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Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

They can also plant evidence, find something left behind by a passenger, or any myriad of things. You do not consent to the search because if you are arrested I guarantee that's the first thing the lawyer will ask. And will turn a $10k into a $20k if you allowed it. Because even 1 piece of illegally gathered evidence can wreck the whole case.

BTW, I've done jury duty and witnessed the DA's case fall apart as witnesses and evidence was excluded. It's hard to build a strong narrative when whole chapters have to be ripped out. Years of evidence went up in smoke because they weren't handled correctly.

Anyway, the point is you don't make the cops job easier because they certainly don't deserve it.

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Interesting, typically all the evidentiary hearings happen without the jury present - because as much as we like to pretend otherwise, once the jury hears something it's going to be considered no matter what.

In my case we had pictures of random people, we assumed "accomplices", with no statement. Dates and timestamps where there was lots of activity, then nothing for 2-3 weeks and then lots of activity. We determined in the jury room the prosecution was hiding evidence from us probably because some of it wasn't legally obtained.

We were 51% certain the guy was guilty but everything else left too much doubt.

I was on jury duty recently that seemed the epitome of "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride," along with a terrible job done by the prosecutors. I explicitly told the defense attorneys on the way out that they didn't win their case, the prosecution lost by doing a terrible job with evidence.

Violation of an order of protection case, charged with violating a 500 foot OOP by 2 feet. Apparently part of the sidewalk at a nearby intersection was 498 feet from the house, but they didn't even pop up a map of the area just threw a bunch of street names at jurors from all over the major metro area.

That seems wild. How do they even know it was 498 feet? Usually these things are only enforced if someone makes a complaint, and the basis for that complaint is usually something very obvious.

If the defense believes the order was in fact violated but they see the prosecution doing a terrible job with the evidence the worst thing they could do would be to clearly communicate anything to you!

Of the few criminal cases I sat through usually it's nothing like what you see on TV. There is no brilliant dialog or smoking gun evidence. The defense simply raises objections or asks sensible questions. If they did their job right they might not have to say much at all. You thinking the prosecution doing a terrible job is the defense attorneys job!

Typically what happens is the defendant doesn't exercise their constitutional right to shut the fuck up. The only statement you should give is: "I don't consent","my lawyer","I'm remaining silent".

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