never handcuffed or read rights?

Question

Was I arrested? I didn't even have to go anywhere, when I asked the police later on during questioning, they said, "let's put it this way, if you're filling out a job app. and they ask you if you've ever been arrested, you check, "yes"
I've never been in trouble before.

Answer 1

You can be arrested without the use of handcuffs and without being advised of your Miranda rights.

A citation to appear in Court, like a traffic ticket, is a "Cite-release".. so technically, a little mini-arrest at the scene where you were pulled over and given the ticket, even though there was no handcuffs involved and no transport to jail.

Americans are entitled to be advised of their rights when the following two statements are true. 1. you were detained, meaning not free to leave; and, 2. you were being asked incriminating questions.

It is entirely possible that you were arrested. You need to check whatever documentation you were given by the officers and follow up with the Courts to see if they pursued any type of criminal complaint. If not, or if you didn't get documentation, then you probably weren't arrested.

And don't worry about job applications. The question is usually, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" NOT have you been arrested...

Answer 2

Handcuffs do not need to be applied to put a person under arrest, nor do you have to take the person somewhere. Sometimes I will go to someone's house and "technically" arrest them and not touch them because my intent is to release them with an appearance notice to attend court. Here in Canada police are supposed to tell you that you are under arrest and the reason (even for a technical arrest situation). Sounds like they did tell you in a roundabout way that you were under arrest. We are told in police college that if the person believes that they are being detained and can't leave when they want to (even without cuffs) they are under arrest.
Here in Canada rights to council must be read upon arrest. A separate caution must be read if the answers are to admissible in court.
I understand from reading about Miranda rights here in YA that this is only necessary if you are being questioned for the answers to be admissible in court.

Answer 3

Do you even understand when a police officer is required to read you your constitutional right under the Miranda ruling? If no questioning is conducted by law enforcement personnel persuant to an arrest, Miranda rights do not have to be advised. An arrest may only be the issuing of a Notice to Appear citation.

Answer 4

I believe you're only arrested if you're taken into the police station. If they just handcuffed you on the scene and just let you go, then you were being detained, which is not the same as arrest.

Answer 5

In your case did the police seize any drugs or other prohibited substance that would require analysis? If so a warrant could be forth coming.

Other than that if the police did not give a time and place to show up for a hearing you were not arrested.

Answer 6

Did you get charged for a crime? What was the questioning about?

Miranda can be defined as:
The Miranda warning is a police warning that is given to criminal suspects in police custody in the United States before they are asked questions relating to the commission of crimes. Police may request biographical information such as name, date of birth and address without reading suspects their Miranda warnings

MOre information regarding your situation is needed as if you were not given Miranda and you confessed to a crime in police custody, the case can be thrown out. If you don't think you were arrested then chances are you were not.

Answer 7

Miranda rights are only read to you in an interrogation, in a field interview you are not requiered to be read your rights. Having handcuffs placed on you does not equal an arrest most officers will say something like "You are not under arrest at this time I just want to put these on you for my saftey" or "You are being detained you are not under arrest".

Answer 8

First you don't have to be read any rights if you are arrested, only if you are questioned.

To be arrested you will have to have been taken in to the police station and fingerprinted and photo'ed.
The only exception is on minor drug charges where you have been given a ticket to appear.

The officer was just messing with you

Answer 9

First of all a disclaimer: Nothing in this answer or in any of the other answers that I post on Yahoo! answers should be construed as a legal opinion or as constituting legal advice. I do not practice law; if I did, I would need quite a bit more information about this incident before I could offer a competent legal opinion. That having been said, depending on how one defines an arrest, you may have been arrested. Even something as trivial as a traffic stop for a minor infraction can be considered an arrest, as you are not free to go until the officer conducting the traffic stop decides to send you on your way and/or issues a citation to you and makes you sign it with a promise to appear.

Most contacts that people have with the police are just that: Contacts. During the course of their day-to-day work, the police will often contact people and seek their voluntary cooperation by asking them questions. Other things being equal, you are under no obligation to answer such questions, and you can simply say, "I don't want to answer your questions." However, from a practical standpoint, it's not a good idea to be rude to someone who's wearing a gun, so you might want to say something along the lines of, "I'd really like to help you officer, but I'm very busy right now." If the officer says that you're free to go without any further ado, then it's pretty safe to say that you were never under arrest.

If you've told a police officer that you don't want to answer his or her questions, and he or she insists on having you stick around anyway, what would otherwise be an informal contact now bleeds over into the grey area of custodial interrogation. In other words, the fact that you are not free to go along on your way should send up some red flags, and anything that you say could be misconstrued and used against you later on. As such, you should usually say something along the lines of, "I'd really like to help you, officer, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have, but I haven't done anything wrong, and I don't want to say anything that might incriminate me, so if you have any questions for me that you want me to answer right now, I'd like to have a lawyer present."

While it can seem rather harsh, police officers can and often do handcuff people during a custodial interrogation, and most people in this situation would assume that they're under arrest. However, in many circumstances, the police have a right to detain you for questioning without placing you under arrest, and the use of handcuffs in such circumstances is often justified by concerns over a police officer's personal safety. Needless to say, the average law-abiding citizen would feel a sense of outrage or fear if he or she were put in this sort of situation, but these sort of feelings do not create any sort of legal obligation on the part of a police officer to issue a Miranda warning.

How long someone can be subject to a custodial interrrogation without actually being considered under arrest for the purposes of a Miranda warning is a judgment call. One of the key factors is whether you are transported to a second location such as a police station for questioning. Assuming, arguendo, that a suspect is legally entitled to a Miranda warning, such warnings are seldom actually given in the normal course of police work. In fact, almost every criminal defendant that I've ever met has told me, "They never read me my rights!" And most of the criminal defense attorneys that I know tell a similar tale of the defendants that they have met. However, I do not know of a single case where the charges against a criminal defendant were dropped and/or the evidence against him or her suppressed due to a failure to properly Mirandize. Simply put, it's almost always a non-starter.

Unless you were booked into jail or issued a citation of some kind, I think it's safe to say that you were never actually under arrest in the sense that you'd have to disclose it on a job application. However, it's impossible to say that for sure without knowing more about the circumstances giving rise to this question. Given what you've disclosed, my guess is that your name appears somewhere in some sort of internal "miscellaneous incident report."

Answer 10

You were not arrested. "Arrest" means to take into custody. That means you no longer have the right to do as you please. An officer must have probable cause to do it and must read you your rights at the time you are taken into custody.

I have never seen "have you ever been arrested" on an application, but I have seen "have you ever been convicted of a felony".

Police men and women are people to be appreciated for the invaluable duties they perform, but remember that they work for you the taxpayer, not the other way around.