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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

I guess, in the case of a crime committed in my neighbourhood, where I saw something, I see myself as having the safety of my neighbourhood to gain.

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One time I had a friend who was robbed in Philadelphia and beaten enough to be hospitalized. A detective came and talked to me, alone, with my parents in another state, with no attorney. He informed me that if my friend died, I'd be a 'prime suspect'! Apparently, based on nothing other than their lack of other information... Or he was trying to intimidate me in case i did know more. I wasn't even 18.

Who knows... you do hear of cases where crimes are pinned on innocent people, seemingly because some DA would rather prosecute anybody than leave it 'unsolved'.

I worked at a pizza chain in college; closing manager on the night shift. Due to some stuff I won't get into here, tons of "safety" stuff in the store didn't work (camera was fake, bell on the door broken, etc), and I ended up getting robbed at gunpoint one evening.

I called the police, they interviewed me. Came back a few days later and did it again. At the time, what I remember feeling like was that they were trying to figure out if I made it up and kept the money rather than actually catching the person who had a gun to my head. I was pissed.

And also, if someone was murdered a few blocks down and then you refuse to say anything and say that you want your lawyer, won't that just needlessly make them suspect you for the murder? I'm all for encryption and a right to privacy and so on but I mean when it's obvious they just want to solve a crime and they are looking for info from you as a witness, well I don't see any reason not to be helpful.

No, it would not give them reason to suspect you of the murder. You can learn more from a lawyer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

> And also, if someone was murdered a few blocks down and then you refuse to say anything and say that you want your lawyer, won't that just needlessly make them suspect you for the murder?

You watch too much TV. I know it's hard, but when talking about real life law enforcement, try to forget everything you've ever seen about it on TV. It's about as accurate as the hacking scenes in NCIS.

Saying something you would think is harmless might very well lead them to suspect you. It's not the police's job to decide your guilt or innocence, it's their job to collect evidence and find someone the state can prosecute. Even if you are innocent, it will cost you hundreds of thousand of dollars and being arrested and innocent goes on your record.

The justice system in the US is completely broken. You should be very afraid.

As I understand it, I suppose it could make the cops suspicious, but "So-and-so refused to answer questions and asked to speak to a lawyer first" is legally inadmissible in court as evidence against you.

If the police are suspicious of you, it makes it more likely that they will be inclined to view information recieved from other sources in a light unfavorable to you, and devote resources to investigating you rather than others. Depending on how focussed that gets, you run into the "Three Felonies a Day" problem.

To be fair, if you read up on the 'three felonies a day' book, you find that most of the examples given are fairly contrived. Some of them are things you should absolutely know are likely to be illegal, the rest are situations that require significant legal contortions to be plausible and are unlikely to survive scrutiny by a judge. Average Joe doesn't really go around committing three felonies a day.

But then in the one case the cops have everything someone else said against you; in the other case the cops have everything someone else said against you and everything you incriminated yourself with by opening your damn yap. So clamming up is definitely a strategic option.

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