Illinois Is The 1st State To Tell Police They Can't Lie To Minors In Interrogations (npr.org) 195
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a new bill into law Thursday barring police from lying to underage kids during interrogations. From a report: Commonly used interrogation tactics, such as promising leniency or insinuating that incriminating evidence exists, are banned when questioning suspects younger than 18 under the new law, which goes into effect Jan. 1. According to the Innocence Project, an organization focused on exonerating wrongly convicted people, those types of interrogation methods have been shown to lead to false confessions. They've also played a role in about 30% of all wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA. Illinois once was called the "False Confession Capital of the United States," the organization said, because of a number of high-profile exonerations of people who falsely confessed to crimes they didn't commit. "In Illinois alone, there have been 100 wrongful convictions predicated on false confessions, including 31 involving people under 18 years of age," said Lauren Kaeseberg, legal director at the Illinois Innocence Project.
Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Schools should teach kids, Don't Talk to the Police [youtube.com]
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Yep. Police never ask you anything to see if you're innocent, they only ask you things to see if you're guilty. Nothing you say will ever be used in your favor, only against you.
Re:Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to you (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't they make this apply for lying to adults too?
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Informative)
Because police don't exist to protect the innocent, to help the needy, or to do justice. It exists, and this is the legal definition, to enforce the law, whatever it is. Which shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately is.
Even Adam Smith, who no one can accuse of having ever had any left-wing sympathies, summed up the role of police forces (approvingly, mind) as that of defending those with possessions from those without.
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Insightful)
Even Adam Smith, who no one can accuse of having ever had any left-wing sympathies,
People do accuse Adam Smith of having left-wing sympathies [existentialcomics.com]. He was born before "left" and "right" were a thing.
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Thanks, that was quite informative!
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Informative)
Smith held many views that would shock and appall the present-day conservatives and libertarians who worship him as the father of the free market.
"Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 5, Page 38.
"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 6, Page 60
"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 8, Page 80
"A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 8, Page 81
"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 8, Page 94
"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." --Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch. 9, Page 117
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Smith held many views that would shock and appall the present-day conservatives and libertarians who worship him as the father of the free market.
True, and I'd like to thank for the words I emphasized above. Traditional conservatives, in contrast, particularly those aligned with Chesterton, Belloc and other Distributists, are all in perfect agreement with Smith's remarks.
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Present day conservatives, if they know anything at all about distributism, would just call it evil socialism. Cooperatives? Credit Unions? Strong anti-trust legislation? Everyone owns their own means of production?!? Why, that sounds like big government communism!
So, how do we reduce the concentration of wealth, and spread it around so that everyone owns a relatively equal share of the means of production? And is there a way to do that without the gangster capitalists murdering anyone who tries it?
Conservatives != Libertarians (Score:2)
This is a widely misunderstood distinction, because 'Conservatism' as a separate creed, is so hard to define. Roger Scruton has made a serious effort to do so, but it's not easy. It's something about valuing the present system because it is an organic growth of our community, rather than endorsing any particular programme of rational change. This is regardless of whether the origin of the new idea, libertarian, 'scientific', socialist or whatever. In practice it becomes an argument for resisting change, tho
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how do we reduce the concentration of wealth, and spread it around so that everyone owns a relatively equal share of the means of production?
Distributists believe in bottom-up action. In their view, change must be brought about by workers organizing into cooperatives, growing those, then other workers doing the same, rinse, wash, repeat, until society is entirely structured on the basis of small individual entrepreneurs associated into voluntary cooperatives, which in turn wield political power through numbers both in terms of voters associated into them, as well as by means of their shared economic power. Once those are on the table, then polit
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We don't bro. I mean, I can't speak for the imaginary straw-leftists in your head but leftists I know have actually read Adam Smith and agree with a lot of what he says.
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Yup, the meaning of left and right in politics has always been extremely vague. The original French idea was particular to that place and time. But being pro or anti police logically should have nothing whatsoever to do with left vs right politics, or even politics. However in the modern world the police are seen as preserving the status-quo and so often it means being pro-police tends to be a conservative stance.
The free market itself is generally considered to be "neo-liberal", even though today neo-li
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Interesting)
Well sure, if you've never actually read anything he wrote. Adam smith predates the concept of left and right politics, but he's the canonical liberal and was a strong advocate of restraining the unchecked powers of corporations. He also was a supporter of unions and raising the mininim wage. Kinda doesn't sound like someone "no one can accuse of having any left wing sympathies.
The idea that he was some sort of right wing conservatism is solidly rejected by economists and historians. Because it just isnt true.
But theres literally people out there trying to claim martin luther king was a conservative so facts be damned right?
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Informative)
Kinda doesn't sound like someone "no one can accuse of having any left wing sympathies.
You're correct, but while those policies are usually associated with left-wing politics, that is, with politics that believes equality of wealth is needed for political equality, they aren't exclusive from the left. The English right, particularly those associated with the Distributist movement of Chesterton and Belloc, hold the same principles, all argued for from a strictly right-wing, strictly conservative perspective. Check, for example, Belloc's "The Servile State" to see how that's articulated.
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the hell don't they make it illegal for the Police to lie to ANYONE? Why didn't they make this apply for lying to adults too?
Because police don't exist to protect the innocent, to help the needy, or to do justice.
But they should.
It exists, and this is the legal definition, to enforce the law, whatever it is.
Well, convicting innocent people of crimes is not enforcing the law, so to the extend that lying to get a confession is a technique that tends to get false confessions, it harms the ability of police enforcing the law.
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But they should.
Indeed.
Well, convicting innocent people of crimes is not enforcing the law, so to the extend that lying to get a confession is a technique that tends to get false confessions, it harms the ability of police enforcing the law.
That depends on the purpose of the law. If that specific law has as its purpose to punish or restrict actual criminals, then this kind of interrogation does indeed leads to failure. If, on the contrary, it exists to terrify would-be criminals and dissuade them from committing new crimes, rather than merely punishing actual criminals for already committed crimes, then convicting innocents is fulfilling the purpose of the law, since would-be criminals don't know the convicted are innocent, all they see
Deterrence [Re: Crime to lie to police, why ca...] (Score:3)
...since would-be criminals don't know the convicted are innocent, all they see is tons of convictions....
At least two people know that the person convicted is innocent: that person, and the person who actually did the crime both know.
The information is going to diffuse out. If criminals believe that the people convicted aren't the people who did the crime, it's not going to be a deterrent.
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The information is going to diffuse out.
Maybe, but that's risky for the actual criminal. If he tells others he's the actual culprit, he risks being caught and imprisoned. As for the wrongly convicted, his claiming innocence more often than not falls on deaf ears.
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Because police don't exist to protect the innocent, to help the needy, or to do justice. It exists, and this is the legal definition, to enforce the law, whatever it is. Which shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately is.
Even Adam Smith, who no one can accuse of having ever had any left-wing sympathies, summed up the role of police forces (approvingly, mind) as that of defending those with possessions from those without.
There's nothing more anachronistic than discussing Adam Smith (who supported corporate restraint and worker's rights) in terms of left and right politics. Hell, even our "left/right" language is broken and completely disconnected to how politics are discussed in other 1st world democracies.
This is lunacy.
Re: Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to yo (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert Peel, the creator of the modern police force, defined the purpose of the police as the prevention of crime and disorder. He came up with the concept of policing by consent [wikipedia.org]: the police should secure widespread public cooperation through accountability and impartiality.
Even the best police department is as imperfect as any other human institution must necessarily be, so policing by consent is always a precarious proposition. But when the public no longer perceives the police as impartial, accountable, and trustworthy, policing by consent is out of the question. This leaves the alternative that Peel was trying to avoid: policing through naked and overwhelming force. The idea of police cracking some skulls does appeal to some people, but Peel rightly saw that kind of policing as a threat to individual liberty.
Tough on Crime wins elections (Score:2)
Though if you're on the Red team you might have a tough time finding one... Heck even the blues don't always have one, but as somebody who's voted in their primary for about 15 years now there's been one 90% of the time... but they always seem to lose.
We're going to be at an antagonistic stance with the police until we put an end to Tough On Crime politics. Which is a shame. Screw the ACAB
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Why the hell don't they make it illegal for the Police to lie to ANYONE?
Why didn't they make this apply for lying to adults too?
Indeed. Probably because some people with power want a lying Police, not one that has honor and integrity and would never stoop to such despicable tactics.
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Nothing I can say can work in my favor. "I am innocent" IS already the default position, nothing to be added here.
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Suspect: "In my defense I would like to say..."
Police: "If you're not guilty then why would you need a defense? Aha, caught you!"
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It is NOT a crime to lie to the police, at least not in my state. Not sure it is a crime to lie to the police in any state. It will however make them SURE you are guilty.
But it is a crime to lie to the FBI. That they can arrest you for.
Re:Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to you (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that entirely true? If you lie about a crime you yourself may have committed, I can see giving you a very grumpy pass.
If you lie about something you saw or didn't see while they are investigating something unrelated to you, that sounds like obstruction of justice which is illegal in most places. It seems like the safer bet is to have a bad memory. "I cannot recollect" pretty hard to disprove, unless you provide the evidence yourself.
Unless I know exactly what the police are investigating, and I agree with the prosecution of the law and it's intents, I don't ever remember anything I see, it's just clutter anyway.
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In Canada it is a crime to lie about your identity. Perfectly fine to remain silent. Giving false statements (er, lying) can be obstruction which is a crime.
I believe that is the same in most of the US as well but I could easily be wrong.
Re:Crime to lie to police, why can they lie to you (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point in the future we'll probably look back to the "plea bargain", and the way it is usually gained, as we do now to the times when torture was a suitable way to get a confession.
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You say that like they are different things. 18 hour interrogations that mostly consist of "confess to this or we'll frame you for something far more serious" is torture.
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We have a situation where >90% of prisoners have never had the jury trial the constituti
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My favorite part of that video is when the lawyer is done making his spiel about not talking he brings up a police officer who steps to the podium and basically declares "Everything he just said was absolutely correct"
Remind me again (Score:5, Insightful)
Entrapment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Put another way, it's entrapment.
Re:Entrapment? (Score:5, Informative)
It has some precedent in the Supreme court. It's not without limits but police are permitted to use deception in an interrogation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"Later case law has interpreted Frazier v. Cupp as the case permitting police deception during interrogations. The language of the ruling did not specifically state which forms of police deception were acceptable, but the ruling provided a precedent for a confession being voluntary even though deceptive tactics were used."
Much of it is also up to interpretation: In People v. Thomas (2014), the New York Court of Appeals unanimously concluded that the officers' conduct in eliciting incriminating statements from a father suspected of killing his infant son rendered the defendant's statements involuntary as a matter of law. The officers repeatedly offered false assurances that they believed the child's injuries were accidental and that the defendant would not be arrested, threatened to arrest the defendant's wife, and falsely told the defendant that his child was alive and the defendant should disclose what he did to save his child's life. The court ruled that these deceptive tactics, combined with a lengthy interrogation during which the defendant was hospitalized for suicidal ideation, all converged to overbear the defendant's will.
It kind of makes sense even though on the surface it seems scummy. Neither you or the officers are in front of a judge or under oath. More people just need to know to never talk to police. Don't try to be helpful, don't defend your name, don't try to explain. Don't say shit unless your lawyer is in the room. I think you have to tell them your name but that's about it but I am not a lawyer.
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Neither you or the officers are in front of a judge or under oath.
The officers actually are effectively under oath though. They're Officers of the court like Judges and Lawyers. There are standards that they are sworn to uphold. It gets a bit tricky of course, because they sort of have to wear two hats in some situations.
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Absolutely true, but the type of oath wasn't really specified. What was implied was "testifying under oath" and I just generalized it to being under an oath that includes a code of conduct. I freely admit that I'm completely stretching here. That said, despite not being in front of a judge and not being "under oath" (in the specific sense of giving testimony in court) the average person is actually in a different situation than a police officer when it comes to required conduct, being an Officer of the Cour
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The law disagrees. And that matters more than your opinion.
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The courts don't actually disagree that police are officers of the court. To be clear, they're not "under oath" in the sense of perpetually being in a state of testifying in court. I freely admit that I was stretching what the GP implicitly meant by "under oath". However, police do operate as officers of the court who are meant to uphold certain standards of professional ethics at all times just like lawyers. In practice, those standards seem to have no teeth for police officers except when they actually ar
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You might be a pain in the ass boss and lying to you might make your employees job easier in some ways. I don't know about you but I'd still require them to tell me to truth or fire them. I on the other hand can
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There are certainly degrees here. It can range from "We just want to ask you a few questions", Columbo style. Up to "We'll let you go if you rat out your friends." The real problems come when the lying is intimidating and applying pressure to confess. Witness the Central Park 5, where five innocent kids were all lied to in order that they confess or incriminate others. One child was convicted even though he was not even in the park at the time and only showed up at the police station to check on his fr
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No it is not. Entrapment is when they encourage you to commit the crime, then arrest you for it. Lying works the other way around.
They lie on the belief that if you are innocent you will know they are lyeing and stand your ground. If you are guilty, then you will cave to get a deal.
Re:Entrapment? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately that can often be a false believe (you know what they say about assuming things, eh?)....
People that are innocent are extremely susceptible to this, they are not used to being in the custody of the police, they are nervous and can easily say the wrong thing....there's no shortage of provable false confessions by innocent people.
And sadly, it seems MOST people don't realize their Constitutional rights...and invoke possibly the most important one.
REMAIN SILENT!!!
In fact, not talking to the police is almost more important for a truly innocent person, as that it is easy to be nervous and say the wrong thing that will be used against you in court.
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And in some cases, if they don't slip up, they'll be held in a windowless box with little or no air conditioning, no bathroom, and well past the point of exhaustion until they do slip up. In some cases the "questioning" would actually be illegal if they were an enemy combatant.
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No it is not. Entrapment is when they encourage you to commit the crime, then arrest you for it. Lying works the other way around.
Technically, it could be both. They could tell you, for example, that they're deputizing you to make a a drug buy to collect evidence against a drug dealer (with the "drug dealer" actually being an undercover cop) and that you'll have immunity and get a police commendation. Then they could just arrest you after the drug buy. That would be a really efficient way to get a bunch of quick arrests. Of course, any reasonable person would consider that entrapment. I'm not entirely sure a court would, however.
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That would work if the innocent had any faith in the system. Many people who confess to get the deal do so because they no longer believe that actual innocence actually matters to police or prosecutors. They honestly believe that the only outcomes on the table are punishment X or punishment X+Y. Naturally they prefer X to X+Y.
Given the way prosecutors behave when the convicted are proven to be actually innocent, that belief isn't unfounded.
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Fabricating evidence would be planting drugs or taking a drop from a blood sample and labeling it as something recovered from the scene. Telling a suspected shooter "We have a witness who can place you near the scene" is a bluff, designed to make the suspect believe that he can't get away with it. The deception is not aimed (and seems unlikely to influence) the actual fact-finder (judge or jury).
Kids are impressionable, are often used to submitting to authority, and may not realize the consequence of their
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The problem is, people consider what psychological effect "we have a witness who can place you at the scene" has on someone who actually was on the scene and involved, but they never seem to consider what effect it will have on someone who was not at the scene and not involved. Or at least, they seem to think that the mind of the non-guilty person will somehow be at peace and they will simply accept the officer's statement as a simple mistake that will be cleared up and the truth will come out in the end. T
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There's the other type of lie also, where you tell the kid that there's enough evidence to put him away for life but that they'll reduce that to 25 years if only he signs the confession. It's also a bluff but it's much more insidious.
The juries ARE indeed influenced by seeing a confession. The gut reaction of many is to assume the confession must be true, because what normal law abiding person would voluntarily confess. The fault is in assuming that there was no coercion or force involved in the confessi
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Absolutely not disputing that jurors are influenced by a confession--I don't know how you would disregard that . But they should not be influenced (and probably shouldn't hear) police lies to get the confession: "Your accomplice ratted you out." "We found your fingerprints on the cash register." "A witness saw you near there." Even if true, the police saying it to someone would ordinarily be excluded.
There is a jury instruction that an arrest is not evidence of guilt (Google reveals it is CalCrim 104). So
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The basic answer is that most people don't understand entrapment [lawcomic.net]
That said, there are absolutely some places where the law allows to much. In particular, I believe that all interrogations should be recorded and unable to be used as evidence until said recording is provided to the defense. The FBI is the worst of the lot for this, they have a policy against recording interviews and simply file an FD-302 with what they claim you said during that interview.
So you should never, ever talk to them without a lawy
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One thing that appears to be true is that if the FBI asks you a question, they already know the answer.
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Obviously I'm missing something significant here, but I'm curious and keen to better understand how the act of a police officer lying during a witness interview can be viewed any differently from fabricating evidence.
It's not lying on the witness stand, so it's different.
Basically, there are some specific instances where lying is a crime-- like lying in court-- but lying, in general, is not a crime by itself.
Which is not to say that it shouldn't be a crime for police to lie to entice a confession, just saying that it isn't.
Put another way, it's entrapment.
No, it's not. Entrapment is enticing people to commit a crime.
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Fabricating evidence requires that material be submitted to the court as evidence.
Lying to someone during an interview is neither of these things.
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Pro-Tip (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that police are allowed to lie to anyone is ludicrous.
That said, the easiest way to avoid the problem all-together is to simply teach everyone to never talk to the police.
They are not there as your friend. They are looking to assign blame on someone. Period.
Do not help them assign it to you by talking to them. Innocent or otherwise.
You have nothing to gain from talking with police and everything to lose.
Re: Pro-Tip (Score:2)
Re: Pro-Tip (Score:4, Interesting)
> Police have been known to grant immunity to people who implicate bigger fish.
And then go back on their promise of immunity.
That's how Cosby got out of his sentence - the prosecutor said that his immunity grant was only binding on the former prosecutor. SCOPA disagreed.
They'll get anybody they want. Everything you do is criminal [amzn.to] according to some statute.
Like others have said, avoidance and non-engagement are your best defenses. Also expect the Filth to threaten you with all kinds of nonsense when you refuse to cooperate. They are bluffing (and lying (and feel virtuous in doing so)).
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> Police have been known to grant immunity to people who implicate bigger fish.
And then go back on their promise of immunity.
That's how Cosby got out of his sentence - the prosecutor said that his immunity grant was only binding on the former prosecutor. SCOPA disagreed
The prosecutor didn't think he could convict Cosby, so he agreed not to prosecute Cosby for the rape meaning that Cosby would lose his 5th amendment protection. This meant he could be compelled to testify in the civil trial, which he was, and the victim won some compensation.
Years later another prosecutor used that compelled testimony in the civil trial to convict Cosby of rape in a criminal trial.
Cosby is a rapist who should definitely be in jail, but his conviction was a pretty blatant violation of his 5t
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> Police have been known to grant immunity to people who implicate bigger fish.
And then go back on their promise of immunity.
Well, no, not really. Yeah, the police will promise immunity (because they're allowed to lie), and they can recommend it, but only the prosecutor can actually grant it. And thus, only the prosecutor can go back on that promise.
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Police cannot grant immunity. Judges and DA's can.
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Police have been known to grant immunity
Police don't grant immunity. Prosecutors do. The police are there to collect and build a case for a prosecutor. So before implicating anyone else, you have to get an immunity agreement from the prosecutor in the event that you might make a mistake and let something slip about anything else you may have done. IANAL, but I'm sure they'll give you much the same advice should you be put in a position to "help" the police.
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Cops do not have the ability to grant immunity.
However yes they do sometimes claim that they will be able to, i.e., that's one of the lies they tell.
The short version is unless you've got it in writing from your prosecutor and it's been reviewed as legit by your own attorney, a promise doesn't mean a damn thing.
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I agree. But here is what happens:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Pro-Tip (Score:5, Interesting)
It can be argued that being able to lie about certain things during interrogations might be allowable. However it's hard to imagine any scenario where the confessions or accusations produced from police lies should be trusted any more than the police statements. The thing that's the real kicker is police being allowed to lie about what the law is or about leniency deals in exchange for information. It might be tricky for police officers to balance multiple roles, but it's nevertheless important to remember that, like judges and lawyers, police officers are officers of the court. That comes with certain obligations. If they make deals regarding prosecution, they should be specific, not deceptive, and binding.
As for lying about the law, I have a personal example there. A relative of mine was once involved in a 'situation' and was literally hiding from the police in the woods near an exes house where they were technically a resident but were not supposed to be at due to a restraining order (although the ex was not home and it's still not clear to me if the order covered the residence or just the individual). They had entered the house and gone through a suicide attempt and then jumped out a window when the police came. The relative called me and asked me to come and get their rental car and collect their things from it and told me where they left the keys. They did not give me their location, so I had nothing to hide from the police since I did not know anything that they did not already know.
When I got there, a police officer wanted to search the rental car. I told them that I would permit verifying that my relative was not hiding in the car, but would not allow any other search of the car, and it was possible to perform that search just by looking through the windows (it was an SUV, so no need to open a trunk). The police of course already knew that my relative was not hiding in the car. The officer continued trying to convince me to give permission to search the vehicle. When the officer repeatedly told me that I was "obstructing", the clear intent was to deceive me into thinking that the officer had determined that I was committing the crime of obstruction of justice. At that time I immediately called my relative's lawyer and put them on speakerphone and told them that the police were saying that I was committing obstruction of justice. The officer immediately backtracked with a lawyer on the phone and insisted that he had not been accusing me of obstruction of justice.
So, got off the phone, but then the officer tried a new tactic and started telling me that "exigent circumstances" required me to allow the police to search the vehicle since they were trying to help my relative who was maybe bleeding to death in the woods somewhere. I know what exigent circumstances are. They allow firefighters to bash down the door of a house because of a fire, or police to enter without a warrant or permission because they hear someone screaming for help, etc. If exigent circumstances existed allowing a search of the vehicle then the law would allow them to smash open the windows to get in, no permission from me required. I argued about this with the officer of course, but did not explicitly correct them on the definition. It was pretty clear that they did not want to search the car in order to help my relative, of course, they just wanted to fish for anything they could find. Anyway, finally another officer, presumably a superior who had been standing back and allowing this told the first officer to stop. Then he sternly ordered me to immediately leave implying that the would arrest me if I did not do so immediately (after they had been holding me up for close to half an hour trying to get me to give them permission to search the vehicle).
So I drove off with my SO following to the car rental place where we started unloading all of my relative's stuff from the vehicle. All the time we were doing this, we were followed pointlessly by a police helicopter. After we were done we started driving home and were
Body cameras body cameras body cameras (Score:2)
They are being to arrive widely, and will discourage some of those sorts of behaviours. However yes, we do need to resist talking to them unless we absolutely have to.
Other than that, specific questions such as: 'As an officer of the state, are you telling me, on oath, that I am in danger of committing an offence of obstructing the police?' Though you may want to be on a speaker phone before you try that if the police officer doesn't have a body camera.
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This is terrible advice. Don't say anything until you have a lawyer. They will advise you on what to say. if the police are questioning you they already suspect you are guilty. Anything you say will only makes things worse.
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There really are only two things you should say to the police:
"I'm invoking my right to have an attorney present during questioning." (Under current Supreme Court case law, this does not require them to end the interrogation," though there's a nebulous requirement that they provide said attorney in a "timely fashion.")
And:
"I'm also invoking my right to remain silent until my attorney is present." (Under current SCOTUS case law, that does require them to end the interrogation.)
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This is a naive view. If the police are trying to talk to you then they already have you listed as a suspect.
Step 1, GET A LAWYER. If you don't have a lawyer then shut the hell up until you do! Anything you say CAN and WILL be used against you in a court of law.
Step 2, don't say anything without approval of your lawyer. The lawyer knows how the system works and how your words can be manipulated against you.
The cops want to make an arrest, the security of their job depends upon this. The DA wants a conv
So is it OK to lie to adults ? (Score:5, Interesting)
In any future court case where a cop who has been caught lying is giving evidence it should be mandatory that the judge and any jury be told that he has lied.
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That's what cross examination is for.
Can be a problem proving significance (Score:2)
So lawyers are likely to be unwilling to ask the question. Nice thought though.
Itemized Issues (Score:4, Informative)
Never talk to the police: Say "I want a lawyer" (Score:2, Informative)
I saw this video by a criminal defense attorney about 6 years ago, and I think it's exactly right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The only things you should ever say to the police are "I want a lawyer", nothing more, nothing less. Don't even try and articulate you're using your 5th amendment rights, as that can be used against you. Just say "I want a lawyer".
The video shows a number of examples where well-meaning people talk to the police and get screwed over inadvertently.
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I saw this video by a criminal defense attorney about 6 years ago, and I think it's exactly right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The only things you should ever say to the police are "I want a lawyer", nothing more, nothing less. Don't even try and articulate you're using your 5th amendment rights, as that can be used against you. Just say "I want a lawyer".
The video shows a number of examples where well-meaning people talk to the police and get screwed over inadvertently.
Friends of mine who are cops say the same thing. They would not allow a search without a warrant, or answer questions without a lawyer.
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About the only exception to this rule is, if you are involved in a self defense shooting.
It is in your benefit to be the first to call the police, and you need to say you feared for your life....
At that point, you pretty much shut up, and lawyer up.
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You should also formally invoke your right to remain silent. If you don't say you're doing so, you're not doing so.
And invoking that right, according to SCOTUS case law, requires the cops to end the interrogation [findlaw.com] (unlike demanding a lawyer, which does not).
Why kids do false confessions. (Score:2)
Almost all children live under the rule of draconian authority figures called "parents". Most parents have their kids best interests at heart, but are VERY fallible. That is, the parents routinely do wrong, bad things, but they are not out to get the children.
As such, children quickly realize that when authorities are wrong, their best tactic is to lie and pretend the authority is correct. The punishment will usually be minimal and if they stand their ground, they will probably be punished far worse.
Co
In the words of my lawyer (Score:2)
1. Always ask if this is the first hearing, because they can actually question you in the first hearing (in my country) without allowing a lawyer. Shut up and keep asking when the first hearing is over. When they say it is, demand your lawyer.
2. You can always still confess in court. It may even increase your chances if you do since judges like the ego boost that their stern voice and demeanor made you crack. You have NOTHING to gain from confessing to the police.
English law gives a discount for early confession (Score:2)
So having lawyered up, it may then be appropriate to admit to what you do. if you wait until court you will get a smaller discount.
Is this only for confessions? (Score:2)
Or also for producing evidence? Like, I want to know where a kids mobster daddy hides his "business files"?
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This is general interest news not technology? (Score:3)
Cops shouldn't be allowed to lie. Period. (Score:3)
Do nottalk to the police, ever! (Score:2)
It can only hurt you, never help.
Police shouldn't be able to lie, period. (Score:2)
We can't lie to the police, and they shouldn't be able to lie to us. The reason they are allowed to lie to us is because it gives them an unfair advantage, to be able to manipulate people and make getting convictions easier -- whether they are legitimate or not. Policing isn't meant to be easy, it's meant to be a higher calling for exceptional people, and if you can't be a police without lying and being fully honest, you aren't the kind of person who should be a police officer.
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What then? Plenty of people will swear that something is true, when it isnâ(TM)t. How do they propose to deal with that? It happens so much in regular day-to-day life, how on earth are the going to determine if the cops knowingly lied?
From TFA, it's aimed at situations where the cops say something like "if you confess you can go home" to get a confession. There will no doubt be grey areas, but then a court gets to decide if the confession was admissible. It would also seem to limit the scenarios where cops tell each suspect the other fingered them to get both to implicate each other, since a good lawyer could look at when the interrogations took place and see that could not be true.
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It's not a lie if you believe it's true.
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how on earth are the going to determine if the cops knowingly lied?
Odds are good that, if they said anything, that they lied.
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However, the Inquisition could convict on confessions alone, and could not convict unless there was a confession.
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They also have been shown to lead to true confessions...
That's essentially meaningless, given how common false confessions are.
Something like 27% of people exonerated gave false confessions, with that number jumping up to 81% in persons with mental illness or disability. [washingtonpost.com]
confession — not backed by other evidence — is not in itself enough for a conviction
People tend to plead guilty after confessing. Often in an attempt to get a lighter sentence.
The US makes up about 4.4% of the worlds population, yet has 22% of the worlds prisoners. We're not even trying to get things right.