7 ms·

A bit more clarification still: Anything you say to them while in custody cannot be used unless you have been Mirandized.

coldtea 13y ago
A bit more clarification: what's to stop them from LYING that they have Mirandized you?
- adanto6840 13y ago
  A jury of your peers...
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Who'll be able to tell how? Their word over yours? And if you're black and your "peers" are 80% middle class whites?
    - 013 13y ago
      And that's the problem. The police officers know they'll probably get away with it. Until there is a fair process things like this will not change. The hard part is figuring out what's a fair process.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Have all policement wear google glasses and having them on during an arrest/interoggation/etc. If there's no video, the arrest is invalid. Also heavy personal fines and loss of pension for any misconduct.
pessimizer 13y ago
Even more clarification: never talk to police. Give your name, ask for a lawyer. I'm sure there's a few lawyers out there who think that even giving your name is too much of a risk.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  I think it's a problem that this is the case, but ignoring it doesn't make it not the case. So I agree: if you have the choice of talking to the cops, don't; if you have to, wait for your lawyer. But let's give some thoughts to how we can un-fuck this part of the system, yeah?
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  But we just got done establishing that police officers have 1) The authority to imprison you on a whim and suffer no repercussions for exercising that authority in ways that judges and other police officers agree is excessive. 2) The authority to lie about what you said or didn't say and suffer no repercussions. There's a large cost associated with the "never talk to police" strategy, and it only starts to probabilistically pay off after you've gotten to the point of requiring complex court proceedings (which you might never have gotten to if you were more cooperative in the first place).
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    It's easier for them to misremember what you said (or "misremember" what you said) when you said something then when you said nothing at all. I believe that - on most police forces - even the most problematic officers are worried about telling outright lies that might be shown to be outright lies.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    They can always lie about you. Control what you have control over. If you force them to lie, maybe you can force them to lie stupidly, and that may save you some point down the line. The point is that there is no way that talking will help you. They are trying to make a case against you.
    - jjoonathan 13y ago
      There are many ways talking can help. It can help you avoid the police officer's discretionary punishments. It can help you avoid increased scrutiny that turns up something incriminating. It's less probable that it will help you avoid being punished due to a baldfaced lie on the part of the officer, since presumably the courts are good at filtering those out, but it's not impossible. Once you require the services of a trial lawyer, the benefits of talking are off the table and the price of silence looks like pocket change. That's why you hear the advice "never talk to the police." Not because it's a good idea in general (try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes), but because it's a very bad idea in certain very specific cases, which happen to be precisely the cases seen by those giving the advice. Your prior probabilities are different, and your behavior should reflect that.
dannypgh 13y ago
This is not my understanding. If you volunteer information not in response to a question, the lack of Miranda is not important. All the more reason to not say anything.
whatevsbro 13y ago
> Anything you say to them while in custody cannot be used unless you have been Mirandized. Dudes, seriously? You just read a blog post about how thuggish police officers just abuse you however the fuck they want to, with no regard to your rights or due process or anything, and you're citing some obscure, minute details of the laws that were supposed to somehow prevent those very same abuses from happening? It's like you've just seen fish swimming, but proceed to cite some obscure document that says fish cannot swim.

coldtea 13y ago

A bit more clarification: what's to stop them from LYING that they have Mirandized you?

adanto6840 13y ago
A jury of your peers...
- coldtea 13y ago
  Who'll be able to tell how? Their word over yours? And if you're black and your "peers" are 80% middle class whites?
  - 013 13y ago
    And that's the problem. The police officers know they'll probably get away with it. Until there is a fair process things like this will not change. The hard part is figuring out what's a fair process.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      Have all policement wear google glasses and having them on during an arrest/interoggation/etc. If there's no video, the arrest is invalid. Also heavy personal fines and loss of pension for any misconduct.

pessimizer 13y ago

Even more clarification: never talk to police. Give your name, ask for a lawyer. I'm sure there's a few lawyers out there who think that even giving your name is too much of a risk.

dllthomas 13y ago
I think it's a problem that this is the case, but ignoring it doesn't make it not the case. So I agree: if you have the choice of talking to the cops, don't; if you have to, wait for your lawyer. But let's give some thoughts to how we can un-fuck this part of the system, yeah?
jjoonathan 13y ago
But we just got done establishing that police officers have 1) The authority to imprison you on a whim and suffer no repercussions for exercising that authority in ways that judges and other police officers agree is excessive. 2) The authority to lie about what you said or didn't say and suffer no repercussions. There's a large cost associated with the "never talk to police" strategy, and it only starts to probabilistically pay off after you've gotten to the point of requiring complex court proceedings (which you might never have gotten to if you were more cooperative in the first place).
- dllthomas 13y ago
  It's easier for them to misremember what you said (or "misremember" what you said) when you said something then when you said nothing at all. I believe that - on most police forces - even the most problematic officers are worried about telling outright lies that might be shown to be outright lies.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  They can always lie about you. Control what you have control over. If you force them to lie, maybe you can force them to lie stupidly, and that may save you some point down the line. The point is that there is no way that talking will help you. They are trying to make a case against you.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    There are many ways talking can help. It can help you avoid the police officer's discretionary punishments. It can help you avoid increased scrutiny that turns up something incriminating. It's less probable that it will help you avoid being punished due to a baldfaced lie on the part of the officer, since presumably the courts are good at filtering those out, but it's not impossible. Once you require the services of a trial lawyer, the benefits of talking are off the table and the price of silence looks like pocket change. That's why you hear the advice "never talk to the police." Not because it's a good idea in general (try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes), but because it's a very bad idea in certain very specific cases, which happen to be precisely the cases seen by those giving the advice. Your prior probabilities are different, and your behavior should reflect that.

dannypgh 13y ago

This is not my understanding. If you volunteer information not in response to a question, the lack of Miranda is not important. All the more reason to not say anything.

whatevsbro 13y ago

> Anything you say to them while in custody cannot be used unless you have been Mirandized. Dudes, seriously? You just read a blog post about how thuggish police officers just abuse you however the fuck they want to, with no regard to your rights or due process or anything, and you're citing some obscure, minute details of the laws that were supposed to somehow prevent those very same abuses from happening? It's like you've just seen fish swimming, but proceed to cite some obscure document that says fish cannot swim.