Well, I can't take almost an hour to watch this video that you post to me, do you have some bullet points that you can share instead?
It's always been my opinion that I would always cooperate and answer any and all questions any LE has for me no matter the situation.
(The original point of my post was that I didn't think they HIRED an attorney. I think that some attorney is giving them random free advice. My second sentence "If you have nothing to hide, why should anyone stop talking or taking poly's?" was my own personal thought. I guess I should have said IMO, JMO, MOO as every time I don't someone jumps all over me.)
I realised it was your own opinion and I would have made the exact same post. You can trust me on that or you can do a search on my username here and see how many times I've made that exact same post.
I encourage anyone interested in crime to watch that video, it's a real eye opener (particularly the second half of the video where a former police officer basically agrees with everything presented in the first part and gives real life examples of most of the main points).
And the former police officer says that
he would never talk to the police without his lawyer present.
As I recall them, not a complete list and in no particular order:
A) Because the police can lie to you and mislead you as to their intentions.
B) Because the police can say things like "well, okay, you didn't do it. But help us out here, if you had done it, how would you have done it?" and then present what you say in court as a confession (that tactic features in several Innocence Project exonerations).
C) Because you can inadvertently say something that makes you look guilty even if you are absolutely innocent.
The example given in the tape goes something like this: the police are questioning you about a robbery that took place at a certain address. You know you didn't do it; you were at your mother's house, four hours away. Unknown to you, an eyewitness who knew you from many years ago told the police that they saw you within two blocks of the robbery a half hour before the robbery (mistaken eyewitness testimony has been a factor in close to 75% of the Innocence Project's exonerations).
At trial, the prosecutor presents the eyewitness. You present... your mother. Who is the jury most likely to believe?
D) Because many people can be bullied into false confessions (25% of the Innocence Project's exonerations involved false confessions).
E) Because the police can use any tiny inconsistency in your answers to impeach you as a witness. Unlike many TV shows, people do not robotically repeat the same story word for word even when innocent (the whole "the truth never changes" thing). The same question, if asked in different ways, can elicit different answers, even from someone telling the truth.
So, for instance, you tell the police that you saw a black car in the driveway that you believe was the guilty party. The police keep asking you about the lighting conditions, how far away you were from the car, are you absolutely positively sure that the car was black? You start to feel a little doubt and wonder if it was actually a very dark colour that you mistook for black and so you say "well, I know it was a very dark colour."
At trial, the prosecutor is likely to present every single time you made any slight change to your testimony as proof that you are lying.
F) Because if you genuinely made a mistake about something during your interrogation, such as mis-stating the time of day something happened, it can be used as proof you were lying. It is absolutely normal to make small mistakes but when such honest mistakes are presented at trial, it can make you look really guilty.
G) Because the police are experts at verbally tripping people up and will do everything possible to trip you up. They are likely to succeed. Again, it makes you look guilty at trial.
And there's more, I just can't remember it all right now.
