Notification of the rights of the person in custody following the new offence he or she is suspected of committing

Where a person is taken into custody on the basis of an offence, the omission, in the notification of his rights, of other offences which he is suspected of having committed or attempted to commit shall entail the annulment of only the hearings held during custody where this has resulted for him in effective prejudice to his interests, and of the acts of which they are the necessary support.

The French Court of Cassation confirms the traditional case law on the subject in that “failure to notify the person in police custody of a change in the classification of an offence which he is suspected of having committed or attempted to commit, ordered by the public prosecutor, may lead to the annulment of the decision only if it has resulted in effective prejudice to his interests, within the meaning of article 802 of the Code of Criminal Procedure”.

In the case in question, the Investigation Chamber ruled that there was no grounds for annulling an act or document in the proceedings in that the person in custody, in answering the questions of the investigators, had not made any statement in which he had incriminated himself with regard to the facts at issue in the new offence.

Crim., 15 October 2019, No. 19-82.380