“Now that 17 people have been arrested in connection with the Kim Kardashian West robbery in France, I suspect it will be a relatively short time before we start hearing details of the crime from the criminals accused themselves,” says criminal defense attorney Darren Kavinoky. The reported robbery attempt occurred in October of 2016 in Paris, France during Fashion Week. According to The New York Times, Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office “said that investigators had identified some of the assailants using DNA found at the crime scene and security camera footage.” [1]
Known for his on-air quips and expert legal “misbehavior” analysis, Kavinoky muses, “As one of my greatest mentors taught me, when it comes to multiple defendants in a criminal prosecution, there are only two kinds of secrets: those that aren’t good enough to keep, and those that are too good to keep! It’s a common scenario for prosecutors to cut a deal with smaller players in order to get witnesses to testify against the primary wrongdoers.”
“This case also illustrates that laws differ not only from country to country, but from state to state and even courthouse to courthouse,” Kavinoky adds. “For example, it’s been widely reported that those arrested are being held for four days while they are being questioned. That would potentially offend the rights that criminal defendants have to be speedily arraigned, or brought to court to learn the charges against them and be provided with the basis for those charges.
Kavinoky further comments, “It also demonstrates something I can’t seem to remind people of often enough: the right to remain silent only helps those who choose to exercise it. Trying to talk your way out of trouble often serves to do just the opposite. Or even at its best, it now becomes a swearing contest as to whose version to believe: the officer’s, or the defendant’s. Best to avoid this problem entirely by keeping your mouth shut, except to ask for your lawyer.”
SOURCES
1. Aurelien Breeden. The New York Times. January 9, 2017. “17 Arrested in Kim Kardashian West Robbery Inquiry in France.” Retrieved via http://nyti.ms/2jkITXW.
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