Illinois first state to tell police they can't lie to minors in interrogations
npr.org
npr.org
What's the advantage to society of allowing interviewers to lie (to anyone, let alone kids)? Not just insinuate something like "your partner's in the next room, it's only a matter of time until he talks so you should come clean now", but blatantly lie and then be able to rely on the result of that in court?
It kinda feels a little like the common law doctrine of Promissary Estoppel [0] where if someone relies on something you've promised, you can't then hold them responsible for relying on that thing.
You see it all the time with wrongful convictions and people signing confessions to crimes they didn't commit. I often wonder in these cases, do the officers, does law enforcement in this case really care who did it? If you bring someone in and interrogate them for 12+ hours and eventually they give you the answer you want to hear, do they never stop and ask themselves if the reason the person gave that answer is simply to make whatever they were doing stop?
It seems like some of these investigations the point isn't to solve the crime, but to dot the I's and cross your T's. It seems like actual public safety is an afterthought as long as you "catch the criminal" on paper.
If they're going through the effort of asking you questions in a controlled setting it's because they're trying to make sure anything they get is 100% unambiguously admissible in court.
Law enforcement is an organization and all the baggage that usually comes with organizations still applies (eg maintaining the organization is a priority). LEOs are people that want to do people things - it's a job, not a way of life.
I liken it as a game which didn't take hackers into account when designing the system, and the hackers are now rampant, ruining the game, except it isn't a game.
While also being handicapped (budget cuts) and undermined (blamed) by politicians. On the one hand politicians demand lower crime, but at the same time denounce the police as the source of societal conflict.
NYPD is about 11% of total NYC city budget
High enough for them to buy APCs for staging public relations events.
So, somehow were spending more and the opinion is that were spending less.
It's slightly less disturbing to think that the cops legitimately think they're doing a good job over the alternative of intentionally ignoring their responsibility. Still troubling to think they could be that deluded.
Stalin truly believed what he was doing was for the greater good of the USSR. It's extremely easy to justify bad deeds and fool yourself that the ends justify the means.
There will always be some megalomaniac, whether dictator, president, cop, or some authority figure, who "knows best".
Individual rights are the brakes. They're the lines we've agreed not to cross as a society, even when we're really sure we "know best". Example: property rights. No matter how sure you are that there's stolen property in the building, even law enforcement doesn't get to enter without a warrant.
Individual rights limit what others can do.
Imagine if each of your cells had individual rights or every bee in a hive has freedom to do its own thing.
Sometimes (most?) having centralized systems of power can be misused but that doesn't mean that centralized systems shouldn't be tried, there are evolutionary advantages to them.
Cells or bees have nothing to do with the wrongfully imprisoned minors in question.
How am I not surprised that you're the founder and CTO of a proctoring company that does facial recognition + AI to detect lying with "100% unbiased results". Fucking gross, man.
> Based on established models such as Big 5 and intrinsic values, TBI adds AI-powered Natural Language Processing to process data and help you make unbiased hiring decisions 100% of the time.
> TBI stack ranks candidates according to their performance in the assessment with regards to the competencies predetermined by the enterprise, ranging from 'essential' to 'good' and then 'critical'.
> Leverage psycholinguistics to analyze a candidate’s response and predict behavior in half the time.
So this company has layered AI on top of pseudoscience and is selling it as an automated hiring tool. I guess the hiring decisions are 100% unbiased if the results are indistinguishable from noise? Or maybe your hiring decisions are "unbiased" if you launder them through this software to produce a team that looks like your existing team?
Either way, this Talview company is doing some really evil stuff.
To be fair, that is actually true, although I don't think that's the (false) claim they're actually making.
A personal attack is not appropriate for this forum. I wouldn't have a made personal attack on you even if you had put what is you do in your profile.
FWIW I am proud of what I build, our products for half a decade have helped people to be able to take assesments from their home, whether it's disabilities or those cannot lose time on their jobs or would have to travel hundreds of miles just to an exam center to be certified. I am proud to have helped all of them.
There are plenty of discussions to be had on universities or certification bodies insisting on stringent requirements to do remote assesments to protect their integrity but a personal attack is not really the way to engage on this topic
I think a better way to phrase this would be that Stalin often said that what he was doing was for the greater good of the USSR.
Stalin remained true to the Marxist ideal of a classless and stateless world society until his death in 1953. This is the conclusion of researchers at Amsterdam University (UvA) who studied Stalin's annotations in books by Marx, Engels and Lenin in his private library.
The notes originate from the period between 1917 and 1953 and show that the dictator continued to adhere to such Marxist goals as the abolition of the state and the creation of classless society. Moreover, Stalin's correspondence and discussions with such Communist leaders as Mao Zedong and Palmiro Togliatti show a continuing faith in the spread of communism and "world revolution".
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2000-02/NOfS-SwfM-22...
A false preacher using his power for selfish purposes will carry a bible for show, maybe have a few stowed away. A false preacher certainly wouldn't have accumulated years of theology literature in his personal/private library over his lifetime. Seems like a true believer to me, but you may see it differently. Him being a true believer and having done what he did makes his particular flavor of human nature even more frightening.
Still I'd think that primarily important thing for him was himself and personal power, and that if he had had to make a choice between ideologies and himself, he'd done what was better for him personally. I wonder if he looked at communism etc more like a powerful tool (or so he thought) for him to use, and then not surprising if he spent time studying it
From the article:
> show a continuing faith in the spread of communism and "world revolution".
That'd almost made him the dictator over the world? Who knows if that might have been a main goal, and communism a tool?
Hitler as well.
I went to Catholic school. Had quite the debate with a nun over why I thought Hitler and Stalin both went to heaven, since both thought they were doing the right thing and were just horribly misguided.
If the officers don't realize, upon bringing five separate people in on the same description, that at least four of them have to be the wrong guy, then they fail the test. If they end up eliminating four of the five but then concluding that the last guy actually did it, they also fail the test.
I get the whole purpose of "yes, people are stopped every day because they resemble someone wanted", but this is "I am going to go out of my way to purposefully resemble and act like someone who the police will take a negative interest in".
INSERT fake_actor() 5 TIMES SELECT suspects() CHECK officer_state_of_mind()
In the real world, as somebody already said, the logistics of hiring 5 actors to act "suspicious", get themselves arrested, set up plausible backstories that you would somehow have to keep from the police, potentially expose them to bodily harm, the legal consequences if something go wrong, etc?
I'm going to assume you're proposing this as a thought experiment and not something that could actually work.
[And I mean this in the nicest of ways, I construct these kinds of "solutions" constantly too]
> potentially expose them to bodily harm, the legal consequences if something go wrong
Presume that the FBI is staking out the police building and has (compelled) the cooperation of the local sheriff, in exactly the same way white-hat social-engineering pen-testers work in cooperation with the management of the organizations they attempt to penetrate. Presume also that, unknown to the police, no real suspects are being simultaneously processed (all have been redirected to other neighbouring precincts) and so all police suppression equipment has been swapped out for non-working versions. (If you try to taze or shoot the suspect, you lose.)
To be clear, this is a setup that already happens when there is an officer under FBI suspicion of being complicit/involved in criminal activity. The FBI comes in and works with the precinct to set up an internal sting. The only difference, here, is that this involves all the officers of the precinct, rather than just one.
That’s the key factor that outsiders looking into the criminal justice system overlook. They think it’s easy. “Just stop being racist, corrupt, etc.” It’s a system where day in and day out, almost everyone you encounter is a really shitty human being. Reforming the system is important, but it’s much harder than people think.
This is categorically not true. Police have to deal with some very problematic people, sure. But bad days are far more common that bad people, and most interactions aren't even that.
Every police force has its share of assholes too, who are net cause of more problems than they solve. The most effective ones I've known have been aware of the systemic problems of thinking like you suggest, and intentionally work against it.
If your job is to do image/video forensics on hard drives of people already arrested or served with warrants, it’s generally either unremarkable or traumatically upsetting. The latter is going to have the most impact on your perception, and would likely color your worldview on things like encryption or the overall goodness of humanity.
My comment was more aimed at general policing, the vast majority of which fits my characterization.
Due to the nature of the job, and the perks and impunity of it in the US, it actually self selects for assholes. The military does as well, to a much lesser extent. There were some days when I went to bed thinking, "everyone I talked to today was a self important asshole."
But randomly pick out some sentencing hearings one day at your local federal court. They’ll go over the rap sheet of people who actually go to prison. It’s eye opening.
You can even see this in the criminal justice advocacy materials if you read carefully. I love the ACLU but if you read beyond the headline in many cases it’s quite revealing. I remember a case a few years ago where the headline was some “child” was imprisoned simply for being at a scene where a pizza delivery guy was murdered in broad daylight. Turns out he was actually in a gang, who murdered the guy in cold blood, and the legal theory is that the cops can’t prove which kid actually fired the shots. You can find the legal theory compelling (and I do) while acknowledging that this is the kind of shit that turns up even when social justice types are trying to pick impact cases.
Or heck George Floyd. I think the media overlooked a really important angle on this story that would have spoke to religious people. Floyd was a guy who spent most of his life being a pretty bad person: https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-us-news-ap-top-new...
But he had found Jesus, he was turning his life around and reaching out to kids, and when Derek Chauvin murdered him he cut short what could have been a path to redemption. Reflexively saying “criminals don’t deserve to be murdered” when Floyd’s background comes up is a tautology. Sure. But does pretending that stuff never happened help you understand the real human story of Floyd, Chauvin, and the people in that community? Why making progress on criminal justice reform is so hard even as it’s extremely necessary? Is your phat dismissal and reduction of people to a demons and angels binary persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already agree with you?
It also, as you note, precludes the majority of police work which was more my point; lots of people make excuses for the excesses of these systems based on this sort of "98%" (or whatever big number) argument; mostly those excuses are pure fertilizer.
Fertilizer is good and useful (it helps plants grow); what you're talking is raw sewage, complete with draino and hastily-disposed medication.
Good people don't rob their neighbors because they're "having a bad day." They're shitty people. And no, poverty doesn't excuse it. People in Bangladesh, where I'm from, are vastly poorer. If poverty caused crime, they'd go around stealing, joining gangs, etc. But mostly they don't. In Bangladeshi villages, crime is lower than in U.S. cities. And when they do those things, nobody hesitates to call them shitty people!
I'm extremely sympathetic to police reform, because I think even shitty people don't deserve to be abused by the state. But let's not mince words here.
> It also, as you note, precludes the majority of police work which was more my point
That may be your point, but I wasn't talking about pulling people over for speeding. My point was in the context of this article, which is about someone who was prosecuted for brutally raping and murdering a woman.
> but I wasn't talking about pulling people over for speeding.
Neither was I. I was talking about the majority of all the work they do.
Everyone can identify clearly horrible behavior, and often it is police who have to deal with this as part of their job. This is difficult and unfortunate, but it is not the defining characteristic of the work. Pretending that it is in order to somehow excuse bad behavior on their part doesn't do anyone favors.
Nope, the attitude of "I never make mistakes" still baffles my mind. I get that most people they're dealing with are causing some amount of trouble, they should still regularly doubt their instincts. That would also go a long way to answering demands to "stop being racist."
>It’s a system where day in and day out, almost everyone you encounter is a really shitty human being.
If they hold that mindset, they should just extend it to themselves and the other people in the criminal justice system.
Actual public safety is an afterthought. The point isn’t to solve a crime, but to punish enemies or to boost conviction rates.
Are we talking about the people who participated in a violent insurrection against the US, or is this another group?
If you want to have nice things (eg: a democracy) then you can’t be letting people who commit some mild treason off just because they’re dumbasses who got caught up in the moment.
The next yahoo who decides they want to try and block the peaceful transfer of power needs to 100% understand that they will be prosecuted.
[0] https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-ar... [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-84
They were protesting just fine outside of Congress, why did they go into congress? Why were they trying to find Nancy Pelosi? Why did the Capitol police think they needed to use deadly force?
Might have had something to do with the violent death threats some of the invading fools were shouting…
Why do people protest anything? Nothing changes. It’s a futile effort.
Why did that capitol cop shoot that lady thru a window? Cops gunna cop and they always lie about it afterwards. Probably needs de-escalation training.
During an appeal to the 7th (iirc) District Court, the ADA's argument always came down to "What about Justice for the victim'a family?" like somehow it isn't even relevant anymore if they have the wrong guy or not - if they decided that the recently convicted was wrongfully convicted, it would be unfair to the victim's family to let him go, even if he isn't guilty.
A justice system optimized for public safety will err on the side of putting aggressive, anti-social individuals behind bars rather than making absolutely sure they really did do the thing most of them were caught doing. Public safety is therefore orthogonal or even somewhat opposed to the pursuit of truth.
https://www.youtube.com/c/jcscriminalpsychology
I'm not particular fond of the lying though and the asymmetry ... You can't lie to law enforcement but they can lie to you.
Edit: Geez, I was just answering the question... At the end of the day, it's up to society to determine whether it thinks the effectiveness of the method is worth the potential moral hazard of false confessions under pressure. In my opinion, there does need to be better policy for police departments to assign little weight to confessions with zero corroboration that cannot even accurately describe the facts of the case.
So the end justifies the means. I'm not a fan of that philosophy, as it can be used to justify all kinds of things and leads to a lack of integrity.
That's been tried at various times and places in world history. It doesn't have a good record.
Eg the police officer that interrogated Terrill Swift will now be held criminally responsible for inducing a false confession.
Also Promissory Estoppel is a concept in contract law. Do you think a reasonable person would think that a police interrogation is a contract? Does it meet the elements of a contract? I don't think so.
I think the principle could and should apply to some extent in this situation here too.
Something like: if you were misled into making a confession - perhaps relying on a promise or lie told to you by the interviewer - then at the very least that confession should be considered deeply suspect.
Juries should only be allowed to hear objective facts. No character testimonies, no eye witnesses, no confessions after a 12 hour interrogation. Objective facts only.
This would likely mean guilty people don't get convicted, but I think that is a worthy tradeoff for a more fair justice system. An innocent person going to jail is much more egregious than a guilty person going free.
The thing is, we have studies upon studies upon studies that show repeatedly and undoubtedly that witness testimony is shit. If you show 10 people an event and ask them to describe what they saw an hour later, they will describe it in 10 different ways, frequently changing facts, adding things that never happened, or omitting important details. In trials, you get witness testimony from years before, and it's treated as if every single word said is absolute objective truth - like, we have the science to prove that no, actually, most likely it isn't, and it should be treated as "maybe true" at best.
Like so many things, I think the mistake here is to assume you can educate your way out of this. You could send every citizen through a six-week course on the problems with eye-witness testimony and some percentage of them will come out on the other side of that training insisting that, nah, if somebody says they saw the crime, then they saw it. We're talking about deep psychological biases carefully shaped by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
An eyewitness will tell the DA that they don't remember shit about what happened years ago, and the DA will reassure them that they police have ways of making them remember.
Source: A close friend of mine is getting pulled in to testify in a criminal case about some junkie that they may have called the police on three years ago. He has called the police so many times, and has dealt with so many sketchy, drug-influenced people, he can't even remember what the person in question did.
The jury is the People's seat and primary check on the exercise of Governmental power. It's one more layer to the overall setup of checks and balances.
Do you mean to imply that we've seen examples of how the justice system, on balance, does not benefit society at large? As in, adding up all the positives and negatives of the justice system, we'd be better off without it? If so, I'd want to see what those examples you mention are.
Not just while in prison, but afterwards in many states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t...
Lets hit a few high points:
End the 'boys club', actually go after sex crimes with a sense of urgency and not let rape kits pile up in evidence rooms, untested?[1]
Not run straight up black sites?[2]
Properly allow freedom of speech and expression, and not come down harder on protests the police themselves don't agree with?[3]
Do a little introspection and address the rampant domestic abuse perpetrated by police?[4]
[0]https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2019/07/nati...
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...
[3]https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/us/protest-disparity-study-tr...
[4]https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...
Because when you rob it from the outside you're probably using violence to threaten people with their lives. You don't think that's many, many times worse than someone cooking the books or stealing from the register?
https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-ame...
The difference between those things is who the police actually do anything for. Who gets (violently) arrested and who gets away with it is strongly connected with your position in social order. Simply put, steal $20 from the register or a loaf of bread from the store and the state will pony up tens of thousands of dollars to try and arrest you, detain you, prosecute you, and punish you. But if you decide to steal overtime from your employees, what do you think the chances are of you finding yourself in cuffs? It's estimated that wage theft involves three fold as much theft as other kinds of robbery combined; why is violence necessary to stop 1/4 of theft, but not the remaining 3/4?
Take a look at protestors too, and see how the police change treatment based on the content of the protest. It's been shown that cops are 3x more likely to react violently to left wing protests than right wing protests in general, and 3.5x more likely to attack peaceful left wing protests than peaceful right wing protests. That is not protecting society, that is protecting the social order.
> As in, what would a police who’s job it was to “protect society” do that current police do not?
Processing all the rape kits they have sitting around would be a fantastic start. Nationally the clearance rates for all kinds of violent crimes are abysmal, maybe cops should stop focusing on grifting overtime and do something about that?
More importantly, a cop whose job is to protect society should stop doing things that are actively harmful to society. Such a list would include but is not limited to:
Not shooting unarmed people, not choking a handcuffed man to death, not tear gassing whole city blocks after being ordered not to by their bosses, not pulling over black people at unusually high rates, not destroying homeless camps, not destroying cooling centers for the homeless during a historic heat wave, not lying to children to make them confess, not beating a family near a protest and then pretending that "antifa" abandoned the child at a "riot", not arresting citizens that they ran into while driving recklessly, not lying in court repeatedly and constantly to get convictions of the poor and powerless, not abusing people in their custody, not raping people in their custody, and not protecting other cops that blatantly break the law.
Cops in the United States have effective blanket immunity for anything short of calmly strangling a handcuffed man on camera[0]. Not only is there no effective means for them to be prosecuted, given the close reliance DAs have on cops, but there is also a specific carve out for them to be protected from civil liability that is absurdly protective of them. Simply put, unless if a cop does something that has specific precedent for, you cannot sue them. And very little precedent can be made because nobody can sue them in order to create precedent. This gets down to the level of "sending the attack dogs against a surrendering person in the woods is a violation of their rights, but not in a 'grassy ditch' because there is no precedent for that in a ditch. Case dismissed". A police force that is supposed to protect society would itself be expected to actually follow the laws that they are nominally enforcing, not be given special protection from illegal conduct.
> Or vice-versa, would such a police still protect from theft or violence?
Do you believe that cops actually protect you from theft and violence? How soon do you believe a cop will be there if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night? Cops are really there to punish people after the fact, not to protect you[1][2]. How much effort they'll put into actually solving the crime is very much dependent on who you are and what happened to you. Ask a rape survivor how sympathetic and helpful the cops were, if you can stomach such stories.
0 - Make no mistake, Derek Chauvin would still be a cop if that had not been video taped. The official police press release after that was that a man died due to a "medical incident" in their care; a blatant lie. Makes you wonder how many citizens cops have murdered and blamed it on drugs or "medical incidents".
1 - Well, that and arrest random people to find drugs and steal money from citizens to fund their own department.
2 - They in fact have no legal obligation to try and protect you from violence.
steal $100, go to jail
steal $1,000,000,000 pay lawyers so that you give back 200,000,000 and keep the rest.
Societal order is the dominant power structures of the society, with little heed given to individuals.
AIUI, it's pretty common that when they can't get you for the crime they think you committed, that they'll just goad you into a casual mis-statement (i.e., lying), and lock you up for the lie. That's exactly what happened to Martha Stewart, for example. What (apparently) seemed to her to be a minor omission that had no bearing on the case, suddenly becomes the cause for her prosecution.
The end result of this is that anyone with a clue knows that the best policy is, simply, never talk to police. There's nothing you can say that will make things better (the die is already cast), and you can do yourself a world of hurt. And you can't even know ahead of time whether you're suspect. So the best course of action is simply to refuse to talk to police ever.
How is a situation in which the public refuses to help the police any worse than taking these tools away from the police?
Obligatory anecdote: I went skeet shooting with a friend. The next day, for some reason, I still had a bunch of spent shotgun shells sitting on the table. That morning the police came to my door, and I let them in the house to talk since it was cold out. They started asking for information about an incident where someone had shot out a car window with a BB gun. Later I realized that I had those empty shotgun shells sitting right in their sight. If you're not aware, "BB" is actually the designation of a particular small size of shot (like #8 being used for deer and #4 or #0 used for turkey or birds; BB is smaller than #0). So although I knew nothing of the BB incident, and was certainly innocent, I had inadvertently given the police some reason to suspect my involvement. In actuality, nothing came of this, but given the way these things go, I would have been safer to have just said "sorry, officer", and refused to deal with them.
(I highly doubt officers will still be held responsible for violating the law. Look how much noise and chaos had to happen for a single on-film execution by cop to have consequences.)
I suppose in many instances lies and bluffs have resulted in the desired outcome.
But not all lies/bluffs are the same, and I agree with you that telling a suspect in interrogation that they have immunity if they just say X is problematic, but I think it is reflected in the current case law and any evidence obtained in such a scenario would likely be suppressed.
I’ve seen more than a few interrogations, a similar one went something like this:
Cop: look, we just want to recover the gun, we don’t care about anything else, just tell us where the gun is.
Suspect: oh…you just want the gun?
Cop: yeah.
Suspect: yeah, I bet you do.
Now the thing is this suspect actually shot someone from his car into an adjacent car, he fled and discarded the firearm, then returned to the scene after police had arrived and he was immediately arrested. It always amazed me someone so dumb as to drive right back to the scene of the crime and deliver himself into the hands of police was so aware and savvy during the interrogation.
My neighborhood in Chicago has a cop enclave inside it and they are absolutely lighting up our neighborhood political discussion group irate about this law, talking about how many murders and rapists are going to go free.
How many murderers and rapists are minors? Probably not many.
While higher for whites, for African American victims, The close rate was near 20%, something most Americans may associate with Guatemala or Mexico - https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/10/09/768552458/chicago-s...
Based on arrest histories of gang members and failures to prosecute even closed cases, one should assume that there are a large number of serial killers operating in Chicago, many of who started as minors.
While most middle and upper class Americans dismiss this as just gang members killing each other, so it’s no big deal, this clearly would not be tolerated in a largely white suburban setting, gang associated or otherwise.
> An additional concern is the varying methods by which homicides are classified as “gang-related.” The most commonly used is the “member-based” approach, in which a homicide is classified as gang-related if the victim was and/or the perpetrator is a gang member.
[] https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/about/faq#faq-5-how-are-g...
Also, tons of people (850k - 1.4m) are classified as gang members. The criteria for being a gang member is very broad and includes friend groups who've been arrested:
- The group has three or more members, generally aged 12–24.
- Members share an identity, typically linked to a name, and often other symbols.
- Members view themselves as a gang, and they are recognized by others as a gang.
- The group has some permanence and a degree of organization.
- The group is involved in an elevated level of criminal activity.
[] https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/about/faq#faq-1-what-is-a...
[] 850k https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/about/faq#faq-4-how-exten...
[] 1.4 million (page 9) https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publicati...
If you calculate out the statistics, there're tons of people classified as gang members
{ latino: ~50%, black: ~30%, white non-latino: ~15% }
{ latino: 450k-700k, black: 250-400k, white non-latino: 125-200k }
(I don't know how they classify black latino vs white latino)
[] https://nationalgangcenter.ojp.gov/about/faq#faq-11-what-is-...
You can compare these numbers to the total population of males (90% of gang members are male) in the 14-24 age range (I excluded the 10-14 population even though it's included in the 12-24 age range). Classifying 10% of the population as being in a gang basically makes the label useless since you can then call almost anything "gang-related".
{ latino: 5m, black: 3m, white non-latino: 15m }
{ latino: ~10%, black: ~10%, white non-latino: 1% }
[] https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=ACSDT1Y2011.B01001I
[] https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=ACSDT1Y2019.B01001B
[] https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=ACSDT1Y2019.B01001A
Not everywhere. The UK hasn't allowed police to lie when interviewing suspects since the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, known as PACE.
It would be a good idea if countries (not just the US and not just in policing) were to look for best practice outside their own borders occasionally.
Also, it's not really true that merely remaining silent is taken to be an indication of guilt. The point is that an adverse inference may be drawn from silence in basically the same way that an adverse inference may be drawn from a statement made to police. The prosecution can't just say "the defendant said nothing when questioned and is therefore guilty".
The point is that in the US, the prosecutor can't even suggest (well, they can suggest, but an objection will be raised) that the defendant's silence is an indication of guilt.
[1] Anyone who was compelled to testify against themselves would just point out that they did so under duress, and surely, a reasonable jury would throw that testimony out. I certainly would. For some reason though, we don't expect juries to be reasonable on this point.
Indeed, yes, prosecutors have more free rein in the UK to suggest to the jury that someone's silence during question is incriminating. I just wonder if this makes much of a difference in practice. Do you know of any examples of cases in Britain where a conviction would most likely not have been obtained if the prosecutors were not permitted to do this?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
The suspect is repeatedly reminded of his right to counsel, given water, asked if he is hungry, etc. The intent here is to firmly establish that the suspect's rights have been respected - key to making sure the interrogation tapes are admissible in court.
The interrogator then proceeds to tell a series of lies about his background and interests to build rapport with the suspect - he's clearly done his research beforehand to understand which buttons he needs to push.
By the end of the two-hours-and-change video, Minassian has opened up and produced a confession so good that his defence counsel could only try to argue that he wasn't of sound mind.
Not all interrogators are this skilled - this was a very high-profile case, so the Toronto Police deployed their best - but it seems obvious that better training rather than banning useful techniques would result in more favourable outcomes.
There is still the issue of innocent people getting caught up in the system or admitting to crimes they didn't commit, but I'd suggest that there are better approaches like, once again, education of the public. You might be uncomfortable and scared for some period of time, but you do not have to talk to the police.
I feel like there's a fundamental difference between an interrogator lying about his own back story to build rapport and them lying about other evidence, witnesses or their authority to make a deal, etc.
If you're not being charged with anything, you're not required to voluntarily show up for an interrogation. If you're detained, you can always ask "Am I free to leave?" and, if they answer yes, just walk out.
Police are permitted to keep asking you the same question even if you repeatedly say "My lawyer has instructed me not to answer questions", but obviously there's a line where it will start to look abusive on the tape and where the interrogator will just get frustrated and end the interview.
You can't be compelled to testify against yourself, but others can potentially be compelled to testify against you (on the condition that their testimony can't be used to incriminate them in the future).
no one would ever get convicted if police didn't lie. If no one can ever get convicted, either we can murder rape and steal without consequence or we'd have to live in an absolute monitored police state. I think its beneficial they can lie.
the real world isn't a SVU episode on TV with DNA, high resolution video, and witnesses. I don't know the percentage, but the vast majority of crime has and never will have evidence other than a witness or a confession.
Also saying they can't lie is not easy, as you need an oracle of truth. So if something untruthful is said, does that mean they have to be let go? you mistake the date and they can go free? its impossible to police truth.
But I notice that in your statement, it's all about the conviction, not about the guilt.
I ran into a similar situation once: an officer wanted to hear a very specific thing from me, so he asked me a question, then interrupted me mid-sentence when he heard the substring he wanted (the full sentence was along the lines of "we were planning on doing X, but not for another 5 years", where the point of contention was whether they could prove whether I was planning on doing X immediately), never mind that I was explicitly explaining how his theory was all wrong.
Thankfully for me, this was with the Canada Border agency, which has an appeals process, and surely enough, when they read my side of the story, they overruled the officer in my favor.
So, the defendant saying those magic words should automatically erase any statements the defendant made, whether or not the magic words are true? Or should perhaps, both the claim of inducement and the other statements remain in evidence, with the trier of fact deciding on the weight to give each?
I'm not sure what the benefit to society is, as you asked, but the benefit for law enforcement is that they can escape the intent of 4th amendment.
I've spent the past two weeks watching JCS - Criminal Psychology on YouTube. Lies are clearly a core part of interrogations. I haven't ever seen one where lying wasn't a core part of the strategy of the interrogator. Go watch some videos on that channel. It's really, really interesting.
Never talk to the police.
1. Lies about the process / promissary lies. e.g. "If you just confess, you can go home." 2. Lies about evidence. e.g. "We talked to {Friend|Family|Co-conspirator} and they said you did it and they have the {item} to prove it. It's not going to look good if you continue to lie to me."
#1 seems obviously bad to me. Too high of a risk of tricking innocent people into thinking they can end the stress by falsely confessing.
#2 seems less bad, possibly beneficial. There are other comments about how this can speed up interrogations by getting people who are guilty to think they've been caught and confess. I could be convinced otherwise.
In my opinion, sounds like 1 and 2 should be illegal for minors. But 1 should be illegal in general, for adults too.
Alternatively, he might think that his friend actually implicated him and that he has the choice of saying nothing and being convicted because of that, or confessing to a lesser charge.
Alternately, he might just think that police who'd fake evidence are corrupt, and that corrupt police could do a lot worse, like fake evidence against his whole family or just shoot him, so he'd better confess just to come out of this alive.
This is so obvious, it's not clear why this has to be spelled out. The purpose of civil rights like the fifth amendment is not making life easy for criminals, the purpose is protecting innocent people.
You can argue that the harm inflicted by some particular procedure to innocent people exceeds the benefits, but that becomes a utilitarian debate, rather than one about philosophical dogma.
This is true and there is power in all manners of things, including very abusive, immoral and possibly illegal things; there is a lot of power in threatening physical (or psychological) violence to people, for example.
I guess the question is about which usage of power we should (ideally) endorse as a society as a matter of course .
Also, if you report yourself before the authorities know that the crime took place, you get an automatic reduction in your sentence (article 65 inciso II item b of the Brazilian Penal Code)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
Edit: The lawyer made a follow up video clarifying that in routine traffic stops police do have autonomy. So as long as you are reasonable and just showing the policeman you aren't a public menace is seems ok. For any other reason I'd have my lawyer on me no matter what.
Also this video specifically pertains to the 5th US constitutional amendment.
Also IANAL but the guy in the video is.
Asking for someone who understands law to come and help you is a very smart move.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02...
If a police officer pulls you over and you start pulling the "I've been told never to talk to the police", you're escalating the encounter before it even starts. That's no excuse for police abusing their authority, but they've got the authority and you don't.
Lawyers have told me to use your best judgment. Cooperate as long as the police are being cooperative, and the odds are you'll go about your day with only minor aggravation. Only escalate to the "I don't talk to police" when they start getting hostile with you. This is, I'm told, what the lawyers themselves do.
This is for minor encounters, like traffic stops or ordinary questions. If you're actually taken in or you're a suspect, yeah, shut up and wait for your lawyer.
And, uh, this is the advice they give to me as a white man. It may not apply if you're somebody more likely to be subject to abuse.
None of this is good. It's very, very bad. This advice is not about fairness; it's about trying to make your life as least-worst as possible.
Does that take 20 minutes? I dunno. Or maybe they're doing paperwork, or playing solitaire, or maybe just wasting your time because they can. The process is incredibly opaque. Even if it's necessary, it's unclear why, and I've never had a traffic stop that didn't feel abusive.
I'm always super placating about it in an attempt to keep it from getting even worse. Fortunately, it has only happened a very small number of times -- all of which were for minor violations that could easily have been "Hey, I saw you do X. Don't do that again." (Which actually did happen once -- for failing to turn my lights on in the daytime. Which was written on a sign. Presumably about some kind of visibility, I guess. But at least they didn't fine me over it, or take up more than 5 minutes.)
Apparently the correct advice is to refuse to say anything without a lawyer, which I'm certain would be the end of the matter. I wonder if it's lawyers (paid $500/hour or whatever) who suggest that advice.
If you look at it from a lawyer's perspective: The majority of my clients who speak to the police(either before or after employing me) have a large amount of trouble. So therefore it is ill advised to speak to the police.
What they are missing: All the people who spoke with police and had no problems.
It is sample bias.
And the whole point is that even in your case, it’s not directly beneficial to you to answer even innocuous questions about your neighbor’s death; at best it doesn’t change any suspicions on you, but at worst there is a chance that your answers could make you a person of interest when you weren’t one before.
Your claim "not directly beneficial to you" is also odd. Not talking to the police and thus not finding out there's a murderer around?
Maybe it's different in third world countries where the police don't care about the public and are just a law to themselves, that's certainly not the case where I live.
Unfortunately, we can probably count the number of cops charged with that crime on zero hands. I'm increasingly convinced that our entire police problem in the US boils down to our incentives that we give to prosecutors which make them avoid any attempt to hold cops accountable for their crimes. I'm not sure what the solution is, but having independent prosecutors for police crimes might be a good start.
With regards to your point about cooperating until the cop starts acting adversarial, I think that advice applies to someone who is intelligent and informed about the law enough to understand when a cop is actually trying to coerce an admission. It might be good advice for you, but it might actually be terrible advice for someone else.
It would have to be an almost entirely separate career path once you stepped into it. Once you've prosecuted a few cops, I'm sure that will follow you as a prosecutor wherever you go, and good luck hiding it. Gotta either stay in that game or advance to the point you no longer need to work with cops (become a judge I guess)
I'm a firefighter / paramedic.
Cops have arrested paramedics providing patient care on accident scenes for varying slights.
Cops have come to hospitals where their off-duty drunk buddy runs a red light and t-boned someone else, and demanded nurses do blood draws (without a warrant) of the other party looking for intoxication, and then arrested the nurse for refusing.
All groups that (rightly or wrongly, I'm making no judgment here, just observing) are considered to be "on the same side", are only on that side as long as it is not inconvenient to those cops, then they're as much a target as anyone else.
If you are referring to the incident in Salt Lake City, you might be pleased to know that the nurse in question ended up getting a $500,000 settlement: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/01/561337106...
edit: Oh, and the cop was fired, too.
The Overton window that cops believe exists about acceptable cop behavior is unfathomably out of line with reality. That's the reason why police oppose citizen backed reviews of their conduct. Makes me wonder how many people with similar circumstances but less publicity get swept under the rug.
I feel like that question is going to be hostile no matter what. I've been told by police that they don't use it, but didn't rule out the notion that others might.
I've never had an encounter with the police worse than a basic traffic stop, so I've never really had to apply the "don't talk" advice. I hope I never do. Because I'm quite certain I'll do the wrong thing, regardless of what I do.
The only safe answer to that, period, is "No". Even if you think the cop pulled you over because you were going 100 in a 55, you still don't know, it's not ever going to be a lie, and anything else can legitimately be taken as an admission of guilt in court
On a scale from 1 to 10, how bad would it be to answer that with "Is it because I is black?" (© 1998-2021 Ali G)?
Nobody with a law degree has ever suggested that at a traffic stop you start off by saying you're not answering questions and to call your lawyer.
It seems like a lot of people think that its what you should do! I personally think its dumb for a traffic stop
If a loved one of yours is kidnapped, I imagine you'll hope the witnessess will talk to the police.
I am cynical enough to think that a defense attorney might act like a paperclip maximizer and optimize for "nobody goes to jail, ever, whatever the consequences to society" when giving advise on a Youtube video.
One might also suspect the reason that video is so often cited is because it is so extreme, and people are biased to repost wacky "meme-like" catch phrases like "don't talk to the police" instead of more even-minded advise.
It's not cynical for a defense attorney to have the goal of "the people I represent never go to jail". It's literally his job. The fact that he then takes that advice out of his office and onto YouTube as part of his advertising his practice also seems reasonable.
IDK if you murder-raped 100,000 people. Due process is due process. The worse the charge the higher the level of effort I'm expecting from the cops. If they can't get charges to stick, what are they even there for?
You are responding to something I never said. The attorney does not represent people watching the Youtube video. He isn't giving advise to clients but saying things to society at large.
I have a feeling you would not actually folllow the attorney's advise in the real world. If you saw someone being raped in front of your house would you call 911 or would you say "the Youtuber with a law degree told me not to. "
I suspect you would do the right thing and talk to the 911 operator. So why defend the video?
I can call 911, report a crime is being committed with the intention of having the police intervene, provide no additional details beyond that, and then never speak to a police officer unless they subpoena testimony from me (and even then, issue statements through a lawyer).
This is why I'm defending the video. We live in a society, and I fully accept that while also accepting that I don't trust cops ever under any circumstances period.
I do in fact believe you are going to talk to the police and tell them where the attacker is. In fact I believe the guy who made the video will too.
Though your framing in terms of pure selfishness (risk and upside to the person talking to the police without consideration for anyone else) is probably irrational unless you are also opposed to altruism.
If you generally despise altruism and are not wired for emotions like "guilt" I believe you may in fact not talk to the police in that scenario.
No, it just means that I value my personal well-being over those of others. Maybe to an extent you dislike, but that's also part of my point - the expectation that other people should place themselves at risk for your well-being could also be interpreted as a selfish or self-entitled attitude.
They'll say, come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me.
Stop moving the goal posts. I'm going to do exactly what I said. But by all means, find me IRL and do a rape in front of my house to see what happens. It's the only way to actually prove any of this.
</talking in this thread>
How often do you think this happens? How often do you think police overstepping their limitations happens?
People can protect themselves from police oversteps without listening to extreme advise from someone suggesting we pretend we don't live in a society.
I'd think any reasonable advise would consider the probability that talking to police in any particular scenario would lead to bad outcomes vs good outcomes, but maybe that's not catchy enough to be retweeted on social networks.
[0] https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-167-48-hours-6-18-21/
My impression is that cops are incentivized to close the case much more than they are to find the truth, and the most prominent targets of their investigation will be friends, acquaintances, and family members, so even in the unlikely case of a loved one being kidnapped you should be very careful and probably talk to them only through a lawyer.
If you think prosecutors are seedy you should feel the same about defense attorneys.
Anyway, the defense attorneys to whom poor people have access (public defenders and other low-cost providers) are seldom former prosecutors, so they could possibly be decent humans. That they face so many obstacles is a good sign of the priorities of the system.
The conversation went exactly like parent comment describes: "You must be in a hurry when you drive so fast". I, knowing they probably have no proof of my speeding, responded with "Well, I drive a car", intentionally evading anything incriminating.
They tried again a few times with "You drive always this fast?" And "Well you must have driven fast, since we saw you breaking hard when you saw us", to both of which I replied with a smile and "I drive a car".
After roughly three times I told them I drive a car, it seemed they got the hint they aint gonna get anything on me, so they gave me 10$ fine for my two weeks expired driving licence (I had no idea), for which I thanked them for letting me know.
Funny thing is, they tested me for alcohol, but regarding drug test they told they wont test me as they think I am not a drug user. That surprised me, as my two stops before I was tested for drugs. I account that to my confidence (and good mood thanks to it) during this last encounter, as the two before happened before I educated myself and was nervous.
Tldr: educate yourself to the point of being confident during traffic stop and it might go much smoother
When I was about 13 or so, I was walking home with a kid from school and he threw a rock at a passing car. He ran off and left me to deal with the driver. I explained that it was this other kid.
I called the kid later to let him know that I ratted him out and apologized, but I didn't want to be on the hook for it.
The driver, my parents, and the parents of the kid who threw the rock all met with us. Talked through the details, and somewhere in there they mentioned that I had called this kid to apologize, and I said that yeah, I had called him.
It wasn't until after everyone left with the agreement that I was guilty and would pay the damage that my dad told me that I had agreed that I called this kid and apologized for lying about him throwing the rock.
I was totally blindsided by that interpretation. I didn't understand that anyone had even suggested that I might have lied in that situation. It never crossed my mind, I thought I was just saying that I called him. There's nuance and implications in adult conversation that never crosses the mind of a kid.
Plus, this right there sound to me like very wishful thinking on the side of dad who don't want his kid to be guilty. It does not sound like honest evaluation of what was said. He was likely eager to interpret and twist anything just to get that result and succeeded.
I’m a social robotics researcher and our group has spent several years working in this area, looking at the effectiveness, ethics, and protections (or harms) involved in using different emerging technologies for conducting forensic interviews with children. As a result I’ve become very familiar with the different forensic interviewing techniques used with kids.
One thing I can say is historically some horrible approaches have been common, but there’s tremendous effort today to reform this. However, even with these well designed techniques the research shows forensic interviewers fall back to using problematic methods if they aren’t regularly refreshed on proper techniques. Our research is focused on eliminating the biases and leading interviewers are vulnerable to by using software and even using tightly controlled social robotic interviewers to totally control expressions, body language, etc. during these interviews.
The general progression is ask an open ended question, then if that’s unsuccessful offer multiple choice, then yes-no. Our protocols strictly forbid adding information apart from repeating what a child says in open ended responses for clarification. But even that can be tricky, even through a robot. In summary it’s not an easy thing and it seems most police/social services in the US have relatively few resources dedicated to improving it. Here’s hoping we can improve this soon!
Police represent the interests of the state, not the interests of my child.
Really?
https://www.allprodad.com/things-your-child-should-know-when... > The best people to seek out would be the police, security guards, the fire department, and store management and employees. If these can’t be found, teach them to seek a mom with young children.
http://achildsworldnc.com/teach-kids-case-get-lost/ > Advise children that if they need assistance they should only approach someone such as a security guard, police officer or someone who is clearly a member of the staff.
I mean, I know these are just random internet things -- but I vaguely remember that advice even being in kids' books when I was growing up.
Yes, I think it used to be common. But I don't think it is nearly as much so now.
Second, does simply saying that public servants aren't allowed to lie...work? It seems like there are many situations where public officials lie broadly and baldly, and there is no comeuppance, not even when perjurious!
Essentially, an officer of the law deciding to lie should invalidate all evidence gained after the lie.
Isn't it already illegal to interrogate a minor without their parents? In any case, this story sounds similar to the Central Park Five / Exonerated Five.
Unfortunately, police in Chicago have committed lots of illegal acts during interrogations. I'm worried that making more things illegal may not have significant impact if they just deny lying after the fact.
No, it's not illegal, I don't think? Parents don't need to be present or informed. Maybe some states are slightly different and I guess it might depend on the charges.
But there's no constitutional guarantee.
If a civil engineer lies about the capacity of a bridge, they go to jail.
If a lawyer lies in court, they go to jail.
Why the hell are police officers not held to the same standard of professional responsibility??
That’s absolutely not true, prosecutors regularly place themselves above the law without consequences.
Many police do horrible things with impunity. You can easily go down a YouTube rabbit hole for months with countless examples spanning many jurisdictions. I believe this is the greatest threat to our country, and that isn't hyperbole. If your are interested in such an endeavor for personal education, here's a start:
I later learned that these cops had our school's security company on the line, who was flabbergasted by the idea that unsecured FTP could be accessed by wisecracking students. Suffice to say, I'm all for legislation like this.
Pretty sure that if the roles were reversed, they would be the first to cry martyr.
Therefore that's a Golden Rule fail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Officers%27_Bi...
The LEOBR detailed by the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police as follows:[4]
Law enforcement officers, except when on duty or acting in an official capacity, have the right to engage in political activity or run for elective office.
Law enforcement officers shall, if disciplinary action is expected, be notified of the investigation, the nature of the alleged violation, and be notified of the outcome of the investigation and the recommendations made to superiors by the investigators.
Questioning of a law enforcement officer should be conducted for a reasonable length of time and preferably while the officer is on duty unless exigent circumstances apply.
Questioning of the law enforcement officer should take place at the offices of those conducting the investigation or at the place where the officer reports to work, unless the officer consents to another location.
Law enforcement officers will be questioned by a single investigator, and he or she shall be informed of the name, rank, and command of the officer conducting the investigation.
Law enforcement officers under investigation are entitled to have counsel or any other individual of their choice present at the interrogation.
Law enforcement officers cannot be threatened, harassed, or promised rewards to induce the answering of any question.
Law enforcement officers are entitled to a hearing, with notification in advance of the date, access to transcripts, and other relevant documents and evidence generated by the hearing and to representation by counsel or another non-attorney representative at the hearing.
Law enforcement officers shall have the opportunity to comment in writing on any adverse materials placed in his or her personnel file.
Law enforcement officers cannot be subject to retaliation for the exercise of these or any other rights under Federal, or State.They also can lie to trigger responses and see how the suspect react, guilty people seem to react in way different ways than innocent ones. It's obviously not an exact science, even though it's heavily studied and has some psychology compounds, but it worked and put countless number of guilty people behind the bars
A source I like is: https://www.youtube.com/c/JCSCriminalPsychology
This timestamped video is an example of a cop lying (to innocent people): https://youtu.be/BemHqUqcpI8?t=704
> Commonly used interrogation tactics, such as promising leniency or insinuating that incriminating evidence exists, are banned for suspects under 18 years old under the new law, which goes into effect Jan. 1.
Edit: adding this link to the excellent and oft-cited "Don't talk to the police [even if you're completely innocent]" lecture
If the police are lying to the people, then why can't we assume the witnesses are lying... The police are supposed to be more reliable, after all.
The idea that the police would lie and claim to have evidence is just completely foreign to us.
Police lying to you is not a crime.
This is a very good reason to limit interactions with police.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/nyregion/testilying-polic...
(and yes, this probably is related to my white privilege - when I compared my experience of the police growing up with the experiences of my friends it seriously opened my eyes)
I mean, it’s clearly damaged cops with severe mental issues (most probably PTSD), who have decided that the people they are employed to protect, somehow are their most aggressive enemy..
Like, if the people with a state sanctioned monopoly on violence, decide that beating people isn’t enough, they must also be able to trick people into a prison sentence, you don’t have police you have fascists stormtroopers.
I think a lot of this perpetuates an us/them mentality that pervades government.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs...
TLDR: A high-school student made a recording of a sexual encounter and word got out. Kid is called to the principal's office where the resource officer (literally a cop that stays on campus) threatened the kid with being put on the sex offender registry among other actions. Kid slips away while staff is waiting for the mom to arrive and jumps off a parking garage, killing himself. School and police deny any wrong doing and "only meant to scare the kid".
The judge who presided over the case was under the impression that the student was being interrogated.
> If your kids stay out of trouble, they won't be interacting much with them.
Unless they're black, statistically. Then they're being pulled aside or pulled over at night and put into these interactions for just existing. You can't teach your kids to just "stay out" of their skin color, they can't just "stay out" of a system of institutionalized racism.
This is true. It is also true that they don't need to lie to do their jobs.
For the record, I think they're pretty good at their jobs, and 99.999% of the time, they act justly. But they still don't need to lie.
We should stop deifying police for "putting their lives on the line" when the vast majority of injuries on duty come from traffic accidents
The text of the bill is here: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&Sessi...