WA House bill would make it illegal for police to lie during interrogations

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-house-would-make-it-illegal-for-police-to-lie-during-interrogations/

by danso • 2 years ago

298 269 2 years ago

seattletimes.com

ceejayoz7• 2 years ago

Good. I understand that deception is necessary in cases like undercover investigations, but the practice goes far beyond those scenarios. Not just interrogations, either.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/michigan-case-offers-pub...

Brian Chaney says he asked for a supervisor during his arrest in Keego Harbor, Michigan, and Police Officer Richard Lindquist told him that another officer present was in charge. The problem: That second officer was not a supervisor or even a member of the Keego Harbor Police Department. Lindquist was never disciplined and his chief says that while a suspect has the right to request a supervisor, what the officer did was OK.

jeffbee2• 2 years ago

Why does the subject of an interrogation have the right to request the presence of different cops?

ceejayoz7• 2 years ago

Ask the police chief; I'd imagine their department policy is that you can request one, given he's stating they do indeed have such a right.

If he wanted to make a "there's no right to a supervisor" argument, he should have. "You have the right, but we'll fake it" is the worst of both worlds.

gs1710• 2 years ago

If it exists, it must be a local thing in Keego. I'm from the same county and I've never been given the advice to ask for a supervisor, only to ask for an attorney.

duskwuff• 2 years ago

That's not the problem. If the police don't want to comply with a suspect's request for a supervisor, they can say "no". They shouldn't need to lie to the suspect about who they're talking to and what their roles are; that's an abuse of their position.

darth_avocado• 2 years ago

Clearly you're not aware of the corruption in the small town government and justice system. If your neighbor is a friend of cop and they don't like you, plenty of cops are willing to put you through harassment and plenty of PDs, local prosecutors and judges who are willing to turn a blind eye towards it.

Essentially, unless you believe every single cop is pure at heart and incapable of making a mistake, you should be wanting a presence of more than just 1 cop.

waqf• 2 years ago

This is speculative and based on a possibly not-representative sample, but what I've noticed from watching bodycam footage is that when the suspect asks for a supervisor, the police give negative/discouraging replies to the suspect while they are also calling a supervisor in the background.

I assume the intention is to comply with the letter of the law while maximizing the chance that the suspect will abandon the request and not force them to wait until the supervisor arrives.

pixl977• 2 years ago

Cops, in general understand the law very well, which makes them even more culpable for their abuses of it.

You see this quite often in the cases where the suspect wants to stop talking and speak to their attorney, and the detectives do the "Oh, yes, we'll let you call them in just one second, but first answer _____"

jotato2• 2 years ago

He said he was asked to waive his rights and when he asked police whether he needed an attorney they said no because they were only asking a few questions. He signed the waiver thinking he was going to help, but a few questions turned into a nearly nine-hour interrogation

How is it we are able to legally "waive rights"? That should be addressed - under no circumstances should a not-yet-convicted person ever be stripped of rights. Voluntarily or not. Otherwise, what are they?

Sure, someone can choose to not exercise them; maybe cooperate with the police, but if at any point they choose they should be available.

Am I missing something?

tekla• 2 years ago

"You Have the Right to Remain Silent" "I killed that person"

That's how you waive your rights.

ceejayoz7• 2 years ago

You have the right to remain silent. You also have the right not to remain silent. Talking after a Miranda warning is taken as a clear waiving of that right to remain silent. You can, of course, stop talking at any time, but they're not going to re-Marandize you after every sentence.

jotato2• 2 years ago

That is different that signing something and being held to it.

You waived a right by saying that but you can choose.l to not speak after.

Even if the paper waived an attorney you should be able to change your mind

laweijfmvo• 2 years ago

I assume he waived his "right to an attorney"

NegativeK• 2 years ago

stripped of rights

They're not being stripped of their rights; they're acknowledging that what they're about to say can be used against them.

Waiving rights is common in American law. Open source licenses waive the right to sue; the third-party doctrine waives the right to privacy of the data that companies take. To some extent, liability releases for participating in dangerous activities waive the right to hold the company you're paying responsible -- think climbing guides, race tracks, sky diving outfits, etc. But from what my non-lawyer self understands, there are some rights you can't waive, like the right to sue over gross negligence.

In this case, it sounds like that waiver was used more as an intimidation tactic to make the suspect believe that they were stuck there and couldn't decide to stop talking. Which... That sounds like something you'd get a lawyer for to help explain the situation.

jncfhnb• 2 years ago

A loss for television. A gain for criminal justice.

alex_lav• 2 years ago

Cops are scum.

jandrese6• 2 years ago

This is going to be very unpopular with prosecutors. How are they going to secure convictions against the innocent if they can't lie to them? If it is illegal to say "We have all of the proof we need to convict you, you are going away for life, but if you confess we'll shorten your sentence" when they have no proof at all it's going to put a heavy burden on the prosecutor to get that person in jail.

mrangle3• 2 years ago

If it is illegal to say "We have all of the proof we need to convict you, you are going away for life, but if you confess we'll shorten your sentence" when they have no proof at all it's going to put a heavy burden on the prosecutor to get that person in jail.

That's not a realistic scenario. All actual evidence is disclosed as a matter of course in the justice process. Any bottom barrel attorney assures this, to whom the defendant has a right.

legitster6• 2 years ago

Sure, but the actual evidence is much easier to collect after you have a confession.

gs1710• 2 years ago

when he asked police whether he needed an attorney they said no because they were only asking a few questions

An attorney sent by Ted’s wife was prohibited from entering the interrogation room by law enforcement, who told the attorney he would not be permitted in unless Ted specifically requested an attorney.

The cops are not interested in playing fair.

jandrese6• 2 years ago

False confessions are often secured without an attorney present. Many people are not good at demanding their attorney, and the cops aren't going to suggest it or offer it as an option to someone they're trying to sweat out.

digdugdirk• 2 years ago

That statement is factually untrue. Law enforcement regularly withholds evidence without any repercussion.

More importantly, the previous comment is referring to plea bargaining. Essentially, law enforcement is using the poor state of the current justice system to pressure people without resources into accepting a guilty verdict because the system is so stacked against them. Imagine:

"Yeah, you can try to prove your innocence, but we're going to hold you until your arraingment. That'll be at least a few weeks, which will mean you'll lose your job and your apartment and your car will be repo'd. And you'll probably lose anyway, because we've got all this evidence against you, and we promise its bulletproof. Or... You can take this deal we're offering. You plead guilty, and we'll let you walk out of here today."

garyfirestorm• 2 years ago

These things happen before courts are involved. They are known as plea bargains. Unless you have a ton of money and a lawyer on call and are really smart, you would be made to believe it’s this short sentence or a very long sentence. Many people without resources and support often falsely confess.

bdcravens3• 2 years ago

The sentence only has to change a little bit to become true.

"If you're found guilty, you could go away for life, but if you confess I'll go to the judge and offer less time"

Constitutional protections aren't there for the legal system, they're there for the accused.

Make it harder to convict, and maybe it'll get to a point where we realize we can't lock away societal problems, and have to start fixing root causes.

jandrese6• 2 years ago

That's much less impactful though. There's a term of art in interrogation "showing the tools" that is intended to get a person to comply with your wishes. "If you are found guilty" is far less impactful than "We have evidence that you are guilty". The purpose of these interrogations is to secure the conviction, not to discover the truth.

Ironically these techniques work better against the innocent than criminals. The criminals know that the cops lie and that simply shutting up is often a sufficient defense. The innocent get bamboozled and end up with jail time.

ghastmaster• 2 years ago

You are conflating prosecution communications with interrogations. It is not legal for a police officer or detective to say what you quoted. It's akin to legal advice, which they do not do anymore if they are smart. This bill does not address the prosecution negotiation/communication.

BeetleB• 2 years ago

How are they going to secure convictions against the innocent if they can't lie to them?

The way they do in countries that have long forbade lying in interrogations:

https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/84483/is-it-generall...

when they have no proof at all it's going to put a heavy burden on the prosecutor to get that person in jail.

Oh, how awful it is that a prosecutor has to prove someone's guilt! What next? Presumption of innocence?

Having followed the topic on and off for well over a decade: As a juror I never believe someone's confession. Rather irrelevant as most confessions won't get to trial, but it often takes very little to get a suspect to produce a false confession. At times, even without any deceit from the interrogators.

I wish I could recall one particular case: A person was murdered, and they charged another person living in the apartment complex. After a long interview session, he confessed. But his confession didn't match any of the evidence. So they pressured him to name an accomplice. The accomplice confessed. The evidence still didn't match. They kept pressuring the original suspect to name names until they had 4-5 people - all of whom confessed.

They later retracted their confessions, claiming duress. But the jurors convicted them on the strength of their confessions ("Who would confess to a murder? I wouldn't!").

They were, of course, all innocent. They spent time in prison, and eventually managed to get the courts to release them. But one or two still haven't been "exonerated" - their conviction stands and thus can't get jobs (or even an apartment).

Oh, and no physical coercion was involved. They were simply worn down by the long interrogation.

IIRC, over half of people whose convictions have been overturned involved a confession of guilt during interrogation (maybe it was just death row folks - don't remember the specifics).

lokar• 2 years ago

Never, ever, talk to the police without a lawyer. They are not your friends.

IncreasePosts3• 2 years ago

I've talked to police a number of times without a lawyer, and it has always been fine.

mikestew• 2 years ago

I've wired electrical outlets without turning off the breaker, and I'm still here to type this. I would not, however, advise others to do so but rather emphasize the importance of turning off the breaker before doing electrical work.

Other than "nice day, eh?" or "No, as a matter of fact I do NOT know why you pulled me over", don't talk to cops without a lawyer.

bdcravens3• 2 years ago

You can also drive without a seat belt several times and likely be ok. It only takes one time to be proven wrong, however, and by then, it may be too late to learn the lesson.

paxys• 2 years ago

It is always fine until it isn’t.

hangonhn• 2 years ago

A high school friend of mine made the mistake of doing that because in the past he had cooperated with the arresting officer (i.e. snitched). However, what he didn't realize is that may have no bearing on what the officer might do but even more importantly, it's the prosecutor who decides if he's going to pursue the case and they did not care about his past history with that particular officer. The police are not your friends but more importantly they aren't the ones who do the prosecution. They interrogate and they have a job to do.

s1artibartfast6• 2 years ago

(if you are a suspect).

there are a multitude of legitimate reasons to talk to police without a lawyer. e.g. you are a victim, you are helping a victim, you are being friendly.

The real advice is not to try to talk your way out of a crime because it rarely works.

jandrese6• 2 years ago

How do you know if you are or aren't a suspect? The cops aren't going to tell you.

gs1710• 2 years ago

The article is about the story of a guy who tried to talk his way out of a crime he didn't commit. He thought he was there ''to help with a case.''

VanTheBrand• 2 years ago

in several of these situations you may become a suspect by talking to the police. Plenty of instances of people being killed or injured by the police also begin with them calling the police for help.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Linden_Cameron

legitster6• 2 years ago

Ever?

You can talk to the police during normal goings on just fine. They are not going to interrogate you just for asking for directions. It's during an investigation that you should lawyer up.

grecy• 2 years ago

A friend was an LAPD detective for 30 something years. Now retired. Extremely nice person.

He emphatically told me I should never, ever, ever talk to the Police. Even if I witness a hit and run and just happen to be standing there and they walk over to me. Any one of 10,000 scenarios where the Police ask me for something, or want me to give information about something (even if I wasn't there).

They are actively searching for someone to blame, and if you happen to say the wrong words while trying your utmost to be helpful, they'll happily pin it on you.

adgjlsfhk16• 2 years ago

police do not tell you when you talking to them is part of an investigation. as such, don't talk.

bitfilped2• 2 years ago

Ever.

jp191919• 2 years ago

This reminded me of this absolute gem, outstanding advice for anyone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

sgift• 2 years ago

And the abridged version for those in a hurry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkN4duV4ia0

(The link by jp191919 is gold though, I'd recommend to watch it at least once if you can find the time)

sethammons2• 2 years ago

the first time I saw this, years ago, I went down a youtube rabbit hole for hours.

TL;DR - the video is a lawyer and a cop both saying don't talk to police, even to be helpful, and they back it up.

You should watch it. Your loved ones should watch it. Your friends should watch it.

IncandescentGas• 2 years ago

We already have purjury law, which are so routinely broken by the police there's a common term for it. Testilying.

Purjury is supposed to be serious. But it's not enforced against police officers. Other misconduct like prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence is also rarely if ever punished even when blatently proven and widely publicided.

So why should I believe, if this law passes, anybody in the justice system will enforce it?

What happened to Ted Bradford is awful. The fact he actually eventually was exenorated was like winning the lottery. For most falsely convicted, a statistical impossibility.

gs1710• 2 years ago

But it's not enforced against police officers.

That's true for a lot of laws.

20after47• 2 years ago

Almost all of the laws, most of the time.

jacquesm• 2 years ago

Perjury.

prometheus76• 2 years ago

I think this is a separate issue, where officers routinely lie in interrogations to steer the person being questioned. This isn't perjury, because it doesn't happen in court.

onlyrealcuzzo• 2 years ago

Isn't the problem with perjury that you don't need to prove what you say in court is true, but to prove someone committed perjury you have to prove what they said was a lie?

It's not easy to prove someone lied.

Yet we find it easy to believe what people say is true (even for juries in court).

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

LOL. Police officers are never prosecuted. And do you know who is prosecuted even less? Prosecutors. And even less than that? Judges.

I think in all of history only one prosecutor was ever prosecuted for what is known in the USA as a "Brady violation", where the prosecutor hides exculpatory evidence from the defense, even though it routinely happens.

I tried repeatedly for many years to bring a prosecution against some cops and prosecutors for hacking offenses, but since there isn't really the concept of private prosecutions in the USA you have to rely on the prosecutor's office wanting to prosecute it's own. I even sued the prosecutor's office to try and enforce it, but the judge told me "Of course police officers are allowed to commit crimes in the course of an investigation." If I get bored at some point I will have the audio recordings pulled from the court and put them online so other people can see the insanity.

noqc• 2 years ago

Whether or not a particular crime is one that the investigator is allowed to commit in the course of an investigation is extremely fact dependent, so the fact that you haven't included any is a little suspicious.

throwway1203852• 2 years ago

If that happened in Washington I would love to know which judge so I can vote someone else in when the time comes.

Buttons8402• 2 years ago

Best idea I've heard is that the public defenders office (or whatever, I'm not expert here) should be responsible for investigating and prosecuting police. There's already a natural opposition there. The current system works if people have infallible integrity (hint, they don't), this change would make the system work if people have human nature.

bombcar4• 2 years ago

LOL. Police officers are never prosecuted. And do you know who is prosecuted even less? Prosecutors. And even less than that? Judges.

At some point you have to have someone who is unprosecutable, or you have people who can be influenced.

The king, at the top of this heap, is the jury itself; they cannot be prosecuted for their decision, even if it is obviously, manifestly, completely, pants-on-head-insane.

jimz3• 2 years ago

Prosecutors are absolutely immune. Brady violations only invalidate the underlying case and in really egregious cases, ruin future careers in politics, but it doesn't create criminal liability going the other way. Police have qualified immunity, prosecutors have absolute immunity, as long as the charge is something that constitutes their quotidian work.

Private prosecutions do exist, but not on a federal level, and anything falling under the purview of the CFAA - which is the umbrella that hangs over all computer-access-related crimes, is federal by definition. Besides, with parallel construction, they can always legally reverse-engineer a legally sound rationale that doesn't violate the 4th Amendment or what-have-you. However, while prosecutors are absolutely immune, the police are not and therefore are subject, occasionally, to federal-level liability either criminal or civil, although the prevalence of police perjury - testilying, as commonly known - is both an academic niche that has produced plenty of papers and have achieved virtually nothing in the real world. The term came into the public consciousness in 1994 and as late as 2018 I've heard it bandied about by cops in a courthouse. Prosecutors need the cops to investigate (public defenders' have a much smaller team of investigators if you're lucky, but even then anything technical is hopefully something you know enough about to find the right expert and conduct a competent cross examination. The police, of course, have the first mover advantage and so they can set up the fall guy who is already pension-eligible and move their assets out of their name before getting tossed in the gentlest way possible under the minivan. I wasn't involved with the case but the classic WA case involving the police using all of their tools available to rearrange the narrative surrounding a murder caught on camera and a federal prosecution is the Otto Zehm case. I had the luck to see what happened at sentencing and it was frankly sickening. https://www.spokesman.com/topics/otto-zehm/

So, police do get prosecuted, but only below the federal level, and extremely leniently, and if weren't for the video it probably wouldn't have happened. Ten years for a murder caught on video is crazy considering that the feds were giving out pleas of 8 years for "trafficking" 4 pills of Oxycodone before fent got into the supply (also thanks to the feds, as it was entirely supply driven) and ten years after leaving WA I still have former clients incarcerated for much more ambiguous fact patterns and convicted after multiple mistrials. As for the feds, now that Bivens is basically dead, even their own IG reports read like lurid crime novels written in the most lawyerly way possible. And if they're really in trouble, creating a moral panic always works. It had worked so far.

chacham15• 2 years ago

IMO the point of stopping police from lying shouldnt be to prosecute the police (as perjury is already illegal), but rather, to indemnify the person who was lied to for actions they took under false pretenses. So, if the police lie to you and say "we have you on camera at the 7/11" and as a result you say "I dont really recall..maybe I got a soda from there and dont remember?" that second statement shouldnt be used against you if they dont actually have you on camera whereas today that statement would be used to show that you couldve been there (because you said so yourself). This is easy to demonstrate in court and consequently toss out that secondary statement which would otherwise be evidence.

rootusrootus2• 2 years ago

Here's a hot take -- maybe we could just make self-incriminating statements inadmissible altogether unless it's given as testimony, verbal or written and signed while not under duress.

If the only evidence the police have is what you say, then that should be insufficient.

echelon4• 2 years ago

as a result you say "I dont really recall..maybe I got a soda from there and dont remember?" [...]
today that statement would be used to show that you couldve been there (because you said so yourself).

They can use "I don't remember" ?

Isn't the whole point of interrogation to get a suspect to make conflicting statements, then pressure them when the statements don't line up as a means to get a confession?

Why is this a bad thing? If this tool goes away, couldn't conviction rates plummet (for eg. violent crimes)?

I'm having trouble seeing an ethical problem here?

baryphonic• 2 years ago

Purjury is supposed to be serious. But it's not enforced against police officers. [...]
So why should I believe, if this law passes, anybody in the justice system will enforce it?

I haven't read the text of the bill, but according to this article, evidence obtained during an interview where the cops were lying can be excluded. This forces judges to consider the evidence during pre-trial motions in limine, and if a judge errs in allowing such evidence, that error can be appealed. That doesn't 100% solve this issue, but if enacted this will provide a real remedy. And trial judges hate to be overturned on appeal.

KennyBlanken• 2 years ago

Believe it or not, at least some judges are severely annoyed by the open, obvious lying officers do. One federal judge declared Boston Police officers and detectives to be liars and unreliable witnesses, for example.

he proposed a "corruption court" and that went about as far as you'd expect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IebE8dDKEWM

monkeynotes• 2 years ago

A judge will simply throw out any evidence that was facilitated by a lie. Any good defence lawyer would wield this just like they wield bad chain of custody etc.

a_victorp• 2 years ago

However I would guess most wrongful convictions are done against people that can't afford "good defense lawyers"

P_I_Staker• 2 years ago

You can throw out evidence gained based on a lie. Only one replier seemed to notice this.

Also, from what I understand perjury is more widespread than you might believe, and tends toward frequent fliers in court. As I understand it, some officers take the attitude "if they're going to lie, I'm not going to commit to always being honest, even if it means letting a POS out"

Don't agree, but just to address the point regarding cops being treated differently. People lie in court all the time, even getting caught red-handed and unprosecuted.

P.S. Regarding that police attitude toward lying, it's the same as any corruption: You might think prosecutors and cops pull out all the stops for the "real bad guys", and this may be partially true; however in reality, it just comes down to who pisses them off the most, which often doesn't have that much to do with whether someone is the worst of the worst.

gnicholas2• 2 years ago

So why should I believe, if this law passes, anybody in the justice system will enforce it?

Easy: because interrogations are videotaped and disclosed to defense attorneys. Currently, police can walk in and say “we found your prints at the scene, so you better start talking”. If an officer did this under the new regime, it would be illegal — and would be disclosed to the defense attorney.

And under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine, anything elicited by that lie would be excluded from trial.

Basically, the types of lies people make on the stand are hard to disprove. The types of lies that cops tell in interrogations are not hard to disprove. They are also on video, and handed over to defense attorneys.

bombcar4• 2 years ago

This the way to stop it. Make it fruit of the poisonous tree and the prosectors will get the cops to shut up, because all their good evidence will be destroyed by it.

It's amazing how much they have to work around things that would incriminate or sway a jury (such as cutting out anything that might reveal priors), and this would be something more.

trogdor• 2 years ago

interrogations are videotaped

Interrogations are not always videotaped. State laws vary widely.

Many states require audio recording only. Other states only require recordings for felony investigations. Many states only require recording of custodial interrogations for specific offenses, such as rape and murder.

At one point, California only required recordings of custodial interrogations involving juveniles suspected of having committed murder, but that might have changed — I haven’t looked into this in a while.

anamax2• 2 years ago

because interrogations are videotaped

The FBI doesn't do audio recordings, let alone video.

20after47• 2 years ago

No, interrogations aren't videotaped, at least not always. And even if they are, the police can destroy the video and just use their handwritten notes, and their memory, to testify against you at a trial. Your word against theirs. Tape disappeared. So sorry about your luck.

bobthepanda5• 2 years ago

It sounds like this also covers outside of the actual trial.

A man was lied to by police about a hit-and-run putting the victim in critical condition (it did not), and committed suicide before any trial happened. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/seattle-police-officer-d...

bithead• 2 years ago

IF it passes, SCOTUS will scuttle it.

karaterobot• 2 years ago

I feel like I don't know enough about interrogations to form an opinion on this. All I know comes from TV and movies. It feels like it's either obviously a good idea, or obviously a bad idea, but I honestly don't know which one.

gs1710• 2 years ago

It depends on which you'd rather have come out of the police: false negatives or false positives. Both can potentially ruin someone's life.

sethammons2• 2 years ago

I don't recall which program it was, but likely something on Netflix like "making a murderer" or similar. There was interrogation video of cops berating a mentally challenged teenager into admitting guilt. It was truly disgusting. Watch a couple minutes of that, and it'd be hard to not form an opinion on cops lying.

TurkishPoptart• 2 years ago

Good, now implement this at a federal level so we can get correct information from the F.B.I. about January 6th

Lord-Jobo2• 2 years ago

Good. These kinds of measures are necessary for the restoration of the balance of power in the justice system between prosecution and defense. it should (at the very minimum) be 50-50 every time, then hinge on the facts/evidence to push either over the edge. thats the only way an adversarial system works. But we are very very very far from that at the moment, with a 98% plea bargain rate (https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim...). This bypasses nearly every single baked in advantage that the defense has, with most existing at the trial stages. Lots of ways to balance those scales, this is a good measure in my opinion.

What we have at the moment its a system backsliding towards something that looks similar to post-soviet law like the current Russian system. Its not a good look, even if we probably still have a legal system in the top 10 least fucked.

ceejayoz7• 2 years ago

The 98% plea bargain rate isn't quite as bad as it seems, though; prosecutors drop marginal (i.e. your 50/50) cases entirely so they can brag about their high conviction rates when it comes time for reelection.

greedo• 2 years ago

Do they drop them or pile on charges in the hopes of a lesser plea?

bitfilped2• 2 years ago

Except that a lot of that statistic is driven by the fact that you will be hit with much harder sentencing if you choose to defend yourself in court rather than immediately agreeing to a plea deal and having the level lowered (for federal cases.) This is known as the "trial penalty."

gs1710• 2 years ago

thats the only way an adversarial system works

Really, it shouldn't be an adversarial system against the law-abiding citizenry.

wolverine8762• 2 years ago

The concept IIUC is both sides have zealous advocacy - both sides leave no stone unturned, no argument unmade (generally speaking) - and through the court procedure, that's how a fair trial and the truth come out.

How else do you propose doing it? A system - in sometimes highly distrusting, dangerous, and angry situations - that relies on good will seems unlikely to work. Advocacy accepts the adversarial nature of the issue.

Countries do have different systems. France relies more on judges somehow, but I don't know if the accused gets an advocate.

lliamander• 2 years ago

Except that at the point where there is a police interrogation, there is (or should be) probable cause to believe that the person in question is not a law-abiding citizen.

While imperfect, adversarial systems are still our best means of establishing the truth. Whether it is Quality Assurance testing in the context of engineering, reproducibility in the context of scientific experiments, or trial courts in the context of law.

rayiner• 2 years ago

defense. it should (at the very minimum) be 50-50 every time

What’s the probability of any given indicted person actually being guilty? It’s way over 50%.

idle_zealot• 2 years ago

What is this assertion based on?

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

I can answer this with some authority. I just did 10 years in pretrial and looked through the cases of thousands of people in detail.

I would say 95% of people who are indicted are guilty of something related to the indictment. Often not exactly what is in the indictment (overcharging is rife), but guilty of something. What we need to do is charge people more accurately. Overcharging is used to elicit guilty pleas on lesser charges.

jrflowers2• 2 years ago

I like this reasoning. Everyone should be born in jail and then work to get out, not the other way around.

elil172• 2 years ago

Currently, the prosecution wins the majority of cases because they can get a plea bargain regardless of guilt. I agree with you that this is wrong.

But, to me, the prosecution shouldn't take on cases where they don't have good evidence and they should drop cases if it becomes clear they are wrong. If prosecutors did this they'd still have a very high win rate.

jaredklewis• 2 years ago

If the indicted individuals are guilty, prosecutors should use the evidence they have of that guilt to convict.

Why should we stack the deck in favor of prosecutors and police, by giving them extra privileges, like being able to intentionally lie to defendants?

quantumensert• 2 years ago

Oh...I think you hit the nail on the head as square as can be. We are in a Soviet law system now. I have proof of it which I will make public in the near future.

inglor_cz• 2 years ago

Frankly, US states need agencies that exclusively investigate wrongdoings of law enforcement officers.

The Czech GIBS could serve as a blueprint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Inspection_of_Security...

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

They tried that in Chicago. They never prosecuted anyone. So they dismiss the unit and create a new one under a new name. This goes on every few years.

It reads like the insanity it is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_oversight_in_Chicago#Hi...

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

Illinois already made it illegal for cops to lie to children during interrogations:

https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=0...

"...if, during the custodial interrogation, a law enforcement officer or juvenile officer knowingly engages in deception."

Hopefully they extend it to adult interrogations.

I just did 10 years in jail waiting for trial before the charges were dropped, partially due to a bogus interrogation (that was ruled unconstitutional by the court) where I refused to talk and they badgered me for 45 minutes after that telling me I couldn't use that right and then threatened my family. That's the point you break, not when the cops hit you with a wrench, but when they threaten people you love.

WirelessGigabit• 2 years ago

That's quite the story. Any news reporting on your case?

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

There will be once it's all finally resolved at the end of this year (I hope). Still going through the tail end of it.

candiodari• 2 years ago

How is this supposed to work:

" ... if you say that X is wrong we throw you in youth care, you get put in a place little better than a summer camp, among criminal youngsters, with 2 adults per 30 kids that don't bring you to school, don't help with homework, where all your stuff is stolen, and we use the police to arrest you if you ever decide to leave until you're 18, when you'll likely have failed all your schooling and be thrown into the street ... "

You cannot be honest to kids about youth services the way it currently exists in the US, in any state. That's just absurd.

qingcharles14• 2 years ago

Everything I've heard about the institutions for criminal children is pretty horrific. Nearly everyone I spent my time with in jail was in and out of those youth jails/homes as kids and they all sound like mad-houses.

20after47• 2 years ago

Wow that is fucked. I'm sorry you went through that. 10 years is sickening.

int_19h11• 2 years ago

There's a good chance that they won't be properly compensated for any of it, either.

It is truly amazing that we call this mess a "justice system", as if justice was anywhere even close.

swozey2• 2 years ago

Beware, Denver got rid of qualified immunity which everyone rants about ruining policing. Guess what happened, now our police do literally nothing.

ksenzee• 2 years ago

As it happens, Washington put some reasonable-sounding rules in place after the 2020 protests (https://crosscut.com/politics/2021/07/what-new-wa-police-acc...), and our police reacted in the same way yours did: they do nothing. Or as little as possible. So since they already do nothing, we might as well get the laws tightened up.

ceejayoz7• 2 years ago

Guess what happened, now our police do literally nothing.

That may be better!

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...

"When New York police officers temporarily reduced their 'proactive policing' efforts on low-level offenses, major-crime reports in the city actually fell, according to a study based on New York Police Department crime statistics."

"'In their efforts to increase civilian compliance, certain policing tactics may inadvertently contribute to serious criminal activity,' the researchers wrote. 'The implications for understanding policing in a democratic society should not be understated.'"

swozey2• 2 years ago

Good point. All they seem to do here is homeless sweeps.

cupcakecommons4• 2 years ago

Despite my knee-jerk reaction to assume any policy changes coming out of Seattle are self-destructive; this seems very reasonable especially if there's precedent in other countries [1].

[1] https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/84483/is-it-generall...

bobthepanda5• 2 years ago

I would imagine that this is supposed to protect against cases like this. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/seattle-police-officer-d...

SEATTLE — A Seattle police officer who unnecessarily used a ruse to locate a hit-and-run suspect in May 2018 has been suspended for six days after a watchdog agency found that the lie caused the man to take his own life.
The unnamed officer sent word to the man through a friend -- the complainant in the case -- that a woman injured in the crash was in critical condition and might not survive her injuries.
In reality, the crash was a minor fender bender and no one was injured, according to the Office of Police Accountability, an independent investigative office within the Seattle Police Department. Andrew Myerberg, the civilian director of the watchdog, authored the November report on the findings.
The driver, who friends said “was despondent about the fact that he may have killed someone,” died by suicide less than a week later.
“Notably, the night before he took his own life, he directly told his roommate that the incident was causing him to feel suicidal feelings,” the OPA report stated.

Seattle PD is also notoriously not well behaved even by police standards.

cupcakecommons4• 2 years ago

Gotta be careful negligently and irresponsibly toying with peoples lives in a city that gets so few sunshine hours. Six days of suspension is laughable.

FuriouslyAdrift• 2 years ago

Fine as long as 18 U.S.C. § 1001 becomes the law of the land for all interactions with police (felony punishable by 5 years imprisonment for making a false statement).

tomcam• 2 years ago

It would be awesome if the WA house made it illegal for the WA house to lie.

briffle• 2 years ago

As a quick reminder, in most police departments, because of their Union Agreements, Police officers cannot be questioned unless they have their lawyer present (they HAVE to be present), and a union rep, and have to be shown ALL video evidence that has been collected before they can make a statement.

Nice to see the good ol rules for me, not for thee still exists..

efitz• 2 years ago

Maybe we should make confessions illegal unless done in front of a judge (with prosecution and defense attorneys present. The judge can advise the suspect of their rights and ask if they've been promised leniency or any other accommodation, etc.

And maybe all evidence from interrogations should be inadmissible unless video recorded beginning-to-end with no interruptions.

Then everyone could see if the suspect was browbeaten into a confession or if statements were taken out of context.

mrandish• 2 years ago

While I haven't read the actual wording of the proposed bill, in general, addressing this is a very good idea. There are simply too many examples of police manipulation of vulnerable people during questioning. In fact, the police routinely get trained on how to manipulate and coerce people during questioning because they consider it so "effective" (from the perspective of their metrics).

The odd thing is that most often it's not even necessary. Thanks to TV shows, movies, books and a handful of rare cases which get featured in the media, people assume a significant number of police questionings are like some cagey chess match with a criminal mastermind. In reality the vast majority of criminal suspects brought in for questioning are caught red-handed or with strong evidence of guilt. Because of this most convictions are plea bargains and the few convicted at trial are not close judgements. If we strengthen these protections, IMHO, it will change the conviction rates very, very little.

silexia• 2 years ago

It should also be illegal to lie to students about history. So much of what is taught now is "reinterpreted" from what actually happened. A history book about what happened in the past is more likely to be accurate the closer it is to the actual events.

WA House bill would make it illegal for police to lie during interrogations

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