A lawyer tells you why. Even if you're innocent as the driven snow, a) it can't help, and b) anything you say can and *will* be used against you, even if it has to be taken woefully out of context to do so. Follow the advice there. Martha Stewart didn't, and she went to jail. In prison state USA, if it is anything other than a routine traffic stop, figure that the cop wants you in jail -- and 99% of the time, he'll get you there. That's NINETY-NINE PERCENT. Innocent or no, it doesn't matter. As a police officer explains in one of those videos, you have two strikes against you just showing up in court -- you have a police officer testifying against you, and you are sitting there in court in the first place. Add a third strike with something you say, no matter how innocuous it seems in context, and you're going to jail. That's just how it works in Prison State USA, the nation which imprisons the largest percentage of its population of any nation on the face of the planet.
-- Badtux the Legal Penguin
one of the sad results of the prison and police state is that folks do not want to get involved in any way, shape, or form with anything that might be a police matter.
ReplyDeletethat's why when an old man is creamed in a hit and run, as happened in connecticut recently, folks will maybe, dial 911, but then go about their business. they don't want to be there when the cops come. it's too easy to see a cop tazing a witness for improper or too slow answers to questions.
First of all, thank you for this post, and for the link to DBB.
ReplyDeleteMuch as I hate to admit it, Minstrel Boy is right. The cops have brought this upon themselves, though (which MB didn't mention).
As you know, I'm a former cop. I always tried to treat everyone I dealt with -- suspects, witnesses, and average joes -- the way I would want to be treated if the positions were reversed. I suspect that's one reason why I'm "former" and not "retired-after-20-with-a-fat-pension".
I don't mind talking to cops, as long as it's just general bs'ing and not regarding an open case. Most of them, even these days, are decent men and women trying to do a job, a job that can be truly miserable at times.