Thread: "Anything you say will be used _against_ you in the court of law"?

Originally Posted by Matticus

I enjoy lively discussion where my statements get challenged, and it's rare I get such a chance.

Excellent! I wish I could keep arguing, but I fear you've got the better of it. And I was clearly twisting your words in the last post. I am become troll.

I was taking an idealistic position. "The world could have been so much better." That kind of thing. But it's probably not true. Having come up from animals where violence is an everyday occurrence it may be something that simply cannot be contained, except by greater violence.

For instance, I think the only way to totally stop war would be to have an overwhelming global force that immediately crushed any military action. But can we trust such a force and the people who command it?

A better future is not at all certain. I've been thinking about this lately, and watching some sane and some crazy youtube videos, and getting rather ........ed off. There's some weird ideas out there. It seems like disinformation. Or divide and conquer, a powerful technique in politics as well as programming.

And greater technology always seems to benefit the elite more than the masses. It's depressing. Still, ya gotta dream. Now where'd I put that pipe....

Originally Posted by Matticus

So with law enforcement, which side should be erred on? Which dangers should be accepted? The dangers of letting some bad people escape the criminal justice system, or the danger of having some good people unjustly caught up in that system?

The second one. A single loose criminal can cause far more damage than what one innocent person could experience in prison. Additionally... if you're really talking about jailing the innocent, then you're not talking about the "militarization of police", you're talking about problems with the judicial system. All the police can do, at the end of the day, is get the person in front of a judge. Sometimes, given the socio-economic status of the accused, that can be enough to be wrongfully convicted... but that's not really the police's problem, is it? It's up to the judicial system to make sure the accused is rightfully convicted or acquitted. Any failure to do so falls solely on them. In the case of true criminals who might otherwise get away with crimes due to loopholes in the justice system, a cop might feel responsible to do something above or below his station to make sure the one and only suspect gets their time in court.

Beyond that, if you're really talking about people getting killed or mauled by the police as Elkvis spoke of, then I have no justification... there certainly is some things that can be reworked for how cops behave on the field, but I also feel that people don't have the right kind of empathy for the officer in those situations, as well. It's always easy going against the guy who shot the other guy... but it's much harder to really look at it from their perspective and see if there was any real provocation. I do think there is many instances of abuse, however, and this needs to be fixed. This, however, has nothing to do with Miranda rights and the real nature of this topic.

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

A single loose criminal can cause far more damage than what one innocent person could experience in prison.

If an innocent person is convicted, then the single loose criminal is still out there. Furthermore, stigma from a prison sentence extends beyond prison time, and the prison sentence does not just affect the prisoner, but also those around him/her, and deprives society of the value that the person could contribute outside of prison. It sounds like you believe that an accused person should be considered guilty until proven innocent.

Benjamin Franklin wrote "that it is better one hundred guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." I wholeheartedly agree. the instant that you start allowing people to be imprisoned just so that someone is held accountable, it becomes a very slippery slope toward tyranny.

Uggg, I wrote three separate, very detailed responses to these two statements and each time I lost them to a browser crash, an accidental refresh, and an accidental misuse of the "reply with quotes" button, respectively. I don't have the patience to rewrite it all again at the moment... maybe tonight.

The general idea behind the replies were this:
1. I never suggested that people should be presumed guilty until proven innocent. That is a philosophy for those who have the power convict the accused, not those that make the accusation. It is entirely illogical for someone to accuse a person that they presume innocent, but then that's why the accusers cannot convict.
2. I was admittedly speaking too generally when I made the remake about it's better for an innocent to be jailed than a guilty person to be free. It really needs to be applied to a bias I feel the police use when choosing to circumvent procedure. One that would expect the crime that has been committed to be a crime that is likely to be repeatedly committed.
3. I have always had mixed views about Blackstone's formulation and I think it is often misinterpreted or applied far too generally. i.e. The comment that Elkvis made after the quote which...
4. I never suggested that we should just be imprisoning people just to hold someone accountable. I don't even think people are suggesting that's what the police are doing. We're talking about police breaking procedure to get the information they need to secure the arrest that they feel is correct.

Hopefully this isn't too short to get the point across, but I'm being wholly misunderstood here and people are applying all sorts of notions about what I'm saying that I'm finding to be absurd. I'll try to clear this up tonight after work.

I, for one, understood your reference to innocent people in prison. What troubles me about the whole logic of "cops may have to bend the law to get to the criminal" is how true this is in our modern societies, and yet how dangerous it is to openly defend it.

The police in Chicago, IL have basically said they will shoot on sight, any person seen to be carrying a firearm, despite the new law in Illinois allowing persons to obtain a permit to carry a firearm.

Um.....just a slight exaggeration. They do not do this. The new conceal carry law I believe is still being discussed. It has passed the legislature but now it is a matter of where (as in what type of establishments) you can conceal carry. It is interesting to note they went from total gun ban to conceal carry b/c the gun crime rate was spiraling out of control.

From Wikipedia:

Every U.S. jurisdiction has its own regulations regarding what, precisely, must be said to a person arrested or placed in a custodial situation. The typical warning states:

• You have the right to remain silent when questioned.
• Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law. (Modern readings have can and will in place of may)
• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish.
• If you decide to answer any questions now, without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.
• Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?

So congratulations on not only misrepresenting the entire intent of the rights but also on taking one misquoted phrase from it out of context and assigning another meaning to it.

Originally Posted by oogabooga

Anyone who talks to the police when there's the slightest possibility that they're under suspicion (and, in essence, there's always that possibility) is an idiot. They always do it on TV as a cheap writing ploy, but in real life SHUT UP! You don't have to say anything. Keep your mouth shut.

To hear it from the mouth of a lawyer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
For those who aren't interested in watching the video,
The crux of the lesson: Do NOT talk to a cop.