Comment on He took it literally
gustofwind@lemmy.world 4 days agoYeah custodial interrogation is a funny concept but in fairness if you confess to a silent cop because you got bored that’s probably on you
I’m not a lawyer but assuming it’s not just lazy sloppy police work I’m pretty sure what they probably hope for are you all to snitch on each other. Which seems obvious but I’m 99% sure if you all snitch on each other without Miranda they can use your statements against each other just not against yourself. So your statement is valid against your friend, your friend against you, but your own statements aren’t valid against yourselves. Sorry I’m doing a shitty job explaining it but yeah that’s a huge loophole
To the best of my knowledge you telling someone you did something and them telling the cop is a good example of hearsay, or at least pretty arguable.
Far easier to just have a standard camera in the room, since a video of a confession is far more compelling and sidesteps any arguments about hearsay.
If you confess a crime to anyone, that’s an admission against party interest. And it can usually come in under that hearsay exception. It’s pretty common for cops to testify to what the defendant said in custody, and also for jailhouse snitches to testify to what the defendant said in custody (i.e. this is not a special cop hearsay exception).
And the kicker is that this doesn’t help you, the defendant. Anything you say will be used against you, but it can’t ever be used for you. Because as soon as you’re trying to introduce your own prior statements, it’s inadmissable hearsay and not an admission against interest any more.
You’re right though that it’s going to be an argument on this every time.
grue@lemmy.world 4 days ago
It’s not about confessing, it’s about being tricked into saying something innocuous in context that they twist to implicate you anyway.