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Comment by orangecat | Hacker News Reader

Right. Had the telco not realized their mistake, it could have gone much worse.

Prosecutor: Was there anything suspicious about the defendant's behavior?

Officer: Yes. He was surprisingly knowledgeable about computers and hacking, and was very quick to provide several reasons why it couldn't have been him, as if he had rehearsed ahead of time.

...

Prosecutor: Are the defendant's reasons plausible?

Expert Witness: No. It's true that the average person would have had difficulty performing those actions within five minutes. But it would be easily possible for a technically skilled user such as the defendant. (Proceeds to demonstrate a "simulation" of the hack in a few minutes).

And heaven help him if it turns out the victim was a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook; then they'd have him "lying" in the first thing he said to the police.

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You are the third person to confuse the court and the cops.

This is all true in court. But if you are innocent you don't want to be arrested in the first place. And the best way to avoid that is to talk to the copy, and not try to stonewall or hide things.

And, BTW, "surprisingly knowledgeable about computers and hacking" is no longer so surprising these days.

You're missing the point that we're trying to make.

The reason the lawyer is important at the 'cops' stage is to prevent you from saying something stupid that will then be used against you at the 'court' stage.

Once you're at the 'court' stage, it's too late to hire a lawyer to prevent you from saying something stupid at the 'cops' stage, and the damage is already done.

Except that if you're not actually guilty how big of a risk is this?

If you are guilty, then sure, bring a lawyer. But if you are innocent you don't have a lot to worry about. Not zero, certainly, but not a lot.

You have to weigh two things: How likely you are to be found guilty when you are not (because of what you say) vs. how likely you are to convince the cops you have nothing to hide and not get arrested in the first place.

I think talking to the cops is more likely to get you released than it is to get you found guilty when you are actually innocent.

I wish you the best of luck and hope that you are never the target of a criminal investigation. As someone who has been, on more than one occasion, I'm saying that this is suicidal advice.

To be clear, the only reason I'm even digging in here is because I worry that someone might actually take your advice and wind themselves up in jail.

You're simply not in a position to weigh either of those two things: you don't have all of the information that the cops have about the investigation, and you have no idea how they might twist your words down the road.

One could easily argue that if you are not guilty, you have so much more to risk.

The advice you are giving in this thread is downright terrible. You clearly don't understand some very basic legal concepts, and everyone would be better off doing the exact opposite of what you suggest.

There's being wrong, then there's a refusal to admit you might be wrong that is so stubborn and adamant to the point of being malicious.

>then there's a refusal to admit you might be wrong that is so stubborn and adamant to the point of being malicious.

Yea. If someone took his horrid advice and went to jail could they sue him for malpractice? It would be a hard case to win since you're taking advice from the a random person on the internet, but things at least that strange have happened before.

> how big of a risk is this?

google "Steven Linscott" as an example[1]. He dreamed he saw a woman be murdered, told the police about and ended up serving 3 years of a 40 year sentence for murder.

[1] http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Steven_Linscott.php

Except that if you're not actually guilty how big of a risk is this?

It's a huge risk. Many cases are tried purely on circumstantial evidence. Wrong place, wrong time happens more than anyone would like to admit. Cops and prosecutors are human and because of that they make mistakes, have egos, and can care less about the truth and more about convictions.

Guilt/innocence has nothing to do with needing a lawyer. The lawyer is there to make sure the police do their job correctly and that you don't incriminate yourself.

I, like the other responses, cannot stress enough what my lawyer friends have told me. NEVER speak to the police without a lawyer. Period.

Agreed. I don't think that anyone has suggested that he shouldn't talk to the police. By all means, go, be helpful, give them the information they need. Don't be a jerk, but also don't be foolhardy. That means don't do it blindly. Bring a lawyer with you, who can make sure you don't say anything wrong.

Trivial anecdote: a number of years ago, I had a couple of cops come to my door, saying that they'd had a report of someone in the neighborhood shooting a BB gun at a car. They wanted to know if I saw anything. I hadn't, but volunteered that I had on my refrigerator the names and phone numbers of the rest of the neighborhood, and seeing that list might save them some legwork. I invited them into the house to get the list.

Once I got into the house with them, I remembered that I had just been target shooting with a friend the previous afternoon, and I had a bunch of spent shotgun shells still sitting on the table (if you don't know, the shot in a shotgun shell of the appropriate size, are BBs). Now I realize that I've actually invited them to look at circumstantial evidence that might implicate me.

Luckily, they didn't notice, or didn't put the pieces together, so they didn't even question me about it. But I sure wish I'd had a lawyer whispering in my ear when I invited them in the house.

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