[B4Ranch]

>>there are about 6,000 false confessions for felonies every year in the United States.<<

Why would someone make a false confession?

[martin_fierro]

I’m a big fan of the Emotional Confession portion that seems to come at the end of every CSI episode.

[2ndDivisionVet]

This is actually good advice in ANY police situation. Call a lawyer and SHUT UP!

[o_zarkman44]

Even traffic stops involve intimidation. have you been drinking? Do you have any drugs or weapons?
May I search your vehicle?

Answer no and then they raise the intimidation. Step out of the vehicle sir.

Everyone is assumed guilty of something by the cops and they will do anything to get a person to hang themselves.
Cops are helpless to stop criminals. But they are in complete control in making new criminals.

[KrisKrinkle]

“Why would someone make a false confession?”

Possible reasons:

1. They get “beat down” (not physically) and want the immediate situation to be over with.

2. They get convinced they will be convicted no matter what and that a confession will bring a lessor punishment. (Unfortunately there may be some truth there. A judge may impose a lessor sentence if the defendant shows remorse for what he did which includes admitting the wrong. So if you are innocent and maintain your innocence but get convicted anyway, you can get more severe punishment than someone who actually commits a crime.)

3. They may have been drunk or otherwise impaired at the time of the offenses and get convinced that they did something they don't remember due to the impairment.

4. A long “interview” leaves them mentally, spiritually and physically debilitated and they make a mistake.

5. In colloquial, nonprofessional terms: Some people are nuts.

[USMCPOP]

When I took a mandatory class prior to getting my concealed carry permit, the instructor (a former LEO) was emphatic about keeping one’s mouth shut if you ever had cause to use your weapon in self-defense.

[goldstategop]

To get the police off their backs, to gain freedom, to get a good night's sleep or to be home with family. People have a reason to want to avoid the unpleasantness of a police interrogation. And they might not necessarily be criminals. The police's job is to find enough evidence to convict you. If you've been arrested, they are not there to hold to your hand or to befriend you.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Squantos]

BTTT

My basic planned and prepared response if I survive is , Officer I have been involved in an act of self defense and wish to make no other statement without “MY” lawyer present. But I am willing to pick up my brass if you want me too !

...... Littering is unethical.

Shoot too stop the threat as a last resort every time.

Stay safe !

[Kickass Conservative]

A friend of my Brother has been a cop for over 20 years. He told my Brother that if you ever shoot someone breaking into your home, all you tell the Police is “I was in fear for my life”. That’s it.
Get your Lawyer to be your spokesman.

[theBuckwheat]

We now have “crime deconstruction”, where the legislature with the full support of the courts and enforcement apparatus slices and dices a single crime into finer and finer component crimes, each of which carries a heavy penalty. When prosecutors want to get a quick plea bargain, they threaten the defendant with the full load. The defendant makes the mental calculation of the odds. He says to himself: do I take my chances in front of the jury. If I lose I get 20 years. out in 10. If I plea, I get 3 years, out in one.

For example: someone embezzles a few thousand from their employer, simple felony theft. He buys a bass boat and a video game with it (money laundering: 5 years). He doesn't report the money as income (tax evasion: 10 years). He is offered a plea deal: 5 years, out in 2. If he loses at trial: many years, especially if he qualifies as a repeat offender.

I know someone who was faced with this and who accepted the plea. Based on everything I know now, he was guilty of something, but not of the crime he plead guilty to, and would not have been really guilty of the crimes he would have gone to trial with. So, now he is a felon. The state spent several tens of thousands on the incarceration he did get, he is shut out of many jobs because of his record, and the law enforcement establishment still to this day treats him like they have power and control over his life, even though he served the time he was sentenced to.

This is not to excuse his crime, for which he appears to be very sorry he did. An essential point of justice must remain: the punishment must fit the crime. Justice is never served when the charge is increasingly unrelated to the actual criminal act. It becomes a form of legal revenge, or social wrath on people we can coerce into admitting they did wrong.

People who want a peaceful and law-abiding society and who think we must be tough on law-breakers should be careful about what is going on. With every passing year it gets easier and easier for the average citizen, who intends on obeying the law, to find they have violated some obscure rule or regulation. If anyone reading this has ever thrown away a rechargeable battery in a landfill, they could be charged with a felony. Fill in the wet spot in your back yard? You may follow others who have damaged "wetlands" to federal prison. Fix a degraded and badly eroding streambank? You may face a crippling fine for disturbing the habitat of a federally-protected species.[1]

We are rapidly approaching the point anticipated by Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged:

“There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers.”

(”Atlas Shrugged”, Part II, Chapter 3)

[1] Saving soil without a permit puts farmer in cross hairs of EPA http://www.mofb.org/FBPeople-WendellCurtman.html

[longtermmemmory]

Police are sinister about inducing confessions.

As long as they can get away with it they will push hard to get their target to confess because they think they have their target.

Police are interesting in theat they have their union demand their employment dispute sessions be videoed or recorded but likewise demand all interogations NOT be reorded.

[The KG9 Kid]

This Regent University law school video is worth the 20 minutes spent watching it:

"Don't Talk To The Police" -- By Professor James Duane.

[stylin19a]

First of all, since 1986 the Unites States Supreme Court has required that all persons under arrest be given the Miranda warnings, ...

shouldn't that be 1966 ?

[Maceman]

Video: BUSTED: Know Your Rights

This is actually an ACLU video. I am second to none in my contempt and outrage for the ACLU. But frankly, I think this video is very instructive.

Flame away if you must. But I still think it's worth seeing, and thinking about next time you are pulled over.

[alarm rider]

I cannot see an argument for any criminal who breaks into a house, and the home owner or renter shots the perp. The police should be on the side of the aggrieved party, not the criminal.

What kind of stupidity is this?

[2nd amendment mama]

Ping

[scan59]

Ping for future reference. (And to show my teenaged daughter.)

[Nonesuch]

BoingBoing has a post today on pretty much the same topic:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/12/howto-handle-a-polic.html

Somebody should enlighten The BBers as to the other special facet of "white privilege", by giving the cop your CHL along with your license, you improve your chances of being let off with a warning.

[Tunehead54]

Bump! ;-)