h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In Britain police officers have to inform you of your rights when they arrest you, as 'Joe Bloggs, I am arresting you on suspicion of stealing you do not have to say anything...(etc)...' This seems to me to be a fair way of doing things. Even the worst kind of criminal has some rights as a human being, the right not to say anything if it is incriminating, the right not to speak to the police without a solicitor present and especially the right to know their rights. By not informing people of their rights in a way which they can understand are you not impinging them?(the rights, I mean)
Surely it is better to convict somebody if you have given them all the opportunities to wriggle out of it?

Rights exist to protect the innocent. The goal of investigators is to find the guilty party and prepare a case against them. Tactics should be used that will gain admissible evidence that will implicate the guilty or eliminate the innocent.

I don't think I've suggested anything that would lead an innocent person to confess. Everything is geared towards getting a guilty person to waive their rights and confess.

About the British caution, I doubt it's nearly a stringent as the American Miranda Warning. Once a person invokes, we can't initiate contact with the suspect. That's why it's so important that uniformed officers should NOT read Miranda on the scene.

There have been some advantages to the whole thing. Miranda has forced investigators to become more professional and competent. When we couldn't rely on gaining confessions as much, we were forced to concentrate more on forensic evidence. Now we have all kinds of snazzy techniques.

You're right, our caution is less stringent than miranda.

"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in Court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence"

This puts pressure on any interviewee to answer questions, because he may later have to rely on that evidence in court - and of course both inocent and guilty are under the same pressure.

However, our interview techniques are much more 'innocent friendly' in my opinion. We are not allowed to use trickery to force open a story; the police have to set out all relevent evidence to a question for the suspects silence to be used against him - nothing can be witheld. And of course, we tape record all interviews and provide the interviewee with a copy, and many forces use video too, which not only ensures evidence to the court is presented 'warts and all', but also means that there is evidence of unlawful police interview techniques which an interviewee can use if he feels he has been put under undue pressure.

Although this has provided excellent protection against police coercion of a confession, it hasn't stopped 'dodgy' practices by the prosecutors - for example, the man who murdered that family in kent with a hammer was put away primarily on the basis of an oral
'confession' he made to a fellow convict - unrecorded of course, and something the police would never get away with.

Konrad

I'm of two minds about forcing people to talk, as the British system does. If I were creating a criminal justice system from scratch, I'd probably have something like the British Caution. The Right to Remain Silent is too deeply engrained in American law. I wouldn't want to change it.

If a person is innocent, then trickery (I prefer the term tactical deception) wouldn't trip them up.

One thing to keep in mind, is that Miranda applies from the moment of arrest. If I arrest a burglary suspect, as soon as I have her in cuffs I have to read her Miranda in order to question her (there's a public safety exception but it's pretty narrow). I might need to know who her partner is. Where he lives. Etc. I don't have time to get my recorder from the glove box.

It sounds like the caution is limited to formal interviews.

on the whole tho, it does rather make our system seem rather backhanded doesn't it? i'm sure that wasn't your intent, but it reads like the goal of the prosecution, from the arresting officer to the prosecuting attorney, is to deceive the suspect. if you are required to warn the suspect of his rights and ensure that said suspect is in complete understanding of those rights, but do so in a manner that suggests that it is all just inconsequential red tape, is the suspect *truly* aware of those rights and the implications of waiving them?

a good article tho. i enjoyed reading it. it seems like a lot of the edited stuff is rather dry lately, but your article is very nicely done. congratulations on the front page

haven't seen you around for awhile. how're things going down your way?

In order to get at the truth, we'll use deception. I'd be surprised to see a prosecutor use deception. At that stage it's the defence attorney's job to deceive the defendant.

Part of the deal with Miranda, is that it means the Motion to Suppress the statement will focus on the reading of Miranda rather than the actual voluntariness of the statement. Most of the time, if I can produce a signed waiver and a written statement the defence attorney just will just start trying to make a deal.

As for me, I've been poking around. I just haven't seen much in the Guide to comment on. I've been doing more with entries and discussing stuff over on FindLaw.

Besides, work was pretty intense for a while. That's why this article isn't as good as I would have liked. I never did incorporate some of the good ideas from Peer Review. I had just finished doing a lesson plan on Miranda and I was pretty disgusted with the whole thing.

I disagree that an innocent person wouldn't be tripped up. An HONEST innocent person wouldn't be tripped up, but I'm not sure about (for example) someone guilty of one crime but being interviewed about another.

Put the case, I give a friend a lift to a bank, and he robs it. He's nicked and there is good by not conclusive evidence of his involvement. Now I'm innocent, but I'm brought in.

In the UK there is no real advantage in me grassing my friend up, so I don't: If my friend confesses and accuses me of being an accomplice he knows the police will give that evidence to me, and I'll confirm that my friend did the crime. So he's not going to do that. He knows that under our system, I can't be put under any pressure to give him up as I'm innocent and the police won't have the evidence to present to me. Result - he may or may not be done, I certainly won't be.

In the US, you can trick me by saying that my friend has named me as a driver. Then I defend myself by saying 'he did the robbery...' thus confirming that my friend is guilty (great result for you!). You go back to him, to get a confession with my statement, now he's going to want to put me in as well for being a grass. Result - we both get done.

What I'm trying to say is the american system may get more certain convictions, but I don't think you can be certain of everyones role under confessions gained by trickery.

Konrad

Innocent but guilty? If I come across information about one crime, and stumble upon information about another, I don't see the problem. Now I just investigate two crimes.

That's a question of fact for the jury to decide on. It would be easy for the prosecution to make it's prima facie case. I'm not sure how the defense would counter it. The defense would have to put up a good defense.

When it comes down to it, it's proof beyond a reasonable doubt rather than proof beyond all doubt.

What I mean is, someone may be guilty of one crime (or may be, no crimes except lying to the police initially) and because of trickery be roped into a conspiracy where they are guilty of a crime they did not do.

Take my example, if I drive my friend unknowingly to commit a crime, then I'm innocent - but because I don't want to drop my friend in it I lie (or stay silent). Using trickery may then get you a conviction on my friend on my evidence (which is a good result) but may also lead to my name coming up as an accomplice, which I am not.

OK, arguably I am guilty of a crime, lying to the police, but it won't be the crime I'm accused of. And if I end up an accessory to murder, then I could be done for life.

Konrad

Or take another example (from real life).

In a punch up that ends up with someone being stabbed to death, I'm brought in. I don't know who did it (it wasn't me) but I was throughing punches. The police have a good idea it was X, a local thug they've convicted on possession of an offesive weapon a few times.

Now under the english system everyone stays silent and the guy with the knife gets away with just assualt. But under the american system couldn't the police say 'Y says that he saw X with a knife, and Z says he saw you or X stab him, what have you got to say?'. Naturally I'll say I saw X with the knife, just to throw suspicion off me. Result - X is done for murder or manslaughter - something he may not have committed.

Konrad

You never commited a crime in the first place. If questioned by the poice, you have a civic duty to reveal the informaiton about his crime. If you don't, it's Obstruction. If you lie, you become an accomplice after the fact (In Georgia, it's called Party to a Crime and you share the whole crime).

I don't see his motivation for naming you in either case.

You have the same motivation to throw suspicion off of yourself in either country. You have a right to remian silent here, which you don't have there. I'll grant you that the right to remain silent will probably hurt you in this instance. Witha British Caution, you have to tell them that you beat the guy, but you didn't stab him. Under the Miranda Warning, you can stand mute, and we'd find someway to tie all three of you to the homicide. You graduated from Simple Battery to homicide because you exercised your right to remian silent.

Depending on your association with the other parties, I would try to find the motivation for beating the one guy up. If there was any kind of plan to beaqt the victim up, I can charge you all with Involuntary Manslaughter. Since you knew the one guy often carried a knife, I might be able to get Murder.

OK, I see where you are coming from - if you are all parties to the crime by keeping it quiet and not coming forward straight away, it doesn't matter which among you goes down for the most serious offence as you are all going to go down for it, therefore you aren't going to get the wrong man with the most serious crime.

However, here we don't have after-the-fact parties to the crime. So you could end up tricking the wrong name from the group for the most serious crime.


Konrad

Does that mean that if you are at the scene and you say what you saw you could be incriminated? You see X stab Y and are honest about it. You have punched Y and admit to it, (this being the way bar brawls go,)but it was at least five minutes before the knife was even thought of. In Britain you may get hit with a grievous bodily harm charge, though unless someone saw more than you just whacking the guy from team spirit they would have a tough job proving GBH. In the USA could you get put away on a manslaughter charge for that, on the basis that you were there?

No. That sounds like to different crimes. In the earlier set of facts, there were two or three people beating up one guy. One of the attackers stabbed him. If they all acted together in an effort to beat him, then they would all be party to the crime when he died. The charge would be based on the fact that the group acted together to beat the person and one of the members of the groups was known to carry an offensive weapon.

If you wind up hitting someone because of 'team spirit' then you'd merely be guilty of simple battery.

* Just as an aside, the titles of crimes that I use are crimes in the State of Georgia. Each state has it's own disitinct legal and criminal justice system. Our laws generally cover the same thing, but the titles might vary. For instance, the Murder int he First Degree that you see on TV is just Murder in Georgia.

** Is there such a thing as a defensive weapon?

What you would call battery, we would call assault. And on a completely unrelated subject, aren't nuclear weapons meant to be defensive?

Really. I thought it was a pretty standard definition coming out of Common Law. Assault is taking a swing at someone and battery is actually hitting someone.

Civilians and the military use weapons differently. In the military, a pistol is a defensive weapon. Because they're not very useful on the open battlefield. In the civilian world its a little different.

In English law the offensive weapon thing is the intention with which you carry the weapon. For example, you can carry a dress sword in public and its merely a fashion accessory for an army officer - not an offensive weapon. But if you have a sharpened pencil in a bar intending for it to be used in a fight, its an offensive weapon. Of course, the nature of the weapon goes a long way to proving whether it is, in fact, an offensive weapon.

Thus I can carry my air-rifle to a competitive shoot without fear of being arested - and you can carry a kitchen knife back from a hardware shop without ending up in jail.

By the way the example I was using - the police know one guy carries a knife, but the other participants don't - they just think its a punch up.

They can't be done for murder/manslaughter under English law, and the police can't trick them into putting the blame on the knife carrier. But in America they could.

If they all lie or keep quiet about who did the killing, in English law, they just end up with ABH/GBH (depending on the extent of the punching damage), but they don't become parties after the fact. If the police prove they are lying its just obstruction of justice (which is fairly minor compared to the GBH). As I understand it, in America they may all end up with manslaughter if they lie to cover it up.

Konrad.

To be perfectly honest, in Britain, if it was this kind of fight, they could put the blame on anybody, and if the stories matched the British justice system would screw whoever to get a result. At the end of the day, if you are honest most of the time, you can get away with murder. That is a scary thought.