Interesting Miranda Ruling from Supreme Court

[Phi for All]

After watching the videos, I will certainly cooperate and talk with the police as long as I'm not the subject of their investigation. I thought that was more or less implied, but maybe that's just me.

But since they can lie to you at any time, how do you know you're not the subject, or that, in the absence of any other suspects, you become the subject later on? How much of what you said in an unguarded moment, thinking you were merely helping, could be turned against you?

 

In my example from post #45, the police could easily seize on you as the subject if you seem to have knowledge they can't get from anyone else. If you were the only witness they could say, "He was the only person who knew the color of the stolen laptop." I'm playing devil's advocate here, and I would probably cooperate with an inquiry, but if I didn't have anyone else to back up my story I might hesitate to give information to the officer, and it sucks to admit that.

[ParanoiA]

But since they can lie to you at any time, how do you know you're not the subject, or that, in the absence of any other suspects, you become the subject later on? How much of what you said in an unguarded moment, thinking you were merely helping, could be turned against you?

 

In my example from post #45, the police could easily seize on you as the subject if you seem to have knowledge they can't get from anyone else. If you were the only witness they could say, "He was the only person who knew the color of the stolen laptop." I'm playing devil's advocate here, and I would probably cooperate with an inquiry, but if I didn't have anyone else to back up my story I might hesitate to give information to the officer, and it sucks to admit that.

 

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I guess it's a balancing act. Personally, I couldn't live with being an obstacle to saving a life. Beyond that, I see no compelling point to talk to them at all. And I won't.

 

Of course, one could also argue that if all you're asking for is an attorney to be present, then delays become the responsibility of the police at that point. I have no desire to be uncooperative, just legal protection.

[Mr Skeptic]

After watching the videos, I will certainly cooperate and talk with the police as long as I'm not the subject of their investigation. I thought that was more or less implied, but maybe that's just me.

 

You wouldn't want to be an obstacle in a time sensitive situation where further life is at risk, like a kidnapping or something, just because of the potential for honest human error to cost you. That would seem fairly extreme and paranoid to me. But if I'm the subject, in any way, shape or form, then I'm clamming up. That's not paranoia, that's wisdom straight from the horse's mouth.

 

However, if you have reason to talk to the police, you would know it before they did. However, I might consider giving only an anonymous tip over a pay phone, unless I wanted to be a witness for something.

[ParanoiA]

However, I might consider giving only an anonymous tip over a pay phone, unless I wanted to be a witness for something.

 

Right, because I'd rather be in a court room than at work, so the "I'm a witness" excuse becomes attractive to me.

[swansont]

But since they can lie to you at any time, how do you know you're not the subject, or that, in the absence of any other suspects, you become the subject later on? How much of what you said in an unguarded moment, thinking you were merely helping, could be turned against you?

 

And that's a big sticking point, and one I don't know the answer to: at what point must they read Miranda to you, and at what point is that a protection against self-incrimination? You don't know what you might say that turns you into a suspect. If you say something that makes you suspicious in the eyes of the police, but haven't been read your rights, is it admissible?

 

I spoke to the police last year, disregarding this advice, in the course of a murder investigation. My desire to help, albeit in the form of telling them I knew nothing at all, trumped the advice from the video. I had no alibi, so if I had been deemed suspicious I had no way to prove my innocence. But I also did not invite the detective in to a point where he could see anything; we spoke in the hallway (another bit of advice I got from a lawyer. If you invite them in, in the US, "plain sight" applies. If they see a violation, they can arrest you, and they don't need a warrant. You consented.)

[D H]

If you have a serial killer, for example, and you're only 96% sure he's guilty, and you let him go on a 4% chance he's innocent, he's almost certainly going to kill again, which will likewise cost an innocent (or more!) their lives.

First off, I would not call 4% beyond a reasonable doubt. In several places that would entail a significant chance of the state taking an innocent person's life. As a modern society we should expect and demand a lot better accuracy than than that. There would be no such thing as commercial aviation if 96% of airplane flights ended in a safe landing.

 

Secondly, it appears that you are confusing predictivity, specificity, and sensitivity. You also aren't looking at the whole picture.

 

I'll illustrate with some admittedly fictitious numbers. I have tried to make these numbers realistic.

• 4.06% of the people sent to jail in this example are truly innocent.
  
• 4% of those who go to trial and are truly innocent.
  
• 5% of the people swept up by the justice system end up having a trial.
  
• The vast majority (94.9% here) of the people swept up by the justice system are truly guilty.

 

Suppose some unspecified number people in some area have been accused of committing some crime of period of time. Of those people, 2772 either accept a plea or go to trial. I'll focus on those 2772 people. I am ignoring those against whom charges were initially levied but later dropped. Some of those 2772 people will have been truly innocent of the crime while the rest will have been truly guilty. Some (most in my example, and most in real life) of these people will be offered a plea. Some will accept that plea; others will not. The trial outcome is of course innocent or guilty. The following confusion matrix presents my made-up numbers:

 

[math]

\begin{matrix}

& \text{Found innocent} & \text{Found guilty} & \text{Pled Guilty} & \text{Total} \\

\text{Truly innocent} & 30 & 4 & 107 & 141 \\

\text{Truly guilty} & 8 & 96 & 2527 & 2631 \\

\text{Total} & 38 & 100 & 2634 & 2772 \\

\end{matrix}

[/math]

 

The confusion matrix for these people who went to trial is formed by the looking at only the first and second columns of the above confusion matrix.

 

Note very well: What constitutes a type I versus a type II error depends on the null hypothesis. With a null hypothesis of innocence (a person is innocent unless proven guilty), a type I error results when a truly guilty person is found to be innocent while a type II error results when a truly innocent person is found to be guilty. The state (police+prosecution) use a different null hypothesis. As far as the state is concerned, the rule is "guilty until proven innocent". With 94.9% of the people swept up by the state truly being guilty, Bayes' law says assuming guilt makes for a very good prior. To the state, a type I error results when a truly innocent person is sent to jail while a type II error occurs when a guilty person is set free.

 

[math]

\begin{matrix}

& \text{Found innocent} & \text{\bf{Found guilty}} & \text{Total} \\

\text{Truly innocent} & 30 & \boldsymbol{4} & 34 \\

\text{Truly guilty} & 8 & \boldsymbol{96} & 104 \\

\text{Total} & 38 & \boldsymbol{100} & 138 \\

\end{matrix}

[/math]

 

The emboldened column represents your 96%/4% number. This 96% figure is negative predictivity (positive predictivity from the state's POV) and is the best statistic that can be drawn from this confusion matrix. Other statistics are specificity, 92.2%; accuracy, 91.3%, sensitivity, 88.2%, and positive predictivity, 78.9%. The low positive predictivity is OK here in my mind. It is in general better to let a guilty person go free than it is to send an innocent person to jail. The low sensitivity is a bit more problematic. The trial system is not all that sensitive to innocence.

 

Collecting the "found guilty" and "pled guilty" columns in the original 2×3 confusion matrix into one row yields yet another a binary confusion matrix:

 

[math]

\begin{matrix}

& \text{Found innocent} & \text{\bf{Sent to jail}} & \text{Total} \\

\text{Truly innocent} & 30 & \boldsymbol{111} & 141 \\

\text{Truly guilty} & 8 & \boldsymbol{2623} & 2631 \\

\text{Total} & 38 & \boldsymbol{2734} & 2772 \\

\end{matrix}

[/math]

 

The emboldened column portrays the status of the 2734 people who were sent to jail. Of those 2734 people, 111, or 4.06%, are truly innocent. That is the 4.06% figure that Pangloss deemed "acceptable".

 

This overall confusion matrix has a very high specificity of 99.7%. On the other hand, it has an incredibly low sensitivity of 21.3%. The system as a whole is quite insensitive to innocence.

 

 

Of course the false conviction would have the double whammy of ruining one innocent person's life and allowing the criminal to go free and do more evil. But at such a small false positive rate, the people would be better off despite this.

That the people are better off is not always that good a metric. While safety is important, it also leads to things like the Patriot Act.

 

The false conviction rate must forever and continuously approach the zero bound, and has no relation whatsoever to overall conviction rates, which can and should only be appropriately measured using VALID and ACCURATE convictions as your sample.

Unfortunately, this is not true. Trying to reduce type I errors often leads to an increase in type II errors, and vice versa. The only way to reduce both is to obtain better information -- and to use that improved information in an intelligent manner. For example, DNA testing truly does represent better information. Other high tech forensic evidence is not so good; some is apparently negative information.

Edited June 11, 2010 by D H
Just correcting my own English

[iNow]

I welcome and appreciate your clarification, DH. My deeper intent was to argue more against the suggestion implicitly made above that reducing false convictions necessarily reduces appropriate ones by a similar order of magnitude. I really don't think that's the case at all.

 

Sure, you might reduce appropriate convictions in the process of trying to reduce false ones, but my intuition tells me that the reduction in appropriate convictions would be rather significantly less than the reduction in false convictions. Something like a 10% reduction in false convictions only results in a 1% reduction in appropriate convictions... along those lines.

 

I stipulate a fair degree of uncertainty here. That's just what my gut tells me.

[CharonY]

The state (police+prosecution) use a different null hypothesis. As far as the state is concerned, the rule is "guilty until proven innocent". With 94.9% of the people swept up by the state truly being guilty, Bayes' law says assuming guilt makes for a very good prior. To the state, a type I error results when a truly innocent person is sent to jail while a type II error occurs when a guilty person is set free.

 

Very nice post DH. This null clearly is the way prosecution (which in turn does the categorizing) works. It is important and interesting to point out that the hypothesis is in fact the reverse to the way it should work (innocent until proven guilty).

iNow, unfortunately it is not easy as that. The closer we get to zero for type I, the bigger the impact is likely to be on the type II error (think of intersecting normal distributions).

In many analytical settings one would instead increase the sample size, so that the distributions (in this case of innocent and guilty) overlap less, but in the justice system this is not likely to be easily feasible.

[jackson33]

Unfortunately, this is not true. Trying to reduce type I errors often leads to an increase in type II errors, and vice versa. The only way to reduce both is to obtain better information -- and to use that improved information in an intelligent manner. For example, DNA testing truly does represent better information. Other high tech forensic evidence is not so good; some is apparently negative information. [/Quote]

 

DH; I'll agree your have laid out a fair argument, but I kind of wonder if your considering how the appeal process, a reduced charge/sentencing plea agreements, jury/judge nullifications, Laws themselves or a host of factors involved during trials themselves can and do alter acquittals or convictions themselves.

 

Personally I'm a little confused how Double K's link "92165 (possibly) innocent per year" could possibly have been determined, especially considering most or all served out their time or are and this an annual estimate, at that. That's a bunch and inexcusable, regardless how many guilty parties may go free, if correctable.

 

Assuming those figures (92K &/or 4%) are anywhere near correct (rather doubt under the system) or even close, I'd think -0-% should be the optimum goal and again regardless of how high wrongful acquittals would occur (disagree with that as well). My question, would be; Under the same system, how, what and why, would the guilty be as subject to acquittals or the innocent be found guilty have to correlate.

 

With this in mind, a very large percentage of felony charges are reduced for expedience or lack of evidence. Murder become man one, even assault. Any attorney would advise a questionable accused person (other felony conviction, bad attitude etc) to consider the plea, do the much less time and get on about your business, whether the party is truly innocent. I'm not sure if in that situation, I would take the average 3-4 year sentence over the average 12-14 years for murder/manslaughter sentence.

 

All this said, the problems may be in the litigation process, not the judicial/court system...Poor lawyers, inexperienced, even poor judges are not that uncommon, generally what most the folks we're talking about receive, if they can't afford their own. My two cents...

[swansont]

Ran across this: Chicago Tribune: What causes people to give false confessions?

 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-11/news/ct-met-forced-confessions-20100711_1_confess-dna-evidence-interrogation

[jackson33]

Adding interrogation to the last paragraph of my last post, this thread and you can answer 99% of the major problems to the process of most all illegitimate convictions.

 

All this said, the problems may be in the interrogation/ litigation process, not the judicial/court system...Poor lawyers, inexperienced, even poor judges are not that uncommon, generally what most the folks we're talking about receive, if they can't afford their own.[/Quote]

 

From the article...

After 14 hours of interrogation in a small, windowless room, Kevin Fox simply gave up. He knew he hadn't sexually assaulted or murdered his 3-year-old daughter, but police had rejected his requests for a lawyer and told him they would arrange for inmates to rape him in jail, according to court records.[/Quote]

 

This is simply illegal under American/Illinois law, the interrogators subject to disciplinary action possibly legal action and should have never been allowed.

 

Psychologically, after a certain period of time average person being interrogated or imprisoned the first time, many to most will develop a "what's the use" attitude about the law and there are not many appointed defense attorney's, willing to effectively defend folks with this defeatist attitude...

 

I don't recall if it was a thread or a series of post, iNow and myself some time ago, where we agreed rehabilitation should be a major issue IN THE PRISON system, especially for first time and/or young offenders. IMO, so long as the legal system and prisons are designed to take people off the street (for short periods of time), with out any attempt to rehabilitate, setting these people up for automatic suspicion of similar crimes and being investigated by folks with little or no special training (not trying to be contemptuous), these problems will simply continue.

[Marat]

Just be glad you don't live in your friendly little police state north of the border, because Canada's version of the Miranda warning allows the police to continue browbeating you with at least 18 additional demands that you talk to them after you have already emphatically invoked your 'right' to silence. The Canadian Supreme Court found this perfectly consistent with the general level of contempt for human rights in Canada today. The case is R. v. Singh (2007).

[jackson33]

Marat; Interesting case...

Canadian case is R. v. Singh (2007). Substance of the case;

 

2 The appellant Jagrup Singh was arrested for second degree murder in respect of the death of an innocent bystander who was killed by a stray bullet while standing just inside the doorway of a pub. Mr. Singh was advised of his right to counsel under s. 10(B) of the Charter and privately consulted with counsel. During the course of two subsequent interviews with Sgt. Attew, Mr. Singh stated on numerous occasions that he did not want to talk about the incident, that he did not know anything about it, or that he wanted to return to his cell. On each occasion, Sgt. Attew would either affirm that Mr. Singh did not have to say anything and state that it was nonetheless his duty or his desire to place the evidence before Mr. Singh, or he would deflect Mr. Singhs assertion and eventually engage him again in at least limited conversation. During the course of the first interview, Mr. Singh did not confess to the crime but made incriminating statements by identifying himself in pictures taken from the video surveillance inside the pub in question and in another pub.[/Quote]

 

http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2007/2007scc48/2007scc48.html

 

Trickery is not uncommon, or illegal even if used by schooled and qualified interrogators. Since Mr. Singh, had council, I'll assume he was advised he say nothing and nothing being the meaning. Read the first page, this thread for an excellent US example. While I do feel Miranda was weakened, the attorney negligent and the accused stupid, the fact is he admitted to committing murder. In my perfect world every accused person is afforded the best and equal advise/legal representation, but this has and never will be the case. It's no less with all this current nonsense over Healthcare, some practitioners are just better than others.

 

I have to be a little careful here, in that I'm not opposed to bad people being convicted, but my general problem is when innocent people are convicted. In your case, Mr. Singh, had probably claimed he was not there, it turn identified himself as one being there, additionally, there had to be additional evidence (probably forensic, Gun/Bullet) that he fired the fatal shot. The Texas case the person obviously committed the murder. In fact if you care to read the case history, Singh's attorney, didn't even contest the confession and had ample opportunity. Anyway, in his case, being charged with second degree, yet actually causing a loss of one life, he will be out of prison in 7-10 years, IMO extremely light...

Edited July 19, 2010 by jackson33

[Pangloss]

That story indicates no evidence that the man's claim is factual. It simply reports what he said, throwing a label on it that declares it to be the reason why people give "false confessions".

[swansont]

That story indicates no evidence that the man's claim is factual. It simply reports what he said, throwing a label on it that declares it to be the reason why people give "false confessions".

 

The story I linked to? The one where they eventually found that the DNA belonged to someone else?

[Pangloss]

Pardon me, I didn't realize there was a fourth page of replies (I usually quote the original post unless I'm replying in the very next box).

 

How were the police supposed to know that the man's DNA wouldn't match? He claims he didn't waive his right to counsel, but we have no way to know that this is the case. We're supposed to assume it because his DNA didn't match, but that's a non-sequitur -- the two facts are not related in any way.

 

Are police supposed to stop interrogating any potential suspect until after the DNA evidence comes in? That's CSI thinking, not real-world thinking. Surely we all know about the importance of immediate investigation, and DNA evidence can take months.

[rigney]

The Miranda Rights law has made sure the "POOR BABY SYNDROME" stays intact. It's far to lucrative in our society to make it much easier convicting a pedestrian of jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk than convicting a psychopath for murder, and I suppose that is the way it should be. But we have too many criminals walking the street today as free men because some slick attorney with no moral compass of their own, has turned our justice system on its ear. Yes, on rare occasions an innocent person has been convicted of crimes that in a few instances has even led to their being put to death. But it's the ten thousand to one bad guys who don't get convicted that bothers me!! Miranda Rights were perhaps meant as a check of doing injustice to innocent people, but has evolved into a joke.

Edited July 21, 2010 by rigney

[swansont]

Pardon me, I didn't realize there was a fourth page of replies (I usually quote the original post unless I'm replying in the very next box).

 

How were the police supposed to know that the man's DNA wouldn't match? He claims he didn't waive his right to counsel, but we have no way to know that this is the case. We're supposed to assume it because his DNA didn't match, but that's a non-sequitur -- the two facts are not related in any way.

 

Are police supposed to stop interrogating any potential suspect until after the DNA evidence comes in? That's CSI thinking, not real-world thinking. Surely we all know about the importance of immediate investigation, and DNA evidence can take months.

 

The DNA evidence shows he was actually innocent; it's not a matter of taking his word on that. He was innocent and yet was held in jail because of a confession.

[ParanoiA]

The Miranda Rights law has made sure the "POOR BABY SYNDROME" stays intact. It's far to lucrative in our society to make it much easier convicting a pedestrian of jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk than convicting a psychopath for murder, and I suppose that is the way it should be. But we have too many criminals walking the street today as free men because some slick attorney with no moral compass of their own, has turned our justice system on its ear. Yes, on rare occasions an innocent person has been convicted of crimes that in a few instances has even led to their being put to death. But it's the ten thousand to one bad guys whot don't get sentenced, that bother me!! Miranda Rights were perhaps meant as a check of doing injustice to innocent people, but this law has become a joke.

 

It really hasn't though. It's become a joke that people don't exercise their Miranda rights to the point of almost non-existence. Think about all of the times you've talked with police officers in your life, and if you review you'll discover you were never required to talk with any of them, nor without an attorney. No one is, ever. In fact, you can just sit there and be prosecuted from start to finish without saying a word (well, you might have to say a word or two in court I suppose...)

 

The point is most people don't exercise these rights at all, until things get really serious and they've already done damage to themselves by previous interviews with law enforcement.

 

We established our justice system with the idea that we'd rather 10 guilty people go free than to falsely imprison one innocent person. It is shameful that we have murdered innocent people counter to that end. I very much appreciate our justice system and consider it among the best in the world. When a murderer goes free, it's not a shortcoming of the justice system, it's a shortcoming of those working in the justice system. If we don't have evidence against someone, how is it the justice system's fault? If we lose the murder weapon, how is it the system's fault? These are shortcomings of men, not of our design.

 

Money doesn't get people free either - fancy high priced lawyers don't get you free, rather the ability to negotiate the justice system for maximum benefit is how you "get free". I've heard this sentiment a thousand times...so and so gets a pricey attorney and gets off free - and it's BS. Buying talent doesn't auto-magically get you out of jail. If you're caught on video murdering someone, you're going down. No fancy lawyer is going to free you from this. Money is not magical. It's only a terrific motivator for talented people.

 

We have more dangerous people walking the street from prison overcrowding than from unsuccessful prosecution. Everytime you jump up and down when a pot smoker or prostitute goes to jail, you might settle in and consider who we have to let go to make room for them? (Hint: it isn't the non-violent criminals that are released either....)

 

Reconsider your laws. Reconsider what you are willing to put people in jail for. Maybe come up with something a bit more reasonable. Here's a thought...how about leaving people to enjoy their liberty on their own terms, and maybe just jail them when they fail to leave other people alone to enjoy theirs? So like...people who smoke pot or sell their bodies for sex or scientific discovery don't go to jail just because we don't agree. In other words, maybe if we didn't criminalize everything that doesn't fit into our whimsical "preferred behavior" societal engineering design, we'd have more room for people who really do need to be in a freaking jail cell.

[Pangloss]

The DNA evidence shows he was actually innocent; it's not a matter of taking his word on that. He was innocent and yet was held in jail because of a confession.

 

That's fine for a general indictment of the system, but as with many press assertions it doesn't really accomplish anything. We still need to know whether it's okay to investigate a crime while waiting for DNA evidence. We can't put it off or ignore it, because it's already happening every day -- you either support it or you do not. Which is it?

 

Hypothetically, if you are the police and you have read someone their rights and they decline an attorney, would you question them or would you ignore that opportunity?

[rigney]

It really hasn't though. It's become a joke that people don't exercise their Miranda rights to the point of almost non-existence. Think about all of the times you've talked with police officers in your life, and if you review you'll discover you were never required to talk with any of them, nor without an attorney. No one is, ever. In fact, you can just sit there and be prosecuted from start to finish without saying a word (well, you might have to say a word or two in court I suppose...)

 

The point is most people don't exercise these rights at all, until things get really serious and they've already done damage to themselves by previous interviews with law enforcement.

 

We established our justice system with the idea that we'd rather 10 guilty people go free than to falsely imprison one innocent person. It is shameful that we have murdered innocent people counter to that end. I very much appreciate our justice system and consider it among the best in the world. When a murderer goes free, it's not a shortcoming of the justice system, it's a shortcoming of those working in the justice system. If we don't have evidence against someone, how is it the justice system's fault? If we lose the murder weapon, how is it the system's fault? These are shortcomings of men, not of our design.

 

Money doesn't get people free either - fancy high priced lawyers don't get you free, rather the ability to negotiate the justice system for maximum benefit is how you "get free". I've heard this sentiment a thousand times...so and so gets a pricey attorney and gets off free - and it's BS. Buying talent doesn't auto-magically get you out of jail. If you're caught on video murdering someone, you're going down. No fancy lawyer is going to free you from this. Money is not magical. It's only a terrific motivator for talented people.

 

We have more dangerous people walking the street from prison overcrowding than from unsuccessful prosecution. Everytime you jump up and down when a pot smoker or prostitute goes to jail, you might settle in and consider who we have to let go to make room for them? (Hint: it isn't the non-violent criminals that are released either....)

 

Reconsider your laws. Reconsider what you are willing to put people in jail for. Maybe come up with something a bit more reasonable. Here's a thought...how about leaving people to enjoy their liberty on their own terms, and maybe just jail them when they fail to leave other people alone to enjoy theirs? So like...people who smoke pot or sell their bodies for sex or scientific discovery don't go to jail just because we don't agree. In other words, maybe if we didn't criminalize everything that doesn't fit into our whimsical "preferred behavior" societal engineering design, we'd have more room for people who really do need to be in a freaking jail cell.

 

Couldn't agree with you more. We implement new laws almost daily into our legal system, supposidly to make our juducial more proficient and stronger. It just doesn't seem to work that way. Laws applying to citizenry though, unlike those controlling our government have become more astringent, while those purporting to protect us from tyranny have all but vanished. You want to do meth, toke a joint, snort coke or shoot up on H? That should be your own damn business, unless you hurt someone in the process, as if you were drunk or nuts.? And that, especially if you harm a kid. Then it should be your ass. Otherwise, don't bother me with trivial pursuit! I'm too busy trying to keep the government out of my pocket as it is. Anyone with a solution?

Oh yes!, and the worlds oldest profession? Leave it the hell alone!

Edited July 21, 2010 by rigney

[swansont]

That's fine for a general indictment of the system, but as with many press assertions it doesn't really accomplish anything. We still need to know whether it's okay to investigate a crime while waiting for DNA evidence. We can't put it off or ignore it, because it's already happening every day -- you either support it or you do not. Which is it?

 

False dilemma. You do the investigation within the parameters of the law. The issue here isn't stopping investigations or not, it's specifically about interrogations and why and how demonstrably innocent people are confessing to crimes they did not commit.

 

 

Hypothetically, if you are the police and you have read someone their rights and they decline an attorney, would you question them or would you ignore that opportunity?

 

You question them. But of they assert their right not to be questioned, or have an attorney present, you must stop.

[Pangloss]

False dilemma. You do the investigation within the parameters of the law. The issue here isn't stopping investigations or not' date=' it's specifically about interrogations and why and how demonstrably innocent people are confessing to crimes they did not commit. [/quote']

 

You question them. But of they assert their right not to be questioned, or have an attorney present, you must stop.

 

The implication of the article (in fact the direct statement) is that he requested a lawyer and was denied one. But in fact no evidence to that effect is presented. So there is no reason to think that anything incorrect or untoward has taken place here. The fact that he later turned out to be innocent does not inform us that the police made a mistake.

 

So it's not a false dilemma, it is the central and critical question. Thank you for answering it, but it wasn't about you, it's about the ideology behind articles like the one you linked -- their authors hide behind hindsight and intellectual assumptions that don't match the boots-on-the-ground reality of criminal investigation.

[rigney]

It really hasn't though. It's become a joke that people don't exercise their Miranda rights to the point of almost non-existence. Think about all of the times you've talked with police officers in your life, and if you review you'll discover you were never required to talk with any of them, nor without an attorney. No one is, ever. In fact, you can just sit there and be prosecuted from start to finish without saying a word (well, you might have to say a word or two in court I suppose...)

 

The point is most people don't exercise these rights at all, until things get really serious and they've already done damage to themselves by previous interviews with law enforcement.

 

We established our justice system with the idea that we'd rather 10 guilty people go free than to falsely imprison one innocent person. It is shameful that we have murdered innocent people counter to that end. I very much appreciate our justice system and consider it among the best in the world. When a murderer goes free, it's not a shortcoming of the justice system, it's a shortcoming of those working in the justice system. If we don't have evidence against someone, how is it the justice system's fault? If we lose the murder weapon, how is it the system's fault? These are shortcomings of men, not of our design.

 

Money doesn't get people free either - fancy high priced lawyers don't get you free, rather the ability to negotiate the justice system for maximum benefit is how you "get free". I've heard this sentiment a thousand times...so and so gets a pricey attorney and gets off free - and it's BS. Buying talent doesn't auto-magically get you out of jail. If you're caught on video murdering someone, you're going down. No fancy lawyer is going to free you from this. Money is not magical. It's only a terrific motivator for talented people.

 

We have more dangerous people walking the street from prison overcrowding than from unsuccessful prosecution. Everytime you jump up and down when a pot smoker or prostitute goes to jail, you might settle in and consider who we have to let go to make room for them? (Hint: it isn't the non-violent criminals that are released either....)

 

Reconsider your laws. Reconsider what you are willing to put people in jail for. Maybe come up with something a bit more reasonable. Here's a thought...how about leaving people to enjoy their liberty on their own terms, and maybe just jail them when they fail to leave other people alone to enjoy theirs? So like...people who smoke pot or sell their bodies for sex or scientific discovery don't go to jail just because we don't agree. In other words, maybe if we didn't criminalize everything that doesn't fit into our whimsical "preferred behavior" societal engineering design, we'd have more room for people who really do need to be in a freaking jail cell.

 

To conjecture just for the sake of conjecture, is to be stupid, not ignorant. But it's very unlikely that an innocent, or even a naieve person would confess to a crime they did not commit, no matter the interrogation, unless in a dungeon or on a wrack. To go even farther, you would have to assume that a prosecutor would be a cold hearted basta-d, in trying to convict an innocent person? "Of Mice and Men" comes readily to mind. We need to get away from the frivolity of what we consider litigation, and proceed with justice.

Edited July 21, 2010 by rigney

[ParanoiA]

But it's very unlikely that an innocent, or even a naieve person would confess to a crime they did not commit, no matter the interrogation, unless in a dungeon or on a wrack.

 

But we know it does happen. It's a phenomenon that can't be denied, yet seems impossible from our inexperienced perspective (presuming you've never spent hours being interrogated for a horrible crime).

 

Do yourself a favor and go rent the movie "Under Suspicion" (2000) with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. The acting and writing is superb and it's one of the best movies period, even though most of it takes place in an interrogation room. In addition it's relevant to this exchange...