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Comment by serve_yay | Hacker News Reader

The only time I ever did this, it was a routine traffic stop and I was with my wife and my parents. The cop was asking me a bunch of questions about why I was driving so fast, and I just played it off like I didn't understand, just trying to say as little as possible. It was a bad tactic - it raised suspicion and I later learned that my mother thought I was actually holding drugs or something because I was being evasive. I still in general agree with the advice, but... it requires some subtlety.

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This is a good point though. What do you folks suggest for the standard traffic stop, along the lines of,

"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

Presumably both "yes" and "no" would be bad. (The former is obvious, and the latter could mean you're not paying sufficient attention, etc.) So, do you just stare at them in silence? Do you say something like, "I'd rather not answer," which while accurate, sure sounds like "yes". (At the very least, there goes your chance of a warning instead of a ticket...)[1]

I agree with serve_yay that many of these situations start off seeming innocuous, and staying silent is easier said than done.

Another example is the cops canvasing the area of a crime, looking for info. Do you just refuse to speak to them without a lawyer, even though you had nothing to do with it? It's certainly possible (albeit unlikely) that they actually have you as a suspect and are trying to trick you into some sort of false statement. (Or a statement that appears to be false because it conflicts with other evidence, even if it's true!) But in the vast majority of cases it'll be exactly what it seems. Or say you actually witnessed a crime. Or were the victim! Still lawyer up before talking to the cops? It appears the safest thing is, yes, always get a lawyer. But at some point on the spectrum, does the cost and inconvenience outweigh the insurance factor of doing so?

[1] I've only been in that situation a couple times, but I've tried my best to answer politely without saying anything material. One way to do that is to answer questions with questions. "Do you know how fast you were going?" "How fast was I going, Sir?"

> "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

The only responses you should use in such situations are:

'No comment'

'Am I free to go?'

Plus the statutory minimum ( name, address, DoB according to your local legislation ).

Psychologically it is very, very difficult. One way to try to handle it is to pretend you're responding to Emacs Eliza, which will always try to turn your words back onto you.

Have you used either of those responses before? Judging from my limited exposure with the police this sort of "technically I don't have to do this\answer this" response is an invite for a cranky cop to do everything they can to inconvenience you as a punishment.

For example in my case if I'd carried on doing what I was doing (talking to my friend at conversational level and smiling, while a passing police officer told me "you can wipe that smirk off your face or I'll do it for you" followed by vague suggestions that I should be taken to the police station) I should be able to rest easy knowing I've done nothing wrong and there's not a single crime I could've been found guilty of at that moment. However, they probably could've made my life extremely unpleasant - taking me in for some sort of "questioning", spending a night in the cells - who knows.

So this is a long-winded way to ask - is that totally ironclad\foolproof, or is there a non-zero chance that this response will make the situation worse despite being totally legal?

One thing they can easily do, which once happened to me after being nothing but polite: take your driver's license, walk back to their car, and play on their phone for half an hour. I imagine the chances of that would go up with a non-cooperative response.

I'm certainly not saying you should spill your guts, but at least being as polite as possible without saying anything incriminating seems sensible.

It's about the worst case.

Can that make the situation worse? Absolutely. A cop can, at least where I live, throw you in a cell for 48 hours for any reason (other than being a member of a protected class) or none, just on their say-so. If they do it every day their superiors are going to start asking questions, but for a one-off "trust me on this one guys" a cop definitely has that legal authority, and if you piss them off enough it could be the difference between walking away and spending those two nights in jail. (More realistically, it'll make the difference between walking away and going down to the station to be fingerprinted and the like and released after a few hours).

But if you incriminate yourself, or commit a crime by e.g. making a false statement as in the article, then you could be looking at a lot more than two nights.

Exactly - I know someone who tried to go the smart-arse route, and the police ended up spending 45 minutes looking into every possible detail of the car, right down to "the lights have the wrong pattern on them". Ended up costing them far more than just accepting a speeding ticket.

> "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

The proper answer is - "No, because I know exactly where I am"

That's going to get you instantly arrested in Albuquerque, NM.

They outlaw science there?

Perhaps the opposite: Maybe he was referencing the physics research there?

How can saying "Yes, I know" get you into bigger trouble than a speeding ticket? At best you can try to lie and state a legal speed if you were going in a borderline speed.

Anyway, it could be different in the US (I'm from Israel, where police is brutal only if you're Palestinian or holding a political rally. Otherwise they're mostly useless). I only got pulled once, for not coming to a complete stop on a stop sign (I slowed down to almost a complete stop). I just politely said "yeah officer, I did slow down, but it's my bad, sorry". The reaction was "oh well, I see you don't have any prior traffic violations, I'm going to let this one slide, have a nice day".

No indicates recklessness.

Yes indicates intent.

You're screwed either way.

No might indicate negligence, which isn't as horrible as recklessness.

Yes doesn't indicate anything except awareness. They usually will follow it up with "How fast were you going?"

I agree "no" is a bad idea. But I doubt "yes" has to do with intent at all.

I think procedurally what the officer is doing is establishing a documentation record to support their speed facts because that makes it easy for them if/when you contest the ticket in court.

The officer has a preferred narrative/mold and is trying find a way to document that you agree with that version at the time you were pulled over in case you try to change the story later in court. So "yes, I know" seems to work essentially as that blanket acceptance of the officer's narrative.

But what's the worst that could happen? Let's say you're not drunk, you don't have anything illegal in your car, and the speed is nothing too bad. You were just speeding. Can anything you say result in anything worse than a ticket and a fine?

I was just using speeding as an example of an interaction that most of us have probably had at some point. No, you probably won't end up with anything worse than a fine. But just like with more serious matters, you might be getting yourself in trouble unnecessarily. Sometimes police will stop someone they believe to have been speeding, without any evidence to that fact. (They saw you zip by, but don't have you on radar, and didn't get a chance to pace you, for instance.) If you say, "Yes, sorry I was speeding," or, "I thought I was only about 5 over," or whatever, now they can ticket you.

Am I reading all these comments correctly ? You guys were caught in the act and don't even admit it ?

"Do you know how fast you were driving?"

"Yes sir, I'm sorry I was speeding, it's been a stressful day. I have no excuse for this behavior. I won't do it again."

Should be the reasonable answer. Now swallow your pride and pay the fine, and try not to do that again. My kids will thank you.

I'm not in the US. Our police officers aren't desperate to meet quotas and don't have any reason to assume a driver is armed and/or dangerous. I don't have any reason to believe a conversation with a police officer in my country will lead to anything other than improving my chance to be let go with a warning instead of a fine.

That said, I'm still in my probation period (only started driving a little more than a year ago) and haven't violated any traffic laws yet at all. Most speeding checks are done with unmanned cameras anyway, so your first contact with the orderlies will be a flash followed by a stern letter a few weeks later.

> "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

Do as politicians do; don't answer the question, change tack. "Here's my driver licence, officer."

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

Or, in my case a couple weeks back, "any reason you were going so fast?"

You don't have to answer. I didn't (though I may have babbled some irrelevancies while digging out the paperwork). It's actually quite a mental & social breakthrough to realize you don't have to answer people's questions.

As for being a victim or witness, still best to keep statements very short, as in "that man assaulted me, there's the stick he hit me with, and that woman walking away saw it, I want to press charges and I need to talk to a lawyer" or "I witnessed the attack, here's my contact information". You say what you must to establish legitimate victimhood ("she stole my cocaine" isn't), identify perpetrators and witnesses, and identify probable perishable evidence.

Then.

Shut.

Up.

The only thing to say at this point is "am I free to go?" - repeatedly, if necessary. They'll say & do darned near anything, but at some point they have to either arrest you or not stop you from leaving.

Officer: "any reason you were going so fast?"

You: "I wasn't going fast. I was driving at a safe and prudent speed given the conditions."

ADD: It is good to know if the state you are in or states your frequently drive in is/are "Maximum Speed Limit" or "Presumed Maximum Speed Limit" state(s). I grew up in Minnesota which is a "Presumed Maximum Speed Limit" but now live in WI which is a "Maximum Speed Limit". The nice thing about Minnesota and "Presumed Maximum Speed Limit" is that if you are on a highway outside of a municipality (so in a township) then the posted speed limits are only presumed to be the maximum speed limit. Going faster is prima facie evidence of going to fast and allows officers to stop you. However, if you choose to fight the ticket in court, you can admit to going faster than the posted limit and argue that you were still driving a safe and prudent speed given the conditions. So, if you were in the country driving 65 on a straight and level road with a posted speed limit of 55 on a clear, dry day with 10+ miles of visibility and no other cars on the road, people or animals int he ditch or near the shoulder and a cop caught you on his laser device sitting 1/2 mile down the road, assuming you slowed down to 55 mph before getting close to him, you could argue these facts in court and argue that "the facts and outcomes speak for themselves"... no one was harmed or injured showing again that the speed of 65 mph in those conditions and circumstances was in fact still safe and prudent. In Wisconsin, if you admit to going over the posted speed limit anywhere, you're guilty of not driving a safe and prudent speed no matter what.

IANAL, but this book was an eye opener: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1413312519/ref=as_li_tl?ie=... (affiliate link) save your money though and borrow it from the library.

I couldn't figure out why the downvotes so fast, but after reading my reply I think I get it. Because my reply suggested talking to the police. If so, you're are correct, I take back my suggested response above. It only can clue in the officer to note any and every adverse condition regarding the stop. Saying instead "I don't believe I was going fast." is the most one should say in a reply to the question "any reason you were going so fast?"

Downvotes perhaps because lying to a cop, or resorting to yes-it-is-vs-no-it-isnt with authorities is stupid. He stopped you, and has far more weight in court regarding whether conditions were safe for that speed than you do. Doing 54 in a 40 is fast, and neither the cop nor judge will agree with your assessment.

Cops may let you go faster, and they're authorized to do so if conditions fit ... but they also get to say "the speed limit is a limit" and charge you accordingly. There are a few areas where speed limits are broadly understood, even codified, as suggestions (they post limit signs to elicit federal funds, but on a dry sunny day all they care is you can stay on the road and can stop in time), but nearly everywhere else just realize speed limits are just that, and if you violate them don't be surprised if the jurisdiction decides to profit off your actions.

Officer: "Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

You: "The speed limit." (Even if going faster than the limit, you were minimally going the limit.)

O: "Do you know what the speed limit is?"

Y: "Yes, it's [speed limit]"

O: "I clocked you at [speed over that is over the limit]. Why do you think that is?"

Y: "I don't know Sir, perhaps the device clocked a different vehicle?"

O: "There weren't any other vehicles around."

Y: "I don't know what to say then Sir."

Lying to the police, even by intentionally misinterpreting the question, is probably a bad idea.

>"Sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

"How can I help you officer?" / "What seems to be the problem?"

etc

If you answer directly, it should be to say "I only know what my speedometer displays." And then politely decline to mention the number it had been displaying. If you say a number, in the cops eyes, you are either lying or confessing. If you just say "yes", you cut off certain affirmative defenses you could otherwise raise. If you say "no", the cop may charge you with reckless or inattentive driving rather than speeding. There is literally no way to answer that question that can help you, the best you can do is say the thing that hurts you least.

The answer that you should train yourself to give is "I do not consent to searches, seizures, or questioning without the assistance of legal counsel. Am I free to go? If not, why am I being detained?"

The same response covers all police questions in the US. You can repeat the entire thing on subsequent questions, or you can shorten it to "I don't consent to questioning without the assistance of legal counsel." You have to train yourself. Your natural instinct will be to present as nonthreatening and cooperative. You need to be nonthreatening and unimaginably stubborn. If you have ever seen the television show "COPS", very nearly every "guest star" just talks himself right into a trip to jail. Almost every episode is a variation on this:

  COP: Sir, can you think of any reason why I should arrest you tonight?
  Dumb-Assed Suspect: I have drugs in my pocket.
  COP (to DAS): Put your hands behind your back.
  [COP handcuffs DAS and performs a search.]
  COP (to camera): He just gave us reasonable suspicion, so I searched him and found drugs.
  He's going to jail now.

Don't be that guy. After you give your canned response, one of several things should happen. The cop realizes you're going to be actual work, and releases you with a stern warning, so he can pursue easier marks. The cop realizes that he gets overtime pay for appearing in court to testify, and you might go to trial, so he issues the summons. The cop gets personally offended at your "constitutional bullshit" and actually arrests you on a "contempt of cop" pretext charge, which will vary by jurisdiction. This is a punitive inconvenience for you, but you can then launch a civil suit that will probably pay out, after you consult with a civil rights attorney.

If you have any inkling it might go down the third way, it would be wise to record the entire encounter and make public records requests for any recordings the police may have in their possession as soon as you possibly can. And you should have such an inkling. So record every police encounter, always. If it's a routine encounter, you can always delete the video, but if it goes bad, you can't magic up a recording out of thin air.

> So record every police encounter, always.

Unless you are in a jurisdiction where such actions are illegal...

There is no such jurisdiction in the US. Those laws are struck down on constitutional grounds when they are challenged in court.

It cannot be illegal to record a public official, in public, while performing his or her public duties, or there is no future for democracy. Individual jurisdictions may specify whether such recordings can be made secretly or not, but if you are openly and obviously recording, you shouldn't have a problem anywhere.

(I am not a lawyer.)

I've written that before on HN and got massively downmodded, hopefully that doesn't happen to you.

If you are actually guilty then keep your mouth closed. But if you are not guilty then staying quiet is not necessarily to your benefit.

Your guilt doesn't matter. You can still incriminate yourself even if you have committed no crime.

It sounds like grandparent didn't go to jail, so even though he calls it a "bad tactic" it seems to have worked out fine.

The people who actually know this stuff, i.e. lawyers and cops, all universally advise people not to talk to the police without counsel. Never have I seen one add the qualifier "but it's fine if you're not guilty." I'm inclined to take their word for it.

You witness a mugging. You get a good look at the person who did it. A cop comes up to you and says "did you see what happened?"

What's the right thing to do here? Shut up and demand a lawyer before you'll answer any questions?

You hear about a shooting in your neighborhood on the radio. Walking to the subway, you see a person with a gun run down an alley. At the subway station a cop asks you if you've seen anything suspicious.

What's the right thing to do here? Shut up and demand a lawyer before you'll answer any questions?

Personally, I don't want to live in a society in which no one helps anyone because of fear.

It's worth keeping in mind that Ken White is a defense attorney, writing from a particular perspective, which may not cover all possible situations. His advice is great if you are the subject of a criminal investigation. Most people are not subjects of criminal investigations.

Specific to traffic stops, neither officers nor attorneys recommend shutting up and demanding a lawyer as the first move. They recommend: make the officer feel safe, be polite, don't lie, and decline a search if requested.

Editing since I can't reply to rosser (what's the point of a discussion forum if I can't have a discussion?):

My point is that writing as either a defense attorney or a prosecutor, his posts take a more a narrow view of police interactions than the entirety of how someone might interact with the police. I doubt he would recommend against reporting a crime if you are the victim or a witness, for instance, or if he did, I doubt he would find many peers to agree with him.

"Keep your head down, never talk to a cop," is certainly a strategy for getting through life, but it's not necessarily globally optimal.

It's worth keeping in mind that Ken White is a defense attorney...

It's also worth keeping in mind that he's a former federal prosecutor. He knows of what he speaks, and you would do very well to heed his counsel.

Cops are an active deterrent towards good citizenship because good citizenship is punished. The citizenry is under no obligation, moral or ethical or it-would-be-nice-if, to help them when they have proven unwilling to help the citizenry in aggregate or, especially as regards minorities and those weaker than they are, in particular.

It's economics. People respond to incentives. I am not incentivized to help the cops because it's never going to be better for me to do so. I'll act differently when they are different, get me?

(You make a good point about traffic stops, though it speaks remarkably of the shitty nature of police interactions that somehow it's on you to make an officer feel safe. Never mind that an officer will regularly attempt to make you feel threatened or unsafe to get you to say something stupid...)

> Personally, I don't want to live in a society in which no one helps anyone because of fear.

You shouldn't talk to police in the situations you describe. And of course we don't want to live in this type of society. It would be great if police behaved differently.

When we're this deep into a comment chain, you just need to wait for a few minutes before the "Reply" button appears. Design in HN to slow down flame wars, I suppose.

I think you make good points. People say things like "don't ever talk to a police without lawyer", because they want to make a political point.

I am not American, and not resident in the US, but I do not believe that a total "I don't talk to police without lawyer, ever" is really wise. Either in US or elsewhere - you have to understand your surroundings.

My latest interaction with an American police officer was on a business trip on September 12, 2001. Independent of the bad TV shows the previous day, I was driving to the local office where I was visiting. Boss from Europe called me on my cell phone. I didn't think it was a good idea to speak on the phone while driving, so I took the exit from highway and stopped on the curb of a smaller road. After talking for a moment, I noticed a police car stopped next to me. I rolled down the window, and the police asked me why I stopped there. I told him, to speak on the phone. He told me to move over because I would be blocking other traffic. I hadn't noticed it but he was right. I said "sorry, I didn't notice, I'll get moving", put the phone away and got moving. End of story.

Instead of telling him "Speaking on the phone", should I have responded with "No comment, I want my lawyer"? That would have been absurd, and probably a very good reason for this officer to get suspicious of me, possibly starting to check my papers - which I'm sure he's the right to do - and possibly ticket me for simply breaking the traffic law and then being a prick about it.

Obviously there's a balance here. You don't want to put people in danger with your silence. The answer depends on what you look like, what you are doing (are you carrying contraband?), and the situation.

Being a witness in general is a real pain in butt in any case, particularly if you are witnessing a non-trivial crime.

It might be reasonable to talk to cops in those situations. I don't know. "Don't talk" seems to apply to when you are, or might be, accused of a crime. There, your guilt or innocence does not matter in the least. Don't talk.

You're right that nobody recommends demanding a lawyer for a traffic stop. But they do recommend not talking to the officer beyond the minimum requested. For example, it's standard for an officer who catches you speeding to ask "do you know how fast you were going?" If you give a number that's over the posted limit, then they have you admitting to breaking the law. If you give a number that's under the limit and they know you were going faster then they have you lying to an officer.

I don't think it's worth keeping in mind that Ken White is a defense attorney because I've seen this exact advice from many places, both lawyers and cops, and there's never any disagreement. I have seen cops say that traffic stops will go a lot easier if you're nice and polite to the officer. But that does not mean you have to answer all their questions. Immediately shouting "I demand a lawyer!" is a good way to get written up for every minor infraction the officer can find, but nicely declining to answer questions you're not required to answer is fine.

Please read the article. Whether you're guilty or not, you can be made guilty on various other charges from a simple conversation.

But only if you lie during that conversation.

Edit: this is literally what happens in Ken's hypothetical story. If the subject didn't lie about the phone call, they couldn't be charged with a false statement.

So ... what, be honest and incriminate yourself?

No. LAWYER UP AND SHUT UP.

Which you may be deliberately manipulated into.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc#t=1279

If the prosecutor wants to push it, almost any interaction with the police can be made to seem incriminating.

And so it's been for half a millennium:'

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." – Cardinal Richelieu, 1641

It seems law enforcement never really changes.

Maybe he honestly didn't think he was lying, since he never discussed the case on the phone call. Someone told him it was happening and he hung up the phone. Most people wouldn't necessarily consider that talking about something.

The standard English version of "lie" is to state something which you believe to be untrue.

The police version of "lie" is to state something that actually is untrue.

The difference is important because human memory is fallible. You can "lie to the police" while saying nothing but what you believe to be the truth.

"It's OK to talk to the police as long as you don't lie" may be true, but it's also completely useless, because it's impossible to guarantee.

Even worse, usually you cannot even submit what you said as evidence, because if YOU ask officer to repeat what you said, the judge can expunge the testimony because it is hearsay (double indirection).

Of course, the officer can be asked their side of the story, which will be accepted as an eyewitness (single indirection).

So anything you say can (and will) be used against you y the prosecution, but almost never in your own defense. Many people understand at least the basic concept that your words can be used against you, but the fact that those same words cannot help you in most cases is not addressed very often.

(this topic is discussed in the famous - and VERY HIGHLY recommended viewing - video that hoaTeRo linked to, "Dont(sic) Talk to Police" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc ) )

No, the whole point is that even what innocent people say can screw them later. And I agree with this!

They do not care if you are guilty or not. They manufacture criminals. That's their job. To create "product". They need raw materials. Don't provide anything at all. Zero raw materials is always going to be better than potentially unsuitable materials that can't quite be hammered into prosecutable shape.

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