S/O - why ask for an attorney before speaking to police?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were a man, and learned I was the very last person known to have been with a rather drunk woman who subsequently disappeared.... and I learned that there was video footage of us together at say, 1 AM.... even if I knew I was totally innocent, I would also understand that I would be the prime suspect in her disappearance. So even though I knew I didn't do anything, I would consult a lawyer.

Exactly. If he had nothing to do with it, the cops are also looking at him for the disappearance for four other girls in the area.

[Anonymous]

There is a realistic balance between asserting your rights and not pushing a cop to bust you because he can. If you get pulled over for speeding, the first thing the officer will ask you is something like "Do you know how fast you were going?" or "Why are you in such a hurry?" Those questions are designed to get you to admit you were speeding, because the cop is already thinking about his testimony in court. So your answer should NOT be: "I didn't really check" or "I was trying get home to my sick mother." That gets you both a ticket and a guaranteed conviction. ,

But you shouldn't say "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds it may incriminate me" or "I don't have to answer your questions" because then the cop thinks you're a dick and you'll get not only the speeding ticket but also a citation for failing to signal or some other nonsense.

You should say: "I'm in no hurry. I was going the speed limit, and I checked my speedometer."

[Anonymous]

excellent article in post on police and Black Asphalt. Police are allowed to lie to you. Now they can confiscate your property and not even charge you with a crime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/06/stop-and-seize/

One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking & Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists — criminals and the innocent alike — including their Social Security numbers, addresses and identifying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop.

Many of the reports have been funneled to federal agencies and fusion centers as part of the government’s burgeoning law enforcement intelligence systems — despite warnings from state and federal authorities that the information could violate privacy and constitutional protections.

A thriving subculture of road officers on the network now competes to see who can seize the most cash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network’s chat rooms and sharing “trophy shots” of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.

“All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book under a pseudonym. Hain is a marketing specialist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training firm based in Guthrie, Okla., whose founders also created Black Asphalt.

Asset forfeiture is an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.

[Anonymous]

I had a co-worker whose last name started with Al- ... some movers or someone accused him of having a picture of some terror leader on his wall.

So my co-worker was brought in for questioning.

You can be DAMN sure he got himself a lawyer to defend against the charge of having a last name starting with "Al-" ... fortunately, he didn't have any Q's in strange places in his name. Otherwise we'd still be wondering what happened to him.

[Anonymous]

Courtesy of your very own Virginia State Police. A convention, in its 4th year, not too long, a relatively recent development, once they found out how to confiscate cash from low lifes and other "undesirables" as determined by the Virginia State Police.

Leading the way in corruption. Paid for and purchased by virginia taxpayers with the help of wandering tourists who have their assets confiscated because they drove down 95 through virginia.

The appalling practices disclosed in the wapo series “Stop and seize ” [front page, Sept. 7-9] are nothing less than institutionalized corruption by police and “justice” officials at local, state and federal levels.

Save the date on your calendars for March 8-13, 2015. The NCEA and Desert Snow, in cooperation with the Virginia State Police, are proud to bring you the most comprehensive criminal patrol and interdiction training conference offered! Keeping in line with our proud tradition, the 4th Annual National Interdiction Conference (www.2015nic.com) will again bring together the finest law enforcement officers and instructors from around the country under one roof! We are proud to announce five jam packed days of intense, highly motivating training, offered by two of the largest and most well respected non-governmental organizations in the criminal interdiction industry. This outstanding training opportunity is proudly being hosted by the Virginia State Police.

http://www.nationalinterdictionconference.com/home.aspx

If only we had a law abiding, conservative, that believed in limited government. Oh yes, we had one, Robert Francis "Bob" McDonnell, the attorney general in virginia when all this started and GOING TO JAIL! No wonder he supported these programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Anything you say or do can be used against you in the court of law." . . .

The police can be very intimidating and sneaky in their questioning.

The police can lie to you. If you lie to them, you've committed another crime (beyond the crime you're suspected of. Ie - you ARE the suspect if they question you).

Getting a lawyer to answer any and all questions is a necessary first step in trying to level an extremely tilted playing field.

[Anonymous]

I represent people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit and learned most of what I know about interrogations from a former homicide detective. Do not ever let police interrogate you, particularly if you are innocent.

For starters, police do not interrogate you if they do not already think you are guilty. The goal of the interrogation therefore is not to investigate; it is to obtain a confession. However, confessing to a crime is not exactly in the suspect's best interest, so interrogation tactics are designed to mitigate that problem by convincing the suspect that confessing is the rational thing to do and the only way out of their situation. Police are trained to shut down denials as a matter of course, are allowed to lie about evidence (the good interrogators don't because it is ineffective), and spend hours on an interrogation (using different officers so they can get rest while you sweat). And most interrogations are not recorded (DC is an exception), so there's no record of what happened.

This had proven pretty effective at getting guilty people to confess, but it also means that that even if you are innocent, you may find yourself confessing to something you didn't do because you think it is the only way out. Once you confess, it is pretty much over. In short, talking to police is a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Most juries believe that people who are arrested have committed a crime or they would not be arrested ("where there's smoke there's fire). They believe you are innocent UNTIL proven guilty -- that you will be proven guilty -- not UNLESS proven guilty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were a man, and learned I was the very last person known to have been with a rather drunk woman who subsequently disappeared.... and I learned that there was video footage of us together at say, 1 AM.... even if I knew I was totally innocent, I would also understand that I would be the prime suspect in her disappearance. So even though I knew I didn't do anything, I would consult a lawyer.

Years ago, while in college, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was walking back from a friends appt to my appt. As usual, I took the foot path to shorten the walk. Unfortunately, a fellow student was sexually assaulted in the same area about an hour earlier. I was stopped, questioned, then detained. I matched the description of the attacker: White, 6 feet tall, big build, dark hair; The police did not believe my alibi -- I was with a friend watching basketball -- even though I knew exactly what happened in a basketball game at the time of the attack. I figured I had done nothing wrong, and would cooperate.

They were trying to get me to confess. Finally, they did a lineup (the next day). After that I was released. About 6 days later, I met the woman. She remembered me from the lineup, asking why they chose me for the line up -- I did not look at all like the attacker. I told her that I was the suspect....

In my case, it turned out that a sherif deputy was the attacker.

[Anonymous]

Why talk? You just make the cops' job easier. But if no one talked, all the dumb crime shows couldn't get through an episode. See, e.g. Blue Bloods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I represent people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit and learned most of what I know about interrogations from a former homicide detective. Do not ever let police interrogate you, particularly if you are innocent.

For starters, police do not interrogate you if they do not already think you are guilty. The goal of the interrogation therefore is not to investigate; it is to obtain a confession. However, confessing to a crime is not exactly in the suspect's best interest, so interrogation tactics are designed to mitigate that problem by convincing the suspect that confessing is the rational thing to do and the only way out of their situation. Police are trained to shut down denials as a matter of course, are allowed to lie about evidence (the good interrogators don't because it is ineffective), and spend hours on an interrogation (using different officers so they can get rest while you sweat). And most interrogations are not recorded (DC is an exception), so there's no record of what happened.

This had proven pretty effective at getting guilty people to confess, but it also means that that even if you are innocent, you may find yourself confessing to something you didn't do because you think it is the only way out. Once you confess, it is pretty much over. In short, talking to police is a bad idea.

Excellent summary. I'm a prosecutor and I would never talk to the cops without a lawyer present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were a man, and learned I was the very last person known to have been with a rather drunk woman who subsequently disappeared.... and I learned that there was video footage of us together at say, 1 AM.... even if I knew I was totally innocent, I would also understand that I would be the prime suspect in her disappearance. So even though I knew I didn't do anything, I would consult a lawyer.

Years ago, while in college, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was walking back from a friends appt to my appt. As usual, I took the foot path to shorten the walk. Unfortunately, a fellow student was sexually assaulted in the same area about an hour earlier. I was stopped, questioned, then detained. I matched the description of the attacker: White, 6 feet tall, big build, dark hair; The police did not believe my alibi -- I was with a friend watching basketball -- even though I knew exactly what happened in a basketball game at the time of the attack. I figured I had done nothing wrong, and would cooperate.

They were trying to get me to confess. Finally, they did a lineup (the next day). After that I was released. About 6 days later, I met the woman. She remembered me from the lineup, asking why they chose me for the line up -- I did not look at all like the attacker. I told her that I was the suspect....

In my case, it turned out that a sherif deputy was the attacker.

Holy shit.

[Anonymous]

so forgive if this has been asked - I don't understand how he went to the police station to get lawyer and then somehow hired a private attorney. Wouldn't you go to the police station to be assigned public defender?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Excellent summary. I'm a prosecutor and I would never talk to the cops without a lawyer present.

I'm a lawyer but have no background in criminal law. However, all of my friends who do--whether they are prosecutors or on the defense side--are unanimous on this sentiment.

Sadly, yes it is naive to assume that if you are innocent you do not need an attorney. Without even assuming that there are malicious intentions on the part of the police or even sloppy policing, mistakes are made or assumptions are made. Or YOU can slip up and make an innocent mistake that ends up looking like a lie. It really can become a mess.

Not only are innocent people convicted of crimes, it is a traumatizing ordeal to be put through the process of being arrested. I had one experience in law school for a class visiting a jail on basically a field trip and it changed my life. Innocent until proven guilty--only if you are arrested and even taken to jail pending trial, my god, you are dehumanized even being processed. Being arrested and processed can be an intimidation tactic. Interrogation can be an ordeal. Opening your life, opening your house, ransacking your home. Really you never know the can of worms that can be opened.

NEVER be afraid of asking for an attorney and having it look as though you are guilty. It only sends the signal that you value yourself. I would not be questioned by police without counsel any sooner than I would have heart surgery without an MD.

[Anonymous]

You have nothing to gain and everything to lose from talking to the police. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.