Comment by malloreon
13 years ago
If you haven't seen the video Moxie mentions in the opening couple paragraphs, "don't talk to the police," I HIGHLY recommend watching it.
Not only is it informative, it is fascinating and very well delivered.
13 years ago
If you haven't seen the video Moxie mentions in the opening couple paragraphs, "don't talk to the police," I HIGHLY recommend watching it.
Not only is it informative, it is fascinating and very well delivered.
The lawyer only ever saw cases that got to the point of needing a lawyer. Police exercise discretion as part of their job and I have trouble believing that silence (and the suspicion it creates) always pays off.
Example: the neighbors see/hear you having rough sex with your wife and report it as abuse. The police knock on the door, you have two options:
A) Explain (better: let your wife explain) that the neighbors probably heard you playing around and promise to be more discreet in the future. The police agree that more discretion = better and leave.
B) Wall of silence. The police take you in just to be sure. Your wife tries to testify in your favor at the trial but everyone thinks she's just making excuses for an actually abusive boyfriend (because that happens). Your life is ruined by the conviction, maybe her life is too. Even if you don't get convicted, rumors will spread and your time and money will be wasted on legal matters.
Am I being naive or was the lawyer overstating his argument? Strategy A is strictly worse than B if the case goes to court, but that still means that B could be the better strategy before you've been arrested.
> Your wife tries to testify in your favor at the trial...
Why would she do that? The only way you've gotten this far is because she's pressing charges.
No, the AG is pressing charges, ostensibly on her behalf, because everyone thinks she was in denial about the abuse. Alternatively, even if everyone agrees she consented, consent isn't a legally recognized defense to all forms of battery and you also have to consider sodomy laws: in the hands of a conservative judge/jury, what you were doing actually was illegal, even though you were consenting adults and nobody got (permanently) hurt, which is the standard most "reasonable" people go by nowadays.
IANAL and the little I know about the intersection of kinky sex and law comes from a single presentation I attended years ago during college. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain I have the broad strokes drawn correctly.
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IANAL, but in some states there are certain legal mechanisms that prevent domestic violence victims to back off and drop their charges (as a "safeguard" against intimidation leading to dropped charges).
I wouldn't be surprised if some states had laws that more or less forced the potential victim to go through the trial even if she intends on testifying in your favor. I dunno. Just sayin'.
The state presses criminal charges, not the "victim".
The state presses charges, not the "victim". For an example, see the recent proceedings around Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in San Francisco.
B is still obviously the better option. Providing evidence that ratchets only one way can never help.
They'd never be able to convict if the both of you refused to testify. There'd be no evidence.
The neighbors heard screams and the doctors found bruises. Also, additional witnesses came forward and testified to a history of bruises. Also, she broke her arm falling down the stairs a few months ago -- but by now the picture is coming together and everyone "knows" what that "really means". That's plenty of evidence to fit either the "abusive husband" story or the "illegal sex" story. Either way, the worst case is that you're a felon! (I'm including battery-to-which-consent-is-not-a-defense under "illegal sex" and battery can be a felony.)
I freely admit that this is a worst case scenario: a court in SF isn't likely to convict on the basis of "illegal sex", but maybe you were traveling; hotels have notoriously thin walls and some places in the USA take a much dimmer view of this kind of thing.
None of this is relevant to my original point. Even if you're acquitted your "wall of silence" will have cost you time, money, and reputation, making B worse than A UNLESS you condition your expectation on the case going to court, which you shouldn't, because the point in time when you decide B vs A happens before going to court is a foregone conclusion.
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It surprises me that many people, and even officials say "let us know everything you say or do, if you have nothing to hide", when the very first thing the police tell you when they arrest you is:
"Anything you say, can and will be used against you".
And people are still not freaked out about having the government know everything they've ever said or done? I think the problem is most people just don't realize this or don't think about the type of abuses that this could create.
> And people are still not freaked out about having the government know everything they've ever said or done?
The part you left out of the quote was "used against you, in a court of law". Even if NSA should find info on people, it won't be admissible in a court of law against U.S. citizens essentially by definition, so from the POV of a random guy on the street it's a question of whether the nerd sitting at the NSA console is worse than the nerd sitting at the GMail ops room console.
FBI would probably be a bigger worry, but no one seems to care about them for years now.
Remember in Seven when Morgan Freeman is all like Hey Man we can't knock down this door we found out about this guy illegally and then Brad Pitt is all like Screw it and kicks down the door and they pay a homeless woman to say she saw someone suspicious...
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Strongest possible agree; this is a great video. Also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMjMPlXzdA