This is important stuff

Shut up, just like Miranda says

From ace.mu.nu

27 Read "You Have the Right to Remain Innocent " by Law Professor James Duane. You may have seen his great YouTube video "Don't Talk to the Police".

Prosecutors and police tell their kids "don't talk to police. Just say 'I want a lawyer' and shut up." The book explains with clear examples of why this is wise. Too many cops and prosecutors are unethical.

Posted by: Smilin Jack and I search with DuckDuckGo at June 30, 2019 09:12 AM (Ph4Ht)

So I got this book based on Smilin Jack's recommendation here, and oh helz, I almost wish I hadn't. It is alternately infuriating, depressing, and frightening. The author, a defense attorney, says the advice he is about to give in this book is what LEOs and state prosecutors all tell their children: never talk to the police. He does qualify it with some exceptions, i.e. always provide your ID when asked and it's OK to answer questions about what you're doing right then and there, but if they want you to, for example, answer some questions about some situation they tell you they're investigating, that's when you lawyer the hell up. Because you have no idea whether what they tell you they're investigating is what they're actually investigating, whether they consider you a suspect or not, and because they the parameters within which the courts have decided it is permissible for them to lie to you are extremely broad. And Duane backs up his arguments with examples of cases where innocent people spent years, and even decades, in prison for crimes they didn't commit - because they spoke with police and their words were later used against them (just like it says in the classic Miranda warning). And pleading the 5th has become inadequate due to some SCOTUS decisions that have upheld lower court rulings that allowed the prosecution's argument that pleading the 5th is evidence of the defendant's guilt(!) Scalia comes in for some criticism here, as the main proponent of the "if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear" line of argument which Duane insists just isn't the case.

So, you plead the 6th. You say it loud and clear "I want a lawyer", and then clam up.

You Have the Right to Remain Innocent is available on Kindle for $5.99.

And the book takes a detour to talk about how bad it is at the federal level: tens of thousands of regulations scattered throughout the 30+ volumes of the U.S. Code, nobody really knows them all, the penalty for lying to a federal officer is five years in prison, and guess what, who gets to determine in a court of law whether you've lied or not? Why, the federal officer, of course! If he says you lied, you lied. The courts will generally believe him, not you.

(If you are thinking, "The police will understand when I tell my side of the story..." PAY ATTENTION! DON'T SAY ANYTHING EXCEPT, "I want a lawyer." Four words. You're probably thinking, "But if I say that, the police will think I'm guilty." LISTEN: The police are not on your side.)