To me there is a fundamental difference between lies like:
1. "Your buddy in the next room already ratted you out."
2. "Sign this admission and you'll only get 6 months, tops. If you don't, we can seize your house and your mother will be living on the streets. "
How could you live in the world without breaking the law if you didn't know what the law was?
Many of today's lawmakers no longer have that intent, but the system as a whole still keeps running in a manner that allows tools of that nature to be used against targeted individuals and populations.
What baffles me is the hypocrisy in the political party that wants more government and regulation is the same one that hates the men who enforce it.
> Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532 (1897), was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that an alleged confession to a crime, in order to be admissible, must not be obtained by threats or violence, nor by any direct or implied promises, however slight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_v._United_States
The ruling was later applied to the states as well in Malloy v. Hogan
> The Court held that the Fifth Amendment's exception from compulsory self-incrimination is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against abridgement by a state. When determining if state officers properly obtained a confession, one must focus on whether the statements were made freely and voluntarily without any direct or implied promises or improper influence.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1963/110
The "you will get X years instead of Y years" has repeatedly been found to make testimony inadmissible. You might be confusing it with plea bargains which are legal but don't involve the police and are actually binding agreements. The prosecutor cannot lie to you about what you will receive in return for your cooperation.
Yet plea bargaining is basically a promise in exchange for a confession (guilty plea), and that's why it's not allowed basically anywhere except the US.
For example I can find a lot of Australian lawyers discussing plea deals.
> There are three main types of plea deals in Australia:
> Charge Bargaining – The defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge than initially filed. For example, a charge of aggravated assault may be reduced to common assault.
> Sentence Bargaining – The defendant pleads guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence recommendation from the prosecution.
> Fact Bargaining – The prosecution and defence agree on which facts will be presented to the court, potentially influencing sentencing outcomes.
https://newsouthlawyers.com.au/plea-deals-in-australia-what-...
If you just mean that plea deals are not used by inquisitorial systems then obviously that makes sense.
This isn't good advice only for people who have possibly committed a crime but also (and especially) for those who are confident that they have not. The police are asking you questions to "get to the bottom of it" and they encounter people every day who do think they can lie to get out of a crime; they think you might try to lie to get out of a crime. They won't trust your words but they will verify your words. If your words turn out to be false, then they'll tell the judge/jury that you lied to them, not that you were mistaken; in the absence of stronger evidence (against someone else) they might claim you were possibly even intending to direct their investigation toward a red herring with your falsehoods.
The only revision to this advice I've heard in the past decade-and-a-bit: tell the police your real first and last name if they ask. It's not always a requirement but some states have "stop and ID" laws, which means you have to identify yourself to law enforcement during a "lawful detention" (other states instead require it after an arrest).
I don't even think they are all that interested in getting to the truth of the matter, they are mostly concerned with getting an arrest and conviction. If it'll be easier to throw you behind bars than to find and arrest the dangerous person who actually committed the crime they aren't all going to choose more work and risk "officer safety" when they can just take you and call it a day. Especially not if they're already prejudiced against you or you bruised their fragile ego somehow.
If you are told to care about a number, you will care about a number.
A friend was a career LAPD detective, and he gave me the talk. He said because I’m a nice guy I might try to help the police by explaining what I saw in detail. He was adamant that I never ever do that, because in the absence of someone to pin it on, they would find a way to pin it on me. He saw it as literally their job.
No matter what, even if you are just standing there when something happens, don’t talk to the police.
The police showed up and took my statement, in which I said I didn't hear a car, so I assume he just ran off.
They took me in about two weeks later for an official statement. Then told me I had to take a polygraph because my stories didn't match. The story didn't change. The officer at the scene wrote that I said I saw the guy run off.
I was shitting bricks. A cop friend of my parents told me that this was common. They didn't have a suspect, I was a young kid, so they were just trying to get me to admit to it. He said they would tell me I failed the polygraph test and to just come clean.
That's what they did. They tried to pin it on me, but I legit didn't do it, so I would never confess. Even after they tried the 'you'll only get probation of you confess now, but if this goes to trial you'll be tried as an adult' nonsense.
And that's the story of how I learned to never, ever, ever speak to a police officer without legal counsel, even if you're straight up the victim in the situation.
What a fucking mess this country is in terms of policing.
In my origin country they require witnesses to sign off witness statements. This isn’t the case here, in the US?
How you were summoned? Was it official? What if you’d shown with lawyer?
I think that now it’s already established that polygraphs are bullshit. Could you refuse it?
Definitely, unless ordered by a judge. He needed a lawyer to advise him.
Witness statements are supposed to be signed. I never even saw the reports from any of the cops I interacted with. I think they were just lying the entire time.
They told me I didn't need a lawyer if I was innocent. And because I was 16 or 17, I believed them. I'm hindsight, I would've had a lawyer immediately.
It's a fucking mess, but it's pretty standard practice at the garbage police station where I grew up. I'm assuming it's like that in more places.
Subsequently, it's your answers that are admissable in court, not the results. If you're ever given a polygraph, they will ask you to lie on a question or two "as a baseline." Refuse to do that. They will use it against you.
What is one to do if they have material information and a vested interest in crimes being solved and getting the right people be held responsible?
My interview tapes are hilarious.
“Oh really? I live in Queens. You got a team of monkeys working on this or something?”
Instead, you get human beings who are shielded by a thin piece of paper who can summarily execute you, then say "whoops, my bad".
Police are nothing more than State-sponsored gang members.
Under civil asset forfeiture they are literally allowed to go out and rob people independent of what any taxes might be.
Sometimes very literally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_Los_Angeles_Count...
I fear like many other old assumptions about criminal justice that isn't a close match to reality.
Because there is nothing prohibiting it.