In message <[log in to unmask]>,
at 10:28:55 on Mon, 6 Mar 2006, "Simon Howarth (RGC) Interim Information
Governance Manager" <[log in to unmask]> writes
><"I'm not saying it's the case, but perhaps the American immigration
>people are really asking if you have been served an arrest warrant
>(which requires the involvement of a court), rather than merely being
>compelled (rather than invited) to "accompany the officer to the
>station".">
>
>But if the US are asking "Have you ever been arrested?", and if you have
>been asked to accompany an officer to the station, then the answer is no.
Indeed.
>Being asked to accompany an officer is a voluntary thing and no arrest has
>taken place. You tell when you are arrested as you are read your rights.
Yes, but you can be arrested in two quite different ways: As a result of
an arrest warrant having been issued (which involves a judicial
process), and on an ad-hoc basis if you are [for some value of]
misbehaving in public. In these modern times that can even be simply for
being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There seems to me to be two quite different processes involved here, and
one should not be tarred by the same brush. Unless you believe in the
"no smoke without fire" principle.
Now, perhaps both methods are also in operation in the USA, and the
immigration people are interested in both. And I know we shouldn't trust
what we see on TV, but there does seem to be some concept in the USA of
being [forcibly] "brought in for questioning", at which point a clever
lawyer always says "if you aren't going to charge him, he's walking out
right now". Does such a process come under the USA's understanding of
"being arrested"?
--
Roland Perry
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