Beat me to it. I’ve seen it come up in other “don’t talk to the police” threads where people differentiate between being “interviewed as a witness” and “interrogated as a suspect.” Legally, there is no distinction. You have the same rights in either situation and any statement you voluntarily offer in either situation can be used to prosecute you if it appears to a prosecutor to be evidence of your involvement in a crime.
One factual point: in Federal cases, 90% of the arrested people plead guilty, 8% have charges dismissed, only 2% actually go to trial, and over 1.5% of them are convicted (Pew Research Center).
So it seems the vast majority are in fact guilty. So I think Little_Nemo’s mention of the 3 reasons guilty people tend to talk, and thus end up incriminating themselves, seems logical to me.
In the scenario, you came in willingly, remember? So, they do not have to mirandize you.
That does not mean you can say stupid things or confess. If you do, they often can use that testimony even if you were not read your rights.
Here’s an interrogation trick if somebody is telling you an elaborate story about “what really happened” and you’re not sure if they’re lying or telling the truth.
Listen to the story and make note of the details. When the story is told say “I just want to make sure I’ve got it all” and repeat it back to the person you’re questioning. Sound like you’re convinced. But change some of the minor details. Nothing important; just small objective facts from the narrative.
If the guy is telling you the truth, he will correct your mistakes. He is telling you something that’s true and he wants you to know the truth.
If the guy is lying, he will agree to your version. He knows the story is made-up. Its purpose was to convince you. And if you’re convinced by your set of “facts”, he will be happy to switch his story to those facts.
Here’s another one:
Ask for the story backward. In contrast to what most people believe, truth tellers are more likely to add details and revise their stories over time, whereas liars tend to keep their stories the same. “Inconsistency is really just a fundamental aspect of the way memory works,” Meissner says. A technique that interrogators use to capitalize on that quirk is called reverse telling—asking people to recall events backward rather than forward in time. This strategy has a double effect: For truth tellers, it makes recall easier—in another HIG study, reverse telling produced twice as many details as did recounting chronologically. For liars, the task becomes harder when put in reverse; they become more likely to simplify the story or contradict themselves. SOURCE
If you are in a non-custodial interrogation (i.e. you are not under arrest and you are not under oath and you are free to leave at any time) is it illegal to lie to the interrogator?
I have always heard it is but I cannot think of a time where a court adds a charge of lying while being interrogated/questioned to the list of charges (and I would think lying to the police happens a lot).
18 USC 1001 is a federal law that makes it a crime to lie to government officials, but it applies to federal cases, and is practically used as a threat to get people to cooperate with federal investigations. (I did once represent people threatened with prosecution under that law, but it was after they had misrepresented some employment issues involving immigrant workers; the threat was sufficient to get them to cooperate with a Department of Labor audit, resulting in a fine and corrective measures).
Most criminal cases, however, are dealt with at the state level. So, in the absence of a state equivalent, a person doesn’t have to worry about prosecution for lying.
Of course, if the police determine that a person is lying, it’s going to lead them to wonder why, and will inevitably invite greater scrutiny and suspicion. (e.g. Are you lying to hide your extramarital affair, or because you are the actual killer?). And it goes without saying that if police investigating one crime uncover evidence of others (maybe the lying was because of some embezzlement), they’re happy to pursue arrest of those new crimes, as well.
AFAIK every state has an “obstructing an officer” “obstructing justice” or some equivalent which includes knowingly giving false and/or eluding information to a peace officer. I couldn’t imagine any state not having some kind of statute on the books making it illegal to lie to the police.
When interviewed subjects start to find themselves painted into a corner they many times start admitting that some things they said earlier weren’t entirely true. It’s another charge that can be added to the trick bag they’ve talked themselves into.
I recall some article (I think on TechDirt) mentioned a court case were someone was detained for an questionable automobile search and the case was thrown out - basically, the judge said the person could be detained long enough for the task at hand. He was pulled over to get a ticket for speeding or failing to signal or whatever. Keeping him there almost half an hour until the drug dog arrived, so the drug dog could give the officer a made-up reason for searching the car, was illegal arrest without grounds. So it’s tricky when detain turn into arrest and requires probable cause, but that fun legal word “reasonable” makes an appearance.
I also recall - not sure how true it is - a discussion that mentioned that when Obama was a community activist in Chicago, he was one of the people responsible for getting the police to video all interrogations. The community activists were skeptical over how many times police said criminals confessed; videos later showed that in fact, most confessions were valid, and criminals really did confess quite often.
You might be thinking about SCOTUS case Rodriguez v. United States
I believe in general, for such a charge to stick the lie has to be material to the investigation or proceeding. So if you’ve pulled me over and are writing me up for speeding in a school zone, I wouldn’t think I could be convicted for obstruction by lying and saying I work at a radio station when I actually work at McDonalds during the casual chit-chat. Where I work has nothing to do with the infraction.
IIRC, one lie that can be told even to the feds is “I am innocent” or “I didn’t do it”. But once you get into a story that sets the cops off on a wild goose chase, yeah, charges could be filed.
You leave out those that are truly innocent and talk hoping you’ll leave them alone and thinking if I’m innocent then I’ll just tell the truth.
Leaving out perjury, in my state it would be very difficult to get charged for lying. Giving a false name during an investigation would do it. Saying you are someone else so they get charged instead of you would do it. Saying you were at the movies when you were actually robbing the Wawa would not. It’s possible. They might be able to push for it under obstruction but I’ve never seen it.
Regardless of the legalities, it’s never a good idea to lie to the police when you have the Constitutionally guaranteed right to simply keep your mouth shut.
I’ve used the backward story telling technique and it can work. In my experience, liars have to really think about it while truth tellers may pause briefly but tend to answer more quickly. I’ve also heard that every time we recall an event the memory (as stored in our brain) actually changes a bit. The more re-tellings, the more changes. However, what I often saw in liars were substantial changes in the repeated story. “We made no stops. None” becomes “We stopped for lunch”.
Regarding lack of Miranda warnings when interrogating someone - yes, you can do it (as in you can’t be criminally charged) and yes, the statement will be thrown out. Along with anything else that might be learned as a result of the statement - Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. So, why do it? You place the entire case in jeopardy by not giving the warnings when required. That tends to not sit very well with prosecutors and even fellow cops.
That was what Michael Flynn was convicted of.
FBI agents asked him about conversations he had had with the Russian ambassador and he denied saying some things that he actually did say.
Or they are innocent, don’t know the game that you are playing, and are intimidated into being agreeable in order to get this over with more quickly.
What happens if the cops do insist on trying to re-engage the person again (without lawyer) before they have the opportunity to consult their lawyer? Are they breaking a law by doing so?
Also, unrelated question: Isn’t it true that silence alone almost never saves a suspect? That is to say, usually, even if the suspect remains silent, the cops already have plenty of other evidence to nail him with anyway. The only thing silence does is it prevents things from getting worse, but it alone in itself will almost never be the make-or-break thing that determines whether he walks free or is convicted?