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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

How far do you take this?

For example, suppose you hear someone down the street yell, "My baby!", look up, and see a man shove a woman to the ground, take a baby from a stroller, get into a car with the baby, and drive quickly up the street, leaving behind the woman screaming "He took my baby! Help!". They pass you, and a block farther up turn left onto a freeway on ramp.

30 seconds later a police officer drives by, stops, and asks if you saw the baby snatcher suspect, and if so which way they went.

Do you say "it looked like he turned left a block up"? Or do you say "I will not answer without a lawyer"? I've run into a lot of people who go with the latter, citing that video.

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I think maybe a more nuanced rephrasing of "never talk to the police" is "talking to the police will only make you more likely, not less likely, to be convicted of a crime".

If your values system is to minimize your chance of being convicted of a crime above all other things, then you'd say "I will not answer without a lawyer" in this situation. But if you're a compassionate human being and want to help others, even if it sometimes means a minor risk to yourself, then there are plenty of situations in which you should talk to the police, including this one.

Possibly an issue here is that the lawyer in the video is giving both a legal recommendation and a moral recommendation. I certainly have no objection to his legal assessment of the outcomes of talking to the police, but I don't think he has any authority to say that I should be a selfish person.

You are talking as if not talking to the police is by itself a moral abomination, but there's a lot of points you're not considering.

a) Odds of getting into that situation are a million to one, against.

b) Odds of your information helping to find said baby are a million to one, against (and even that is very optimistic I would say)

c) Odds of a police officer asking you that question because they want to have someone to blame for the crime are low, but significantly higher than 1/1e12

So I think that both on moral grounds, and on legal grounds, you should say something evasive first, and if the officer doesn't go away at that point you definitely should say the "any question you can send to my lawyer, and we will do our best to answer as soon as possible" line.

And, by the way, your lawyer will be angry if you do anything else.

More generally I would encourage you to think about the role of the police in a society. Not in the "the state is right and absolutely moral" way you seem to be stuck in. A state is fundamentally unjust. No matter how democratic, no matter how well it's going economically. I have worked as a consultant at a ton of "high" state organisations and I guarantee you, a month at any of them is enough to cure anyone of the notions you have.

At best, states are a necessary evil. They make some necessary things happen that would otherwise not happen. The police are their enforcers. Like any other power structure, they give ego-satisfying perks and social status to their enforcers, and so you can imagine the kind of person and motivation that a police officer generally is. And if there's one thing that can be absolutely guaranteed, it's that there is no just way to use violence to resolve situations (but a few good looks at the law will quickly absolve you of the notion that they're just, or even intended to be just). The state is not your friend. And especially the police is not your friend.

And I realize this point is contentious, but have you ever thought about how arrogant it is to assume there is a single "just" system at all ? There's many models of morality, from natural morality, to utilitarianism, to the various religions, to ... Important to remember is that they're all different, conflicting and self-contradictory.

We obviously have very different perspectives on this, but a few thoughts:

> Odds of getting into that situation are a million to one, against.

It's a thought experiment. Within the thought experiment, it already happened, and the chances are 100%. "This is an unlikely scenario for me find myself in" probably shouldn't affect your decision-making. You can argue that it's not a worthwhile thought experiment because it's unlikely, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're arguing.

> Odds of your information helping to find said baby are a million to one, against

It's unclear if you're saying it's a lost cause or if the direction the kidnapper went wouldn't be useful, but according to https://www.parents.com/kids/safety/stranger-safety/child-ab..., 80% of children are found alive in nonfamily abductions reported to NCMEC, so my impression is that information soon after a kidnapping has much higher than a one in a million chance of helping.

Alternatively, you could adjust the thought experiment to be "At what probability of saving the baby's life should I give an answer?". "Never talk to the police under any circumstances" (the quote from the video that people seem to be defending literally) means you say nothing even if your chance of saving the baby's life is 100%.

> Not in the "the state is right and absolutely moral" way you seem to be stuck in.

I didn't say that, I didn't imply it, and I don't believe it. This is both a straw man argument and a false dichotomy.

You seem to be putting a very high amount of weight on the fact that the person trying to stop the kidnapping is a police officer. I would try to help regardless of who it is. You really should not be using theory about the role of the state to decide whether or not to help a human being trying to save the life of another human being in an urgent situation.

Urgency can change the moral imperative if the situation. When police "just wanna talk", there isn't urgency, so they can wait a bit longer for legal council to arrive, or provide immunity.

> How far do you take this?

I think the venue for questioning matters.

A request to 'come down to the station to answer a few questions' is a bit different than being asked questions on your doorstep. "Down at the station" is an automatic "not w/o an attorney".

And for that matter the police coming into your home or office is not the same as 'coming down to the station'. Sure there is risk in answering any questions at all but there is also risk in not answering questions (the suspicion factor) you could say. Like computer security there are always tradeoffs.

Now many times if you are stopped by the police for speeding they will often ask you 'where you are going to or coming from'. How do you answer that? If you say "I won't tell you" you are more likely to get a ticket common sense says. If you answer the question you might still get the ticket but if there is a chance you would get a warning that could be helpful.

I think one natural thing to say if you are in a position where you could be considered a suspect is to simply say "Since it is reasonable for me to be considered a suspect I would need to have an attorney present before answering any questions". So for example if your business partner or even a neighbor is killed it's probably not a good idea to 'go down to the station to answer questions' etc. w/o an attorney. Answering at your front door? I would tend to think that is ok to do. Allowing detectives into your house to question you? Probably not.

Do you say "it looked like he turned left a block up"? Or do you say "I will not answer without a lawyer"? I've run into a lot of people who go with the latter, citing that video.

Then the police need to work on policy and community relations if people are reticent to help them, when altruism can be a punishable act.

Surely any country with citizens having this conversation is close to collapse, no?

Predicting is hard, especially about the future. Countries have gotten much, much worse before collapsing, and there are too many connections with international finance for the world to just let it happen to the US. See also: moral hazard.

It's a matter of the risk you're willing to take. Sometimes refusing to answer a simple question is going to get you arrested. As long as you're willing to risk arrest and expensive lawyers, don't say anything.

Or its a balance between the moral imperative to help and the risk of harm to yourself? Maybe the urgency of a stolen baby is more important to you then fairly small risk of accidental self implication?

> Sometimes refusing to answer a simple question is going to get you arrested

This is not true. To arrest someone (in theory sure a rogue cop can do anything) police need probable cause. Probable cause is not 'refusing to answer questions'. If they have enough to arrest you answering questions is not going to make them decide to not arrest you. Why? Because why would they believe just what you say verbally if there is no easy way to prove what you are saying?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CzfP6dNXAAAB53_.jpg:large

You might call this excessively cynical but it has a point. If a police officer wants to arrest you there isn't much to stop him.

> As long as you're willing to risk arrest and expensive lawyers, don't say anything.

Lawyers are not automatically expensive. In fact, a decent lawyer can often save you money. It does require that you have the resources to pay for the lawyer in advance, and if you cannot then you have my sympathy, but my default position is yes. I get a lawyer for everything, even simple driving violations.

In the kidnapping scenario described above, I would definitely have tried to help the responding officer by describing what I saw and where the person fled, but anything beyond a very cursory exchange and it's 'I would like to help you but I have no further comment without speaking to a lawyer first'.

In my mind that question is reframed as, "how much do you look our for others vs. yourself?"

It's also thought of as obstruction of justice. So, you aren't looking out for yourself in this situation either.

It's not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice

Obstruction of justice is knowingly lying to the police. By not saying anything, by definition, there's no way you can lie.

Fine, then your omission can be considered aiding and abetting. My point is that of you want to follow a rule like 'never talk to the police' dogmatically, with no context, that in and of itself can put you in a worse position than before. 99% of the time, it's best to just request a lawyer, but not 100%.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_abetting

If you read the wikipedia article, you'd realize that aiding and abetting only holds sway when you have knowledge of the crime.

If you're not involved and don't know anything, how are you aiding anything? Just the statement "I saw a guy running" could land you in court.

I watched the entire video; I think they are talking about how to act during an interrogation, not in a setting like in your example.

Everyone draws the line somewhere different. Certainly, if someone's life is in danger and I can help save them by telling a police officer who is nearby immediately, I'd do that. If I were in a traffic accident and I needed to call the police to document it, or I was the victim of a minor crime, I'd probably talk to them about that, too. I've gone down to the station to talk to the police about an incident report on a traffic accident. Even doing that is a risk, but it was a very minor accident and I had already agreed to pay for the damages, so it didn't seem like my exposure was high.

On the other hand, if I were the victim or came across the scene of a major crime - e. g. a robbery, a murder, etc. - once any immediate danger was resolved, I would probably contact my attorney and tell them. (Your mileage may vary; not everyone has an attorney to contact right away.) It's easy to go from a bystander or victim to being the suspect. If police showed up at my home without warning, and I didn't call them, I wouldn't talk to them.

Or, how about, you just pulled into your garage and got carjacked. Do you call the police? That will involve talking to them, and they might think it's all just an insurance scam.

A good rule of thumb (I teach all of my children relatives this) is that if you approach somebody they're probably ok. If they approach you, watch out.

In your example, you reached out to the police. If I called the police, I'd talk to them, as they'd be predisposed to like me. Otherwise, if they just come up to me and start asking random questions, I'll tell them to go away politely unless they had a warrant.

The police can't arrest you without probable cause. And just saying nothing is not probable cause.

Good news is that the scenario you described is incredibly rare. You are much more likely to witness mass shooting.

As a counter-point... why should we take your word on this over the word of the lawyer(s) in the talk. "Under no circumstances" pretty clearly includes the ones you've given.

When the words of some lawyer in a YouTube video fly in the face of common sense, you should probably go with common sense, regardless of how emphatic the lawyer is. (tzs and I both believe it to be common sense that you should talk to the police here, although others may disagree.)

Edit: Currently there are some downvotes and no responses, so if anyone has a reasoned moral argument for why you should say "I will not answer without a lawyer" in tzs's example (for example, citing risks explained in the video and weighing them with the possible benefits of stopping a kidnapping), it would be great to hear that perspective. (Or any other criticisms of my comment are welcome.)

People aren't tried in a court of common sense, they are tried in a court of law. If the law doesn't protect the use of common sense, then the law should change.

"Some lawyer in a YouTube video" is still far more qualified to tell me how to behave around the police than you are. Regardless of whether you think it is common sense or not. Obviously, you have to weigh the risks and decide for yourself, but that is such a trivial statement that it really doesn't need to be said. What needs to be said is that you don't know the risks unless you know the law and the status of the investigation; thus common sense should tell you not to talk to the police at all.

If it looks like you're the suspect, then don't talk and get a lawyer.

Otherwise, you should probably avoid doing anything that makes you a suspect, including demanding a lawyer prematurely.

There is no such thing as asking for a lawyer prematurely. Cops are allowed to lie , mislead anyone they want basically. Always make sure someone unaffiliated with law enforcement is around as a witness because they will lie for each other.

Demanding a lawyer, and refusing to answer questions, explicitly should not make you look like a suspect in the eyes of the law. (The eyes of the investigating officer may be different, but they must follow the law in the end.)

Right. Good thing they do that. Every time. Yup.

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