6 ms·

Not in the USA, since the 19th century but especially since Miranda v. Arizona: "[A]ny evidence that the accused was threatened, tricked, or cajoled into a wai

Not in the USA, since the 19th century but especially since Miranda v. Arizona: "[A]ny evidence that the accused was threatened, tricked, or cajoled into a waiver will, of course, show that the Defendant did not voluntarily waive his privilege." -Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 477 (1966). If the detectives make any kind of promises or threats then your lawyer will be able to suppress the entire interview. Here is the waiver sheet used by the US Treasury, and this is similar to the waiver sheets used by police departments all over the USA, it reads "I understand the statement of my rights above as they have been read and explained to me and I waive them freely and voluntarily, without threat or intimidation, and without any promise of reward or immunity." https://www.tigta.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2022-04/Form%205228G.pdf https://www.tigta.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2022-...

ClumsyPilot 2y ago
This is basically a police EULA?
- hackingonempty 2y ago
  No, it is a warning and waiver not a license.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Who knew it was so easy to surrender your constitutional rights. Just a single signature and they are gone.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Yeah but a signature on that document is probably effectively binding. It's awful hard to say they threatened you when you just signed a paper that said they didn't.
- 77pt77 2y ago
  Or they can just fake your signature. Good luck proving it's not yours. There will be witnesses. Maybe even video of you signing something. And that's if the judge is even acting in good faith, which is not common.
  - hansvm 2y ago
    Been there, done that (forged signature on comparatively minor court documents). The lady behind the desk spent a half hour apparently not understanding how there could be a signature on that piece of paper if it wasn't mine, and all said and done the few hundred dollars the court was extorting me for were far cheaper than trying to fight it. For prison or something, I'd hope the forged signature would be contestable for the average person, but I'm not optimistic.
giantg2 2y ago
"If the detectives make any kind of promises or threats then your lawyer will be able to suppress the entire interview." If you can prove it. This is often the tricky part.
- zaphar 2y ago
  If it's already illegal but difficult to prove then making it "even more" illegal isn't going to help.
  - hedora 2y ago
    I bet it would be a lot less common if evidence that it happened meant the end of the officer’s career, loss of pension, and 10 years in prison (general population, preferably with a public announcement of why they are serving time). On top of that, they could add some sort of chain of custody for the accused. For instance gaps in the recording between arrest and trial (solo bathroom breaks and conferring with defense attorneys excepted) could mean the charges are dropped.
    - zaphar 2y ago
      If it's hard to obtain or provide evidence, increasing the consequences isn't goint to be a deterrent. You have to make it easier to prove. Which means you either need to: * Lower the standard for proof * Make it harder to to avoid public scrutiny for covered interactions
  - pyuser583 2y ago
    Clear and simple rules help a lot. If you say “I want to talk to a lawyer” - anything after that is not admissible. Full stop. This is generally enforced. Same with Miranda warnings. The problem is clear rules tend to be a bit arbitrary. Can you change the wording on a Miranda warning a bit? Why that specific wording? So instead we have very unclear, but more constitutionally rigorous rules.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Hold up, who said anything about merely increasing the punishment for already-illegal acts? It's a significant difference when those acts become impractical, because you can't spout all the other smaller lies which are needed to shock and scare the victim into a state where they'll fall for the big ones.
Terr_ 2y ago
> Not in the USA, since the 19th century but especially since Miranda v. Arizona I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, because the problem did not abruptly vanish in 1966. For example, Marty Tankleff, a then-teenager wrongfully convicted in 1990 for the murder of his parents. Even thought a defense lawyer arrived before Police lied to him that his father had named him as the attacker before falling unconscious, and even though a defense lawyer arrived before he could be tricked into signing a confession, the unsigned confession was still core to the prosecutions' case.
- gcau 2y ago
  You were mentioning a boundary and line being drawn, I think what's trying to be said is that line is already drawn. No problem abruptly vanishes just because it becomes illegal. It doesn't help that your example is 30 years old, police and police oversight have gotten far better since then.
  - hedora 2y ago
    Do you have any evidence that police are better behaved or that oversight has improved? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary. For example, police use civil forfeiture to steal more stuff than all criminals combined. That wasn’t true in the 1990s.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    The percentage of the population imprisoned or under some sort of parole has increased a lot in the last 30 years, either the police and the system they are part of has worsened, or the population has. I'm betting the police.
    - jyounker 2y ago
      The statistics back you up. Violent crime in the USA is about what it was in early 70s, far below it's peak in the late 80s/early 90s. [Most of the decline seems to be linked to legalized abortion and elimination of leaded gasoline.]
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
The United States Courts don't think that having a 50 year sentence over your head, and being offered a 5-10 year plea deal instead, is cajoling. When you take a plea (with the judge knowing all of the above and that you were threatened with a 40 year 'trial tax' if you didn't take the plea) you literally have to swear in court no in answer to the judge asking "Has anyone forced, threatened, or coerced you in any way into pleading guilty?" even though it is the judge who will personally add 45 years to your sentence if you don't take the plea. This falls under the "voluntariness requirement" as part of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Specifically, Rule 11(b)(2) requires that the court "address the defendant personally in open court and determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)." The threat of 40 years of your life (basically a death sentence, you will probably die in that time, many you know and love will die in that time, you will not be able to restart any sort of life if you don't die) because you chose to exercise your right to trial instead of pleading guilty is not considered a threat, coercion, or cajoling by the United State Federal Justice system. This voluntariness inquiry is a key part of what's known as the "Rule 11 colloquy" - the series of questions and statements that must occur between the judge and defendant before a guilty plea can be accepted. Plea deals/plea bargaining was not legal at the start of the United States and was actually considered unconstitutional. The practice wasn't officially recognized by the Supreme Court as legitimate until 1970 in Brady v. United States on the grounds that not EVERY plea is coercion. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11 https://naacp.org/resources/eliminating-illegal-practice-trial-tax https://naacp.org/resources/eliminating-illegal-practice-tri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jackson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jackson
- Spivak 2y ago
  This nonsense is why I think plea deals need to have no admission of wrongdoing. Which I know makes the name kind of vestigial but it's at least more honest about the transaction. Both sides are negotiating based on the perceived time and monetary effort, and chance of conviction. Someone who is innocent may (unfortunately) find it their best course of action to take a plea deal and they shouldn't have to falsely admit their guilt to accept it. It's not perfect but it removes a lot of the coercive elements from the transaction.
red_trumpet 2y ago
Serious question: Is there any legitimate reason for such a document to exist? Why would you want to waive your right to remain silent, or your right to consult a lawyer?
- anticensor 2y ago
  Because sometimes you do not want to remain silent and instead present evidence towards your innocence, to strengthen the presumed innocence and refute the evidence towards guilt.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago

This is basically a police EULA?

hackingonempty 2y ago
No, it is a warning and waiver not a license.
_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Who knew it was so easy to surrender your constitutional rights. Just a single signature and they are gone.

jvanderbot 2y ago

Yeah but a signature on that document is probably effectively binding. It's awful hard to say they threatened you when you just signed a paper that said they didn't.

77pt77 2y ago
Or they can just fake your signature. Good luck proving it's not yours. There will be witnesses. Maybe even video of you signing something. And that's if the judge is even acting in good faith, which is not common.
- hansvm 2y ago
  Been there, done that (forged signature on comparatively minor court documents). The lady behind the desk spent a half hour apparently not understanding how there could be a signature on that piece of paper if it wasn't mine, and all said and done the few hundred dollars the court was extorting me for were far cheaper than trying to fight it. For prison or something, I'd hope the forged signature would be contestable for the average person, but I'm not optimistic.

giantg2 2y ago

"If the detectives make any kind of promises or threats then your lawyer will be able to suppress the entire interview." If you can prove it. This is often the tricky part.

zaphar 2y ago
If it's already illegal but difficult to prove then making it "even more" illegal isn't going to help.
- hedora 2y ago
  I bet it would be a lot less common if evidence that it happened meant the end of the officer’s career, loss of pension, and 10 years in prison (general population, preferably with a public announcement of why they are serving time). On top of that, they could add some sort of chain of custody for the accused. For instance gaps in the recording between arrest and trial (solo bathroom breaks and conferring with defense attorneys excepted) could mean the charges are dropped.
  - zaphar 2y ago
    If it's hard to obtain or provide evidence, increasing the consequences isn't goint to be a deterrent. You have to make it easier to prove. Which means you either need to: * Lower the standard for proof * Make it harder to to avoid public scrutiny for covered interactions
- pyuser583 2y ago
  Clear and simple rules help a lot. If you say “I want to talk to a lawyer” - anything after that is not admissible. Full stop. This is generally enforced. Same with Miranda warnings. The problem is clear rules tend to be a bit arbitrary. Can you change the wording on a Miranda warning a bit? Why that specific wording? So instead we have very unclear, but more constitutionally rigorous rules.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Hold up, who said anything about merely increasing the punishment for already-illegal acts? It's a significant difference when those acts become impractical, because you can't spout all the other smaller lies which are needed to shock and scare the victim into a state where they'll fall for the big ones.

Terr_ 2y ago

> Not in the USA, since the 19th century but especially since Miranda v. Arizona I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, because the problem did not abruptly vanish in 1966. For example, Marty Tankleff, a then-teenager wrongfully convicted in 1990 for the murder of his parents. Even thought a defense lawyer arrived before Police lied to him that his father had named him as the attacker before falling unconscious, and even though a defense lawyer arrived before he could be tricked into signing a confession, the unsigned confession was still core to the prosecutions' case.

gcau 2y ago
You were mentioning a boundary and line being drawn, I think what's trying to be said is that line is already drawn. No problem abruptly vanishes just because it becomes illegal. It doesn't help that your example is 30 years old, police and police oversight have gotten far better since then.
- hedora 2y ago
  Do you have any evidence that police are better behaved or that oversight has improved? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary. For example, police use civil forfeiture to steal more stuff than all criminals combined. That wasn’t true in the 1990s.
- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  The percentage of the population imprisoned or under some sort of parole has increased a lot in the last 30 years, either the police and the system they are part of has worsened, or the population has. I'm betting the police.
  - jyounker 2y ago
    The statistics back you up. Violent crime in the USA is about what it was in early 70s, far below it's peak in the late 80s/early 90s. [Most of the decline seems to be linked to legalized abortion and elimination of leaded gasoline.]

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

The United States Courts don't think that having a 50 year sentence over your head, and being offered a 5-10 year plea deal instead, is cajoling. When you take a plea (with the judge knowing all of the above and that you were threatened with a 40 year 'trial tax' if you didn't take the plea) you literally have to swear in court no in answer to the judge asking "Has anyone forced, threatened, or coerced you in any way into pleading guilty?" even though it is the judge who will personally add 45 years to your sentence if you don't take the plea. This falls under the "voluntariness requirement" as part of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Specifically, Rule 11(b)(2) requires that the court "address the defendant personally in open court and determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)." The threat of 40 years of your life (basically a death sentence, you will probably die in that time, many you know and love will die in that time, you will not be able to restart any sort of life if you don't die) because you chose to exercise your right to trial instead of pleading guilty is not considered a threat, coercion, or cajoling by the United State Federal Justice system. This voluntariness inquiry is a key part of what's known as the "Rule 11 colloquy" - the series of questions and statements that must occur between the judge and defendant before a guilty plea can be accepted. Plea deals/plea bargaining was not legal at the start of the United States and was actually considered unconstitutional. The practice wasn't officially recognized by the Supreme Court as legitimate until 1970 in Brady v. United States on the grounds that not EVERY plea is coercion. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11 https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11 https://naacp.org/resources/eliminating-illegal-practice-trial-tax https://naacp.org/resources/eliminating-illegal-practice-tri... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jackson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jackson

Spivak 2y ago
This nonsense is why I think plea deals need to have no admission of wrongdoing. Which I know makes the name kind of vestigial but it's at least more honest about the transaction. Both sides are negotiating based on the perceived time and monetary effort, and chance of conviction. Someone who is innocent may (unfortunately) find it their best course of action to take a plea deal and they shouldn't have to falsely admit their guilt to accept it. It's not perfect but it removes a lot of the coercive elements from the transaction.

red_trumpet 2y ago

Serious question: Is there any legitimate reason for such a document to exist? Why would you want to waive your right to remain silent, or your right to consult a lawyer?

anticensor 2y ago
Because sometimes you do not want to remain silent and instead present evidence towards your innocence, to strengthen the presumed innocence and refute the evidence towards guilt.