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> The lesson — other than that criminal justice often has little to do with actual justice — is this: for God's sake shut up. Law enforcement agents seeking to

> The lesson — other than that criminal justice often has little to do with actual justice — is this: for God's sake shut up. Law enforcement agents seeking to interview you are not your friends. You cannot count on "just clearing this one thing up." Demand to talk to a lawyer before talking to the cops. Every time. This is a very good reminder, and everything he says is both important and true. Unfortunately, it's sadly much easier said than done. I know my rights. Both nationally, as well as the specific nuances of New York[0] (both city and state). I have even conducted multiple "Know Your Rights" training events educating people (generally students) about the rights that they do and don't have when speaking with LEOs, and how to exercise them. But even then, when push came to shove and I was in this position, I found myself hesitating and second guessing my knowledge, despite all the practice I had and the trainings I'd helped conduct myself.[1] LEOs - especially Feds - will do everything they can to intimidate you, make you uncomfortable, lower your confidence, etc. It's literally their job to make people like you make mistakes. It sucks, but that's what you're up against. [0] PSA: Did you know that possession of < 27g (not a full ounce) of marijuana is only a criminal offence in NY if "burning or open to public view"? Did you also know that this means that you should never, ever turn out your pockets if a cop asks you, because then you've exposed said contraband to "public view"? Wait for him/her to frisk you, and at least then your lawyer will have a slight chance at getting the charge dismissed. [1] It didn't help that most of my knowledge (as is often the case) centred around local police, whereas the situation regarding border crossings and the TSA is more thorny.

themartorana 12y ago
I feel like at some point in time, entrapment was frowned upon... Unfortunately it's this behavior that reinforces - not helps fix - the often maligned urban/minority fear of ever helping the police in any way ever. Does the entire neighborhood know who committed crimes X? Yes. Will anyone ever talk to the police? Na.
- WildUtah 12y ago
  "it's this behavior that reinforces" It's a mild reenforcement but the root reason to fear and not cooperate with the police is the same as ever. When most police resources in the USA are focused on drug enforcement and most Americans have committed federal felonies they don't think they should be incarcerated for and most underclass young men are committing them routinely, you can't expect crime ridden communities to see the police as any kind of blessing.
  - ajuc 12y ago
    If most of population performs crimes routinely and don't think it's a crime - it's probably because your law is stupid.
    - rrss1122 12y ago
      Alternately, it's probably because the use of "most" is unwarranted.
- x0x0 12y ago
  If you read the ferguson report -- and I can't do it justice -- the police were systematically used to assault black people, and use them as a cash source to fund local government. Meanwhile, white people skated on the same charges. I can't do the report justice, but it's utterly appalling. And while white people might not know what is going on, trust me, black people damn sure do. To say the least, this does not improve cooperation with the police. One should understand that the Justice Department did not simply find indirect evidence of unintentionally racist practices which harm black people, but "discriminatory intent”—that is to say willful racism aimed to generate cash. Justice in Ferguson is not a matter of "racism without racists," but racism with racists so secure, so proud, so brazen that they used their government emails to flaunt it. [1] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gangsters-Of-Ferguson/386893/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gang... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/04/us/ferguson-police-racial-discrimination.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/04/us/ferguson-po...
  - dzdt 12y ago
    Crazy stat : city of Ferguson has outstanding arrest warrants on more than half of its citizens. This is an insane police state! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-finding-from-the-doj-ferguson_b_6858388.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-f...
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      That sounds like a red herring. Without reading the story further than the first paragraph, I guess the reality is more like this: Police in city of Ferguson knows of 16 000 arrest warrants for people from all over the USA, plus a number of foreigners, and Ferguson has 21 000 residents. Some smaller city may have just 210 residents, and its police force may (theoretically) also know of the same 16 000 arrest warrants. Does that tell us that the USA is a horrible police state? No. It tells us that people are comparing numbers in a way that does not make sense.
      - 12y ago
WildUtah 12y ago
"the situation regarding border crossings and the TSA is more thorny" Since the TSA is fishing on behalf of local cops' revenue raising operations more and more and the CIS has become the state's lever to repeal the Fourth, it seems like we need a lot more information about TSA and borders than how to say no to regular cops. But I don't see much about it online. And the law seems unsettled, so it should be even more discussed. In particular, Customs and TSA are more and more taking smartphones and laptops and using them and their stored passwords to get access to personal and business online data stores to plant long term monitoring and download personal data from all your customers. Immigration is asking me a lot more personal questions and apparently recording the answers whenever I cross the border.
x0x0 12y ago
What's more offensive is if you get caught with that pot in ny, it will essentially get dismissed as long as you have money and get a real lawyer, not a public defender. Read this discussion of the so-called right to a speedy trial in nyc in practice: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/nyregion/justice-denied-for-misdemeanor-cases-trials-are-elusive.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/nyregion/justice-denied-fo... tl;dr: misdemeanor cases, despite your supposed right to a speedy trial, regularly drag out over years. If your lawyer understands how to work the system, misdemeanors appear to largely just go away because the court system is simply incapable of dealing with them within the bounds of the law.
bmelton 12y ago
The saddest part of this is that not only do most people NOT know their rights, but they're dead certain that they know things to be true, that aren't. I got into a debate on Quora in which the other party insisted that your right to silence couldn't be invoked until you were Mirandized, which is completely untrue. I got into a different argument that insisted that it was illegal to deny cops some basic information, like your name, driver's license and address. That may be true in some instances, but isn't necessarily true everywhere. Beyond all that, the worst argument is the one which asserts that by invoking your right to silence, even peaceably, the cops will likely harass you and/or find some other reason to arrest you. That argument is the worst because it's the most likely to be true.
- SilasX 12y ago
  >Beyond all that, the worst argument is the one which asserts that by invoking your right to silence, even peaceably, the cops will likely harass you and/or find some other reason to arrest you. That argument is the worst because it's the most likely to be true. Why is it worst by being likely true? It's probably not a good idea to immediately invoke the Fifth on a routine traffic stop, for instance, for exactly that reason. (It wouldn't cause them to arrest you, sure, but they'd look a lot harder for reasons to cite you that would otherwise "not be worth it".)
  - bmelton 12y ago
    Because the cops don't have the right to detain you without suspicion of you having committed a crime, and (at least historically), invoking the fifth is not evidence of guilt.
    - SilasX 12y ago
      In that case, the cop is already detaining you on suspicion of wrongdoing, and they already have significant discretion in what to look at. Sure, when it gets to trial, "alright, maybe I wouldn't have bothered checking for weapons if he hadn't immediately invoked the fifth", and you get a gold plated legal victory. Or you could be on your way in ten minutes and avoid the charade.
SilasX 12y ago
>LEOs - especially Feds - will do everything they can to intimidate you, make you uncomfortable, lower your confidence, etc. It's literally their job to make people like you make mistakes. It sucks, but that's what you're up against. I don't know why we tolerate that. Imagine if doctors used such techniques to get people to participate in medical trials. We'd reject any claim that the subjects gave consent. Or imagine if any interested party used those techniques to get you to do something that every competent professional would advise against? Again, not good enough to be consent. But if law enforcement does the same thing? "Just good ol fashioned police work".
- baddox 12y ago
  The individual choice in doctors, while not perfect (because of cost, geography, etc.), is vastly more substantial than individual choice in police officers and their policies. It is not remotely surprising that doctors do a better job at their job than police officers.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    I was comparing to the case where doctors/researchers would seek out people to participate in such trials, not ordinary, patient-sought medical care. If you want to compare to "patient"-sought services, then there are probably less abuses of people who report crimes.
- rmc 12y ago
  > Imagine if doctors used such techniques to get people to participate in medical trials. We'd reject any claim that the subjects gave consent. They used to. From the Nazis to Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
- mhaymo 12y ago
  We don't expect criminals to consent to being prosecuted. Those parallels really don't make a lot of sense.
  - Spooky23 12y ago

themartorana 12y ago

I feel like at some point in time, entrapment was frowned upon... Unfortunately it's this behavior that reinforces - not helps fix - the often maligned urban/minority fear of ever helping the police in any way ever. Does the entire neighborhood know who committed crimes X? Yes. Will anyone ever talk to the police? Na.

WildUtah 12y ago
"it's this behavior that reinforces" It's a mild reenforcement but the root reason to fear and not cooperate with the police is the same as ever. When most police resources in the USA are focused on drug enforcement and most Americans have committed federal felonies they don't think they should be incarcerated for and most underclass young men are committing them routinely, you can't expect crime ridden communities to see the police as any kind of blessing.
- ajuc 12y ago
  If most of population performs crimes routinely and don't think it's a crime - it's probably because your law is stupid.
  - rrss1122 12y ago
    Alternately, it's probably because the use of "most" is unwarranted.
x0x0 12y ago
If you read the ferguson report -- and I can't do it justice -- the police were systematically used to assault black people, and use them as a cash source to fund local government. Meanwhile, white people skated on the same charges. I can't do the report justice, but it's utterly appalling. And while white people might not know what is going on, trust me, black people damn sure do. To say the least, this does not improve cooperation with the police. One should understand that the Justice Department did not simply find indirect evidence of unintentionally racist practices which harm black people, but "discriminatory intent”—that is to say willful racism aimed to generate cash. Justice in Ferguson is not a matter of "racism without racists," but racism with racists so secure, so proud, so brazen that they used their government emails to flaunt it. [1] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gangsters-Of-Ferguson/386893/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/The-Gang... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/04/us/ferguson-police-racial-discrimination.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/04/us/ferguson-po...
- dzdt 12y ago
  Crazy stat : city of Ferguson has outstanding arrest warrants on more than half of its citizens. This is an insane police state! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-finding-from-the-doj-ferguson_b_6858388.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-robinson/the-shocking-f...
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    That sounds like a red herring. Without reading the story further than the first paragraph, I guess the reality is more like this: Police in city of Ferguson knows of 16 000 arrest warrants for people from all over the USA, plus a number of foreigners, and Ferguson has 21 000 residents. Some smaller city may have just 210 residents, and its police force may (theoretically) also know of the same 16 000 arrest warrants. Does that tell us that the USA is a horrible police state? No. It tells us that people are comparing numbers in a way that does not make sense.
    - 12y ago

WildUtah 12y ago

"the situation regarding border crossings and the TSA is more thorny" Since the TSA is fishing on behalf of local cops' revenue raising operations more and more and the CIS has become the state's lever to repeal the Fourth, it seems like we need a lot more information about TSA and borders than how to say no to regular cops. But I don't see much about it online. And the law seems unsettled, so it should be even more discussed. In particular, Customs and TSA are more and more taking smartphones and laptops and using them and their stored passwords to get access to personal and business online data stores to plant long term monitoring and download personal data from all your customers. Immigration is asking me a lot more personal questions and apparently recording the answers whenever I cross the border.

x0x0 12y ago

What's more offensive is if you get caught with that pot in ny, it will essentially get dismissed as long as you have money and get a real lawyer, not a public defender. Read this discussion of the so-called right to a speedy trial in nyc in practice: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/nyregion/justice-denied-for-misdemeanor-cases-trials-are-elusive.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/nyregion/justice-denied-fo... tl;dr: misdemeanor cases, despite your supposed right to a speedy trial, regularly drag out over years. If your lawyer understands how to work the system, misdemeanors appear to largely just go away because the court system is simply incapable of dealing with them within the bounds of the law.

bmelton 12y ago

The saddest part of this is that not only do most people NOT know their rights, but they're dead certain that they know things to be true, that aren't. I got into a debate on Quora in which the other party insisted that your right to silence couldn't be invoked until you were Mirandized, which is completely untrue. I got into a different argument that insisted that it was illegal to deny cops some basic information, like your name, driver's license and address. That may be true in some instances, but isn't necessarily true everywhere. Beyond all that, the worst argument is the one which asserts that by invoking your right to silence, even peaceably, the cops will likely harass you and/or find some other reason to arrest you. That argument is the worst because it's the most likely to be true.

SilasX 12y ago
>Beyond all that, the worst argument is the one which asserts that by invoking your right to silence, even peaceably, the cops will likely harass you and/or find some other reason to arrest you. That argument is the worst because it's the most likely to be true. Why is it worst by being likely true? It's probably not a good idea to immediately invoke the Fifth on a routine traffic stop, for instance, for exactly that reason. (It wouldn't cause them to arrest you, sure, but they'd look a lot harder for reasons to cite you that would otherwise "not be worth it".)
- bmelton 12y ago
  Because the cops don't have the right to detain you without suspicion of you having committed a crime, and (at least historically), invoking the fifth is not evidence of guilt.
  - SilasX 12y ago
    In that case, the cop is already detaining you on suspicion of wrongdoing, and they already have significant discretion in what to look at. Sure, when it gets to trial, "alright, maybe I wouldn't have bothered checking for weapons if he hadn't immediately invoked the fifth", and you get a gold plated legal victory. Or you could be on your way in ten minutes and avoid the charade.

SilasX 12y ago

>LEOs - especially Feds - will do everything they can to intimidate you, make you uncomfortable, lower your confidence, etc. It's literally their job to make people like you make mistakes. It sucks, but that's what you're up against. I don't know why we tolerate that. Imagine if doctors used such techniques to get people to participate in medical trials. We'd reject any claim that the subjects gave consent. Or imagine if any interested party used those techniques to get you to do something that every competent professional would advise against? Again, not good enough to be consent. But if law enforcement does the same thing? "Just good ol fashioned police work".

baddox 12y ago
The individual choice in doctors, while not perfect (because of cost, geography, etc.), is vastly more substantial than individual choice in police officers and their policies. It is not remotely surprising that doctors do a better job at their job than police officers.
- SilasX 12y ago
  I was comparing to the case where doctors/researchers would seek out people to participate in such trials, not ordinary, patient-sought medical care. If you want to compare to "patient"-sought services, then there are probably less abuses of people who report crimes.
rmc 12y ago
> Imagine if doctors used such techniques to get people to participate in medical trials. We'd reject any claim that the subjects gave consent. They used to. From the Nazis to Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
mhaymo 12y ago
We don't expect criminals to consent to being prosecuted. Those parallels really don't make a lot of sense.
- Spooky23 12y ago