461–470 of 615 posts
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This is 100% a bad faith question. And even if it's being asked in good faith, it's entirely irrelevant. It's essentially whataboutism. But I'll address it anyways. If I have an abusive co-worker in my tech job and my manager and HR refuse to do anything about it, it just makes work suck. But an abusive cop ruins lives with bullshit charges and bullshit handling of innocent people. In worst-case scenarios, they're mu…
It's not in bad faith, but it is rhetorical: people protecting their own, at an industry or occupational level, is the rule, not the exception.
Formally the police can't demand a lot of stuff. Informally, they'll put you in a room and tell you that they have the legal right to keep you anywhere from 24 to 72 hours in there and they definitely can make you reconsider during that period -- to put it very mildly. Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Until there's true acc…
>Hint: some cops are really good in the skill of inflicting pain to people without lasting medical trace to prove it afterwards. Sorry, I don't buy that this happens with any kind of frequency in the 21st century United States, such that a person could reasonably expect this to happen to them. Do you have more than ambiguous innuendo to back up this claim?
This has happened repeatedly and nobody seems to care.
10 seconds on Google turned up another case from this year.
https://www.keranews.org/news/2021-03-19/north-texas-man-die...
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It's crazy to me the amount that people who have never dealt with the cops think "I'll just show them x legal code so they can see they don't have the right to do that." Turns out, they don't care. For minor infractions, they'll use whatever intimidation and coercion they want, then make you feel lucky for letting you out because they didn't feel like prosecuting. In most circumstances, the word of the person with th…
Yep. My philosophy is to always cooperate (unless they ask for something super egregious) and show myself as friendly. This immediately reduces the alarms in their heads. I even say things like "sure guys, here are my docs, here are the contents of my backpack, hope you catch the guy you are after" and smile. Very often the mere fact that you are not trouble makes them pay less attention and the whole thing ends real…
I do this too, and will flip the switch in a second if it looks like it will go bad.
One other way to improve ones police interactions is to have one go really bad, then win in court.
Happened to me, and I lack time to tell the tale fully.
Basically, I came home to my family all angry. I sent everyone to their rooms, wife included lol, and stepped onto my porch to have a smoke and think it through.
Sidebar: I really miss that, and am a non smoker today.
Three officers walked up and made demands to enter my home, which I denied and they beat my ass and took me to jail. And it was a non trivial beating.
What they expect is for people to plead down, and I took it to trial and was found not guilty.
Ever since, I have great interactions...
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I find that bullies can be found in equal proportions in both parties, but I do agree that the type of bully who is willing to walk the street with a gun in the name of justice does have a more welcoming home in one major party than the other.
You should talk to some homicide detectives, or even the people who deal with the day-to-day issues at the street level in downtown areas. The things they see on a regular basis are pretty mind-blowing, and not just per-incident, but cyclically and systemically. Their perspective on government policy and it’s effects are far different than ours by the nature of their jobs. That is a partial factor in how they vote an…
I don't think that necessarily factually disqualifies anything I said already, though. The police are a necessary branch of the state monopoly on violence, but right now in the U.S. I don't think the demographics and tendencies of the police force line up with our collective expectations for transparency, honesty, trust, and justice. There are too many opportunities for intimidation and corruption that are taken and defended.
Edit: Also you're completely correct about one political party listening to and supporting the police.
> this case turns on one of the most fundamental protections in our constitutional system: an accused person’s ability to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights without having his silence used against him. A very interesting tidbit I learned here on HN a couple years back — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that you have to declare out loud an intent to invoke your Fifth Amendment rights, if you haven’t been formally arre…
There's a certain irony in people thinking this was a bad decision. Let me explain: The right against self-incrimination originally arose because of a quirk in English law relative to continental European law, and middle-age French law in particular. See, in France judicial execution was only permissible if the accused confessed . You couldn't use evidence as justification to execute someone; the defendant had to con…
You're citing English common law, but this is one of the places where the US Constitution explicitly rejects English common law. Several clauses of the Constitution - including both the Fifth and Sixth amendment - were composed specifically to make these rejections explicit.
For comparison, until the early 19th century, under English law, people on trial for felony offenses were prohibited from having counsel represent them at trial. The Sixth Amendment guaranteed this right explicitly, in order to invalidate any English common law precedent that would have otherwise come into effect.
This happened to me. The police wanted my password and refused my right to silence, wouldn't let me call a lawyer. I wouldn't talk. Then they threatened my wife and I gave up my password to stop them from hurting her. The password was suppressed by the court, but they let the police use it anyway because one of the officers (with no formal computer qualifications) testified he could have broken 2048-bit AES encryptio…
"while the content was itself not protected, the act of production could be testimonial irrespective of the content. The court reasoned, “[t]he act of producing evidence in response to a subpoena nevertheless has communicative aspects of its own, wholly aside from the contents of the papers produced. Compliance with the subpoena tacitly concedes the existence of the papers demanded and their possession or control by the taxpayer.” The court thus recognized that, in some instances, the Fifth Amendment protects the act of production.
Despite the act of production principle, the court in Fisher reasoned that “[t]he existence and location of the papers are a foregone conclusion, and the taxpayer adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government's information by conceding that he, in fact, has the papers. Under these circumstances ... ‘no constitutional rights are touched. The question is not of testimony, but of surrender.’” This is referred to as the “foregone conclusion” exception to the “act of production” doctrine. In short, the Fifth Amendment is not implicated if the government knows of the existence, possession and authenticity of incriminating evidence, because the production thereof contains no testimonial import. Both the act of production and foregone conclusion doctrines are important to our understanding of how the Fifth Amendment protects against the compelled production of our passwords"
https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-amendment-decryption-and-b...
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Yep. My philosophy is to always cooperate (unless they ask for something super egregious) and show myself as friendly. This immediately reduces the alarms in their heads. I even say things like "sure guys, here are my docs, here are the contents of my backpack, hope you catch the guy you are after" and smile. Very often the mere fact that you are not trouble makes them pay less attention and the whole thing ends real…
This isn't some kind of cunning hack, it's literally what they're trying to accomplish by being bullies. Society needs people to stand up to the police when they exceed their legal remit, or they will continue to exceed it. I won't blame people for choosing personal convenience over the good of society, but we should be clear that that is the choice being made.
Having faced potential costs associated with exercising rights, I must say it can go very bad, very quick.
Done right, even when it does go bad, means a likely win in court.
In my case, preventing warrantless home entry involved:
Personal beating, like ouch! People will notice it happened to you type ouch!
An evening in holding.
Long walk home. (I could have gotten a ride, but was a mess mentally and just walked 10 miles.
A few thousand for a defense attorney.
10 court appearances called for at expensive and tiresome times.
Trial.
Tort to recover fees.
Personal unease for about 6 months while it all played out.
Not recommended.
Unless it is worth it. In my case it was more than standing on principle.
Finally, public defenders are not generally what you want in rights violation type scenarios. Be ready to pay up for experienced representation.
Be ready to take the ride, take the beating, pay the money, lose the time.
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What crime were you charged with?
Per his other comments, he spent 8+ years in Cook County so it would almost certainly have to be first degree murder.
I'm British and a felony conviction would impact my immigration status and also I'm innocent. So I refused. I actually thought I'd be in jail for a few weeks. Then 8 years later.