Hacker News Reader

Comment by green_man_lives | Hacker News Reader

The real answer is that there is no actual way to win. You are at their mercy and it is really 100% up to what they choose to do.

View on HN

While it is true that you are physically at their mercy, provided you survive your encounter with the police (not by any means a guarantee in this country), you CANNOT be incriminated in a court of law for invoking your right to remain silent. You CAN be incriminated in a court of law for literally anything else you say. The winning move is clearly not to give them any more ammunition than they already have.

That WAS true, until Scalia et al eviscerated the protections of the 5th Amendment if you invoke it after you start talking. Then (according to the majority opinion of the Court), your subsequent invocation of the 5th Amendment CAN be used as evidence against you.

Relevant cases: Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010), Salinas v. Texas (2013)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghuis_v._Thompkins

Oof I didn’t know about this. So it only works now if it’s the first thing you say?

I think we all understand that part. It's the part where they can say anything happened and it's suddenly your word against theirs. So, irritating them can have consequences.

The tactic feels fine for an interrogation room, where's everything is on camera. In the outside world, it's trickier.

Yeah that is true, although most police have bodycams these days, and they’ve also got a recording going from their car, so there’s generally going to be some evidence in your favor. It is also always a good idea to start recording at least audio on your phone before talking to police.

A lot of people seem to think that not answering questions is going to aggravate the officer, and that’s not generally true in my experience. Assuming you’re asserting your rights calmly and not being belligerent, it’s well within the normal scope of behavior that they expert to encounter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com