Note quite, it has more legal significance than that. By this ruling you are effectively waiving your right to remain silent and your conduct surrounding your silence can then be used against you. Under old law the police could not interrogate you for hours if you were remaining silent. At some point it becomes obvious that a reasonable person is exercising their right to remain silent, and the police would have to stop. In addition, the police would not be allowed to comment on your silence in court. Now, with the new ruling, the evidence of your silence during hours of testimony might be admissible as evidence of your guilt whereas before the prosecutor was ABSOLUTELY barred from commenting or entering evidence about your exercise of your constitutional right. How many persons do you think will understand the difference between unambiguous and ambiguous? Hell, most people would not be able to put a definition to either word as it is.



This is not a matter of a suspect ignoring it, but not being able to understand how to effectuate their rights. Statement such as "I think I should be quite now," "Can you stop questioning me," "I don't want to talk to you" are all equivocal statements. To fully exerciser your rights will require a formalistic phrasing such as "I am evoking my right to remain silent," because simply saying "I will remain silent' does not touch upon the constitutional protections you have been offered.

I am not worried about myself, since I have the knowledge to understand and evoke my rights. However, I am deeply worried about those innocent persons who will be subject to interrogations for hours simply because they did not use the "magic words" to enforce their rights. That is simply wrong because so few persons would know how to do it. It is another card in an already stacked deck.