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Comment by Luc | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see the same kind of advice for other countries.

My advice for the UK is to generally be cooperative with the police because unlike the US are not allowed to lie nor ask you to do anything outside of your rights.

EG, if they start searching your car when they pull you over, and they don't have a warrant or you are not under arrest then the evidence collected is not admissible in court.

However the UK doesn't quite have a total "right to remain silent" law anymore, the current miranda warning is

"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court."

and as such taking the tact of not saying anything at all can actually get an innocent person into some legal difficulties if simply giving reasonable facts about your innocence would have helped the situation at the time of quesitoning.

You seem to imply that cops in the US _are_ allowed to lie, and search your private property without cause.

If a cop in the US lies to you, or searches your car without cause, or otherwise 'tricks' you, it's no more admissible that it would be in the UK. The issue (in both countries) is proving the cop lied to you, tricked you, etc. Which is the whole point of have legal consul present in the first place.

One of the comments on the article mentions that the 'UK version of the "Miranda rights" includes the sentence "It may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court."' The most common tactic I've heard cops employ in the US is "if you're innocent, it's in your best interest to talk to us." It would appear the UK has that trick built right in to the process from the start.

"If a cop in the US lies to you, or searches your car without cause, or otherwise 'tricks' you, it's no more admissible that it would be in the UK. The issue (in both countries) is proving the cop lied to you, tricked you"

Well, my understanding is different. Here is an example:

Suspect is in the police station being questioned and the police officer says "we know you did it, your friend who we arrested in the car with you said you did it. he just gave a statement. Why don't you just sign this confession now and we'll sort out a deal".

(The police officer lied, the other person hadn't said anything let alone made a statement)

In the US that would be admissible in court because it doesn't matter how the confession was reached, even lies (short of beating the suspect/etc). In the UK that would not be admissible because it would obtained through lying to the suspect.

You are right though, no matter where you are in the world, by the time you are being questioned in the police station it is time to make sure you have legal counsel... and not the one provided to you by the state but a lawyer you already know. For this reason everyone should have a connection with an appropriate lawyer and have their information to hand in case of arrest.

They're allowed to search your private property with your consent. Silent acquiescence is considered consent. If they knock on the door, you open the door, and they step inside, and they start poking around, and you haven't said anything? You consented to that search.

I recently finished reading Homicide by David Simon. It is a mind-blowingly good book. From that book I learned, yes, cops can lie to you. And when they're interrogating a suspect, they lie all the time.

Isn’t that also the case in the US? Evidence attained illegally is admissible in court in Germany, I don’t think it is in the US.

I don’t know how that changes whether you should talk or not, though.

The difference is this...

A suspect is stopped by the police while driving his car. During the discusion with the suspect the police officer says "I'm just going to take a look in the vehicle if that is ok?" and with the suspect saying nothing (ie not stopping him) the police officer finds something illegal in the car.

In the US this would be admissible in court because the suspect waived his rights, in the UK I believe it would not be admissible because you cannot waiver your rights.

The reasons for not talking mentioned in the linked article and video don’t really even touch on what you are mentioning here.

In the U.S., the police are allowed to lie to suspects in order to get a confession. They are not allowed to search you or your property without probable cause or a search warrant. If they do so, the evidence obtained (and all evidence stemming from the original evidence -- fruit of the poisonous tree) is not admissible.

I have heard German lawyers recommending the same thing. I suspect this might be true for any country in which you have the right to remain silent.

And you'd have to differentiate further for:

- visitor from another country

- visitor from out-of-state

- skin colour other than default for that locality

- male / female / other

The variations are endless, and I think that for each of those the rules are subtly different.

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