-of law. You have the right to an executioner. If you cannot afford an executioner, you will be executed anyway and your family will be billed for the bullet."
Video Games
- Prototype has this:
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You have the right to be ventilated. I have the right to burn your home and shoot your dog. Do you understand your rights as I have read them to you? |
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- Zork: Grand Inquisitor has this exchange, complete with cue card:
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Wartle: Go ahead and read him his rights. |
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- The protagonist of Baldur's Gate 2 has the option to ask an Obstructive Bureaucrat of Athkatla if "I have the right to remain silent". As if this wasn't anachronistic enough, the protagonist isn't even the accused, but simply a witness to a crime.