"You Have the Right to Remain Innocent" (James Duane)

here's the book that he mentioned a moment ago you have the right remain innocent yes it says up there it's also available an audio version if you'd like to have the thrill of hearing you read the book to you and your children is getting ready for bed a couple of brief before I talk about the book let me just make a couple of quick brief introductory comments about myself for the benefit of those of you who are thinking yourself who is this guy why should I listen to him why should I care about his opinion that's a fair question I'm nobody of any particular statute but I know some important people there's a Justice Antonin Scalia and me a picture of us taking together in his chambers actually just a few months before his tragic and untimely demise just before we went out to lunch together he was I'm a great admirer of dead man he was a legal giant and here for those of you on the left is my friend Loretta Lynch the US Attorney General and me posing together at our recent college reunion we were college and law school classmates and I'm also a great fan of hers as well I'd um not sure but I think I may be the only American who actually hug Loretta and Nino both in the past year but I need to give you a little trigger warning for those of you who are fans of one or the other I need to warn you right up front that before I'm done I'm going to have some somewhat irreverent things to say about them both or at least about the Obama administration in the era called the Justice Department and Justice Scalia and the conservative branch with the Supreme Court and how it is that they have almost nothing in common except for one thing that they don't understand the Fifth Amendment and they don't care deeply enough about its extraordinary value to you and me into every other American citizen as Tim mentioned a moment ago I'm honored to be able to say that the book has attracted some great praise from Alex Kaczynski the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and a half-dozen other prominent individuals you can read their glowing endorsements on the Amazon Web page one of them professor Larry tribe from Harvard Law School was kind enough to write that this book's amazing the true stories of innocent people exonerated after decades of wrongful imprisonment which they could have avoided if they had insisted on their fundamental right to avoid self-incrimination our riveting reminders of the high price we pay as individuals and as a society when we fail to assert our constitutional rights that's what the book is all about educating the American public so that you and they will all come to understand how critical it is that we understand and be unashamed and unapologetic full-throated publicly even in our vigorous defense of our constitutional rights not ashamed in the presence of the police who are trying to coerce you or manipulate you into thinking there was something underhanded about asserting your rights are standing up for your rights believe me when the shoe is on the other foot and they find themselves on the other end of the table and they're told that they're being investigated by the Internal Affairs or when Lois Lerner is told that Congress wants to do some investigating into the certain miss Primus improprieties apparently being committed by her office she clams up in a heartbeat and takes to fit them out and then goes to collect her pension I've since this video went viral about eight years ago I have been Dell used almost every day with hundreds probably thousands of leaving emails and letters from all kinds of people with all kinds of questions haven't got time to answer all of them today we've also got some questions coming alive on Twitter and I'll only be able to answer about 20 of them but I will answer for your benefit about 20 of the most important questions that I received over that many of you may be wondering about this book question number one that I've often asked my motivation why did you write this book was it for the money is that why you're in it absolutely enough ethically not in fact I shame on you for even supposing such thing anybody who knows the truth of the matter you'll be you'll be embarrassed when you find out the truth under the terms of my royalty arrangement with Amazon publishing which I actually have no obligation to make public but under the terms of my unusual royalty range arrangement with Amazon publishing I will not receive one dime in revenue or income or money of any kind after we have sold the first five hundred million copies after that after that point in time every dime that would have gone to me instead will be shunted directly into a charitable not-for-profit personal foundation called the Dwain Family Foundation was set up for my benefit by the same attorneys and accountants who are working for the Clinton Foundation and every bit of that money will be ostensibly earmarked for the public benefit after the first 90% is spent on opulent travel and trips for me and my family around the world and let me also underscore in a more serious note I did not write this book and I have not made this cause my parent lights project for the benefit of making money for criminal defense attorneys on YouTube there been thousands of things written about me various comments I don't have time to read them all I'm happy to say probably good for my benefit that I don't most of them are very much in agreement very few of them are actually critical or expressed any kind of disagreement but far and away the most not the number one most common criticism that I do get when I do get blowback is from people to say dismissively well of course he'll say you need to ask for a lawyer he's a lawyer himself well in all seriousness these people have no idea how far they are from the mark because this book and the promotion of the theme behind this book is by no means to make more money for criminal defense attorneys quite the opposite if this book can somehow be placed in the hands of every young person in America I can absolutely and unconditionally guarantee you that the number of criminal defense attorneys will have too much - too many cases to handle will suddenly and dramatically decline there will be much less work for criminal defense attorneys including myself to handle if we can get people at the front end to wise up and the smart number to keep their mouths shut so why did I write the book in all seriousness I'll tell you why my motivation is twofold number one because this country is convicting far too many innocent people for crimes that they did not commit it ought to be a national scandal it ought to be a national disgrace it seems almost once a week you pick up the paper and you read about some poor schlep more often than not a member of a racial minority who's led out of prison because twenty years after he was sentenced to a life term he we find DNA evidence that now where the belatedly confirms apparently woops we got the wrong guy we give this guy our apologies we pat him on the back we give him a small check and then we forget all about him and then we turn our attention back to Brangelina or some other exciting thing in the news no we got to call a national timeout we asked what in the world what in God's name are we doing how is it that on our watch so many innocent people are being convicted how many we don't even know for sure we all know about the extraordinary work being done by the innocent project which has already worked laborious ly to secure the release of over three hundred and forty innocent men and women convicted of horrible crimes some of them a death row before they were ultimately released and proved to be innocent their program is also by the way run by a former classmate of mine met it along I'm Eddie I admire greatly the work that they're doing at the Innocence Project I yield to nobody in my aberration for the work the view but it is a national scandal that they should be doing this work at all I'm trying to do my part to supplement her efforts at the front end by trying to see what that fewer people get convicted for crimes that they did not commit and I guarantee you that if enough young people read this book there is no question that we will start convicting immediately fewer innocent people we will have fewer false convictions how many nobody could say for sure but even if there's only a few than all the work that I did on this book will have been time well-spent and the other thing my other related motivation is to bring to an end once and for all the absolutely obscene and hypocritical double standard the discrepancy the grotesque discrepancy between what police officers tell your children and tell you every day all night all over the country and what they go home and privately tell their own children I'm not trying to impugn their honesty or their integrity as a general matter as I emphatically emphasize in the book that's nothing personal I'm not trying to suggest the police officers by and large are less honorable or honest than your average individual on the street they're just doing what they've been trained to do ever since they started on the job at the police academy from day one they're given sophisticated training in elaborate methods of deception and trickery and dishonesty in ways that are designed to get guilty and innocent people both to talk and to make admissions damaging admissions that can be used to help convict them in some cases of crimes that they didn't even commit and then when they get on the job and they start using these tactics they get nothing but ratification support confirmation and corroboration from the courts that are routinely giving them a nice well well done attaboy good job you did it again we'll allow this confession of use even though you Gail told this guy the most unspeakable lies well done officer now you get back to work and keep on doing it and yet when these same officers go at home at night how do they sleep on themselves I'll tell you how they sleep they go at home they get home and the open end when they say that they say to the wife hey hey we're the kids where are the twins and the kids come running into the room and though and they grab the kids the rounds needs to come here come here Jennifer Joel it was tears running down their face the police officers say to the kids promise me for the love of God that as long as you live you will never let any police officer do to you what I do to other people's kids all day long it sounds like a joke but it really is an accurate paraphrase of the reality I've been all over the country talking to thousands of young people in the past five years about this subject everywhere I go without exception I ask every audience anybody here have a mom or a dad who's a police officer or a prosecutor there's always one or two I ask them every time what are your parents tell you about the Fifth Amendment every time no exception 100 percent of them say they said the same thing they told me when I was a young kid very young don't ever talk to the police don't ever agree to talk to them if the police say can I ask you a couple of questions you say no that's why the subtitle of this book is what police officers tell their own children about the Fifth Amendment next question the most common question I get an email I get this one all the time what about traffic stops is it okay if I talk to a police officer during the course of a routine traffic stop yes all right let's just get that out of the way quickly at the risk of stating would ought to be obvious that is completely different in 100 obvious ways not the least of which is the fact that the police officers have virtually unbridled discretion to let you off with a warning this time and let you go without giving you a ticket if they seems if it seems to them that you're not a public menace that you aren't drunk that you are suitably respectful and courteous and that's not going to happen with a murder investigation they're not gonna let you off because you seem to be really sorry for what you have done but I will give you this hi I will give you this one little bit of free legal advice you when you do get stopped and pulled over by the police you shouldn't talk anymore than necessary don't allow them to get you in a conversation about whether you what you did wrong whether you know what you did wrong just tell them I'm sorry I didn't do anything wrong I didn't mean to violate the law and if I did I appreciate you bringing it to my attention officer if they suspect that you've been driving while intoxicated and they ask you if you could recite the alphabet backwards you don't get into a long conversation or an argument of any sort just say this just say zyx w of UTS RQ p om l KF e & l lk g i use G of G dcba and then you say no officer I need to ask you if you can do that in two seconds because I need to warn you if you can I put you in her sit into rest and I'll need to ask you to keep your hands where I can see them at all times now let me quickly summarize for you the main points that you'll be able to get out of this book if you buy the book and if you read it I don't have time I'm sorry to say to give you all the details and everything that's in the book but maybe that's good because then you wouldn't buy it but here the most important points behind the book there are three number one the reason I'm writing this book is to make sure that everybody who reads the book will come to understand that the fifth amendment is just as precious just as valuable for innocent people as it is for the guilty and what's upon a time this was well known once upon a time at least among the educated fifty years ago the US Supreme Court handed down about a dozen different opinions in which they reaffirmed again and again and again that there's nothing terribly incriminating about the fact that someone chooses to exercise v that innocent people perhaps even more than the guilty have ample reason numerous reasons to assert to the Fifth Amendment and therefore no particularly probative inferences either way can be drawn to the fact that somebody chose to remain silent to those who understand how the system really works the fact that somebody chose not to talk to the police is no more reliable evidence of guilt than the fact that he also asked for breakfast every morning while he was in custody just like all the guilty people do yeah sure they do but so do the innocent number two you have no idea unless you've got at least twenty years of experience in the criminal justice system in America today you have no idea how many different ways there are in which you can get yourself convicted of some crime that you did not commit or worse yet perhaps some crime you never even heard of or ever in your wildest dream would ever imagine could be a crime just by talking to the police and three you will not believe and I daresay most readers of the book will be literally astounded at how complicated and now as it is it has become now in recent years in just the last three years for you to exercise the fifth amendment let me give you a little bit of additional detail about all of those points next question who needs to read this book well there are two groups of individuals you're wondering am I the guy who needs to read this book well yes you are absolutely without a doubt there are two groups of individuals who absolutely need to read this book and they need to read it before it's too late the first group is potential criminal suspects not necessarily guilty guilty or innocent if there's any possibility that some day perhaps soon perhaps in the distant future perhaps when you least expect it the police may find themselves in possession of evidence that persuades them maybe you were involved in or knows something about a crime maybe it was a crime you never heard of which is not unlikely which is not unusual the federal government today has over 10,000 criminal statutes on the books when you count all the tens of thousands of criminals federal regulations that are a corporated by reference into the terms of the US Penal Code and how who is that by the way who who in this room is somebody who might someday be a potential criminal suspect of course the answer is everybody you can't take comfort yourself with the assurance double I know in my heart I'll never do anything wrong that doesn't matter maybe some mistaken or confused but sincere and credible sounding eyewitness might mistakenly identify you with somebody who was there maybe you were there at the scene doesn't mean you were involved but there you're one of the leads you may be the only lead that they've got if you are a potential criminal suspect you need to read this book or if any of your children might someday become a criminal suspect they need to read this book before they are taken into custody or before more likely the police don't take them into custody but simply say you mind coming down to the office on a voluntary basis down to the station you're not under arrest it's strictly voluntary you can leave at any time they like to say this to your kids to deceive them to get the kids guard down sometimes it's grotesquely deceptive because sometimes they won't tell the kid that the truth is we've already got a pretty solid identification of you as the suspect from a witness who may be mistaken but the police don't know them and they already know that no matter how this interview ends your kid will be put in handcuffs and he will be taken away and put in jail but they don't tell the kid that because they're hoping first we can get him to voluntarily cooperate waive his rights and talk to us and we don't have to give him the Miranda warnings if he's not technically in custody at that point your kid won't know anything about what's going down because you won't have time to get a hold of him you won't have time to put this book in his hands and if you call the police obviously and say you mind if I talk to the kid they'll lie to you and they'll say no we can't arrange that which is a lie because they if they wanted they just won't and if the kid says is it okay if I get a lawyer can i maybe get a lawyer very often the lie and say no we don't need that we don't want that you don't want that which is a lie because a lawyer could be arranged if they want to do it for you the other group of individuals who really needs to read this book is everybody in this room or in this audience who might someday find himself in a jury potential jurors need to be able to read this book and you need to read it before it's too late so that you can explain to the other members of the jury if somebody back there in the jury room is trying to insinuate boy you notice that guy he didn't testify at the trial I guess that's pretty clear indication that he probably did it no absolutely not as I mentioned in the book one important study of over a hundred people who were exonerated after they had been falsely convicted of something they did not do reveal that almost half of them approximately 40% of them didn't testify at their trial and these are people that we now know were in fact absolutely innocent so if you find yourself you might be in either one of those groups you need to read this book and almost every one of us could of course be in group number two any one of us could someday become a member of a jury unless of course perhaps you have a felony conviction then you probably won't be in a jury but if you have a felony conviction you're twice as likely to find yourself in group number one so either way you've got to read the book next question I frequently get I often get this one well if I take the fifth though won't that look suspicious won't the police think that I look guilty if I take the fifth good news the answer is no emphatically no absolutely not you will not look guilty to the police and why do I say that because the police know from years of experience that truth be told most suspects probably are guilty and most guilty criminals are not met not that smart some of them are stupid and most stupid people waive the right to remain silent okay so if you want to look like a guilty person you want to open your mouth and start talking talk if maybe for eight 10 12 hours that's what guilty people usually do you see the it's absolutely false to suppose that the two groups of people out there there's the guilty ones who keep quiet and the smart ones I'm sorry the innocent ones who talk that's what most laymen mistakenly suppose but that's not true and the police know that is not true no the reality is those two groups of individuals out there there are those who are sophisticated enough to understand how the American criminal justice system works this includes by the way every defense attorney every prosecutor every police officer every judge and all of the children and nieces and nephews those people never talk to the police period and then other group that waives the right to remain silent and does talk and that group includes a lot of guilty people a lot of innocent people but all they have in common is that they don't know how the system works but although the police won't think you look guilty they will pretend that they think that because they know that's how you think and they will pretend that they believe themselves to help trick you into talking with them as Tim said a few minutes ago a common tactic a very common tactic that is used by the police is to start insinuating things oh you want to take the fifth you want a lawyer why would you got to hide why would an innocent person wanna adds exercise the right to remain silent the next time a cop tells you that you just hand him a copy of this book and don't see another way they read the book you understand he won't need to read the book he already understands he's lying to you but that's what they do what about the jury what about the jurors if the jurors learned that you told the police that you would not answer their questions will they think you look sort of guilty will they think that may be evidence of guilt we'll all you need to be honest with you yes they probably will tragically sadly unfortunately yes you don't have to take my word for it more than fifty years ago the Supreme Court of the United States of America said that too many people even those who ought to know better too often assume that the invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege is tantamount to a confession of guilt and it's still true to this day indeed as I'll show you in a few minutes that's even tragically now become a description of a majority of the justices on our US Supreme Court unless luckily for you one of the members of the jury has read this book and can explain to the others no it's not what you think there are lots of innocent people out there who take the fifth all the time including 100% of the police and 100 percent of their kids until recently that was not even an issue the famous viral video that mr. Lynch mentioned a moment ago which has been seen over 10 million times I've got to find some way to get that off line because when I made their talk eight years ago there was no need for me to get into the details as this book does about how you do and how you don't want to assert the fifth or exercise the Fifth Amendment privilege it wasn't really a thing it wasn't an issue up until five years ago just about 100 cent of all the criminal defense attorneys in the country regularly told their clients listen here's what you say it's printed on the back of my business card on the advice of counsel I respectfully decline to answer on the grounds that having incriminate me it seemed like harmless fun it didn't really matter how you said it at what you said because the universal consensus up until a few years ago was the jury would never find out that you said anything at all in the Miranda decision almost exactly 50 years ago today the US Supreme Court took it as evidence self-evident that of course you can't use it against the defendant that he chose to assert his right to remain silent or even he stood mute in the face of police interrogation because that was not logical or legal or constitutional but oh my goodness how far we have come as I'll explain in just a few minutes as I will explain you and as the book explains in much greater detail unfortunately in just the last several years the exercise the myth of the Fifth Amendment is now become a veritable minefield that must be very very carefully navigated the good news is it's not hard to do the bad news is I don't have time to tell you how to do it you'll have to get the book and help me finance the operations of the Dwain Family Foundation here's some of the key points that you will learn in this book when you get the chance to pick it up I will share with you in the book the astounding and dishonest two tricks and tactics that our police officers use all over the country all day every day and all night to to deceive you and your family and your young people into thinking it is in your best interests interest to talk you'll be amazed at some of the examples many examples in here of incredible deceptions and falsehoods that were told by police officers criminal suspects to get them to waive the right to remain silent telling them things such as oh you're not really a suspect you're one of ours you're on our side you're gonna we're gonna use you as a prosecution witness and Johnnie against for the other case you're on our team this is off the record we won't use it against you we won't tell anybody about it we're not recording this we know you're not a murderer we know you're not guilty of any crime we know you didn't do it we know you didn't weren't there you can easily understand how after five six seven hours if need be of unrelenting interrogation assurances like these could easily break down the will of even an innocent exasperated suspect they're thinking well if that's off the record and they sent her that kind of prosecute me what have I got to lose apparently I got to tell whatever they want me to say if that's what I got to do to get out of here and then they find themselves 20 years later fighting frantically with the help of the Innocence Project to prove that they were innocent all along and as the book explained psychological research has confirmed that these tactics tragically in a paradoxically are most effective on the innocent even more so than on the guilty because innocent people who know in their heart they weren't there and didn't do it are the ones who are most likely to deceive themselves into thinking well if this is what I've got to say they want me to say that I was there and that I was involved I'll say it but then I'll get a great lawyer for myself I'll hire someone of those great fast talking lawyers on YouTube and he'll be able to get me off any con a happen and once you've made a confession that's on videotape and then it contains details that only the real killer would have known which the police will be sure to take care of every time there's very little a fast talk and YouTube lawyer can do to get you off it'll almost never happen in the book you will also learn why you cannot and must not believe one word from the mouth of a police officer who's trying to get you to waive your rights and I mean literally not one word the examples in the book will blow your mind of the things that they're allowed to get away with by the courts in one case that is described in the book read the case of a family was trying to find out what had happened to their daughter who had recently been abducted unbeknownst to them the police mistakenly suspected that the father might have been involved in our abduction which by the way is not unusual because one police officer recently told a friend of mine that nine times out of ten the one who calls in the crime is the one who did it which is not true but that's what you're up against in the mind of some police officers if you call them just as a witness you have no idea whether you're just a witness they'll tell you all we know you're just a witness we know you weren't involved but you can't believe what these people say in the case from Illinois that I mentioned a moment ago the police officers unbeknownst to the parents found the girl's body drowned dead but they weren't yet done with her investigation they thought that the father might be involved they wanted to question him but they didn't want to tell her that she was dead and that he was a suspect and that he was in custody because then they'd have to read him his rights so they didn't even tell the parents the girl had been found pretending falsely that they were still engaged in an effort to find her alive they took advantage of his good intentions they took advantage of the fact that he would naturally want to cooperate with them and what he thought was an ongoing investigation to recover this girl and he went down to the station they questioned him for more than an hour trying to extract from him anything they could use to pin the murder on him without even telling him that the girl is dead my friends you need to understand the next time you make the mistake of going downtown for a voluntary interview and you let them shut that door you have no idea whether your loved ones are dead or alive you have no idea whether your loved ones are in the next room saying I've got a lawyer here and the lawyer wants to meet with him and I've hired a lawyer and the lawyers right here to the police will say sorry he hasn't asked for a lawyer yet so we're not obligated to put the two of them together and no we don't have to tell your kid that this lawyer out here that you've hired to represent him you have no idea what's going on outside that door but the good news is nobody who reads this book will ever go through that door again because you've gone to the other side of the looking glass if you make that horrible mistake you will also learn in this book the incredibly dishonest things that our judicial system routinely says to excuse the dishonesty on the part of the police you'll read about cases in this book where police officers said the most grotesquely sort of deceptive and distant disingenuous things to the criminal suspects saying oh we know you're not a murderer if you didn't premeditate this if it was an impulse sudden thing that's no big deal that was a promise that was given to somebody in Illinois a young man who was then prosecuted for murder and sent to prison for forty five years after he was told by the police all that's not a big deal and the court said oh we don't see how that could be construed as the promise of leniency which is ridiculous and preposterous and painfully false and the court knew that was but that's what they had to say to affirm the conviction and that's what they said you can't trust the courts to do effect to protect your rights and to defend your rights you've got to stand up for yourself you got to skin it for your own rights and you've got to know what they are another key point that you'll get on the book in the book you'll read the reading test or if you've got the audio version the listening tests that everybody fails in this book I've got a short paragraph effects that you'll be asked to read and then a short list of questions only for that you'll be asked to answer about the very short set effects that you were just given I've used this same test in over a thousand people around the country in the past five years and everybody gets it wrong everybody 99.9 percent and you will - believe it or not and then you will see how I go on to explain how it is that this fact about human nature the fact that our memories kinda trick us sometimes into thinking that we read something or heard something the truth is we really didn't read it early here can and regularly is used by police officers to get people convicted many innocent people as well because we're so often wrong about what we think we heard you see the problem is during the course of the interrogation if you've been there with them for hours three four or five maybe six hours relentlessly employing them one more time they'll try to get you to talk again and again to keep you in there they'll pretend to be open-minded they'll pretend to be undecided even though they're nothing at the store well I'm not sure I'm still kind of confused let's take it one more time from the top and after hours of this process it's not unnatural and it's not unusual for somebody to slip up and to inadvertently reveal that apparently he or she assumes something the truth be told the cops didn't even tell you and haven't helped you up that detail actually happens to coincide with the facts of the case because then you've just incriminated yourself one study described in the book talks about how an examination of 40 different wrongful confections confessions given by people later turned out to be innocent all of them convicted almost every single one of them allegedly contains some detail that only the real killer would have known how in the world does that happen it does happen and it will happen to you virtually every chance if you give the police the opportunity you'll also learn from the book one of the most important points of all that your common sense and your intuition are useless to you when you are trying to decide whether you should talk to the police and why you must not listen to those countless skeptics and sin out there online who are constantly trying to dismiss my video and dismiss my book and dismiss my work by suggesting well he's kind of exaggerating the situation is actually a little more nuanced than they had we can't say never because there's this interesting counter example these people drive me nuts so many people out there intellectual lightweights on the internet plenty of them who amuse themselves and endlessly boasting to all the world oh look look at this imaginative counter example I've come up with what about this case professor what if you're hanging from a cliff and nobody goes and you're about to fall to your death and somebody walks by and is the police officer can you talk to him you know these people are the biggest part of the problem what they don't see what they don't understand and we're always trying to count it constantly suggest as oh I can come up with interesting counter example of that you don't think I can do that I mean any rule that you can think of there are lots of wonderful excellent rules of thumb we teach our children don't drive at night over 80 miles an hour with your headlights off that's a very good rule of thumb with virtually no exceptions don't jump into a shark tank when they're eating is a real good bit of advice oh professor but what if there's a raging fire right behind you in the show what if driving 80 miles a night is the only way to get away from a raging wildfire that is coming upon the vehicle at the rate of 75 miles from bet you know what right that's great you're so clever yes you're so clever but I defy you to find an example out there in the real world of anybody who ever got themselves out of a great deal of trouble because they talk to the police and shared information that really couldn't wait a couple of hours they couldn't really wait a couple of days oh yeah we can make up examples like that what are the odds maybe one in a million I guarantee you next time you find yourself in a situation where your intuition and your comments that tell you okay you're good to go this is risk-free you go ahead and talk you go for a girlfriend don't listen to that lying voice because that lying voice is ignorant doesn't understand we grew up against the odds that you'll be able to talk your way out of a criminal conviction that you could not have avoided by waiting are one in a billion the odds are incomparably greater than you will unwittingly talk yourself into a jail cell perhaps for the rest of your life let me prove it to you let me give you just a couple of quick examples all from the book let me see how reliable your intuition your common sense are michael morton we all know this fella he's served more than 20 years in a Texas prison of a life sentence for a murder that he didn't commit he was an innocent man we now know because of DNA and other evidence he tried to help the police find out who murdered his wife one day while he was going to work one morning went away to work while he was gone somebody broke in the house and killed his wife during the course of their investigation as is typical the police quickly came to suspect him because they had no other suspects and they want to have the psychological comfort that comes with closing the case and they interrogated for hours asking all kinds of questions the common sense confirms could not possibly have been calculated to try to lead to the real killer among other things they asked to meliss retrace the last couple of days where did you and your wife have dinner the night before well he told him he told them where and when his wife went out for dinner the night before somebody was broken to the house and murdered him now if you were sitting there in his situation and you were in that position and you were trying to help a police solve this murder of your wife ask yourself for a minute do you think there's any way if I tell them the truth if I know that I'm innocent and I tell them the truth about where when my wife had dinner the night before how will the roca debt and use be used to help frame me and potentially convict me of a murder that I know I didn't commit so being honest with you ask yourself raise your hand if you say I honestly don't see how that could be used to help convict me yeah look at all those hands God good for you I appreciate your honesty and the rest of you are lying what do you police officers um no no the truth is that fact that he did give them the truth and that information was used to help convict him of her murder as I say he spent 20 years in prison how did he do it no time to tell you but read the book and you'll find out here's another one Glen Ford he was convicted of murder in Louisiana more than 30 years ago he spent more than 30 years on death row before he was released just last year after DNA and other evidence proved that apparently woops sorry got the wrong guy once again how was he convicted well he tried to help a police find out who had murdered a shopkeeper in his town while he was there they asked him do you mind telling us where and when you were at a certain time this guy because he knew he was innocent and by the way we all now know that he was innocent he made the mistake and think well I guess I might as well tell them because he thought well luckily for me fortunately for me I've got an airtight alibi I've got a couple of friends who can verify that I was with them in another part of town that same day that same time how many of you attempted say okay I might as well go ahead and share the information with the police this is risk-free this could only help this can't possibly hurt you're wrong you're all wrong you see you can't rely on your intuition in fact read the book you'll see how he gave them accurate and truthful information about where he was at the time of the crime and they were able to use that information to help convict him of the murder that he did not commit here's another one a real case a criminal suspect was told by the police that he had been identified by the victim in a lineup all he said at that point was then she is mistaken for words she's mistaken that's all he said he denied it he asserted his innocence knez for words possibly used to convict him of a crime that he didn't commit yeah it was used and it can be used here's another one suppose an innocent man is told by the police that he's a suspect in a crime but the truth is he wasn't even in that part of the town at night he was 50 miles away he can't prove it he's got no alibi witnesses who can confirm it but he tells them truthfully no I wasn't in I wasn't in that vicinity I was 50 miles away could that information assuming it's true be used to possibly implicate him in the commission of the crime truth be told most of you have pressed what they have to say I can't see how it could be which only proves my point you're wrong it can be and people have been convicted because they gave information like that to the police one last thing I want to share with you about the book as I said the book teaches you the surprising number of ways in which our exercise that the fifth amendment has now become a veritable minefield this was not true until five years ago it has become extremely perilous the book explains what you need to say and what you must not say when you are trying to assert your rights you will see how easy it is today under the current law where a clumsy or careless or a casual or imprecise implication to the fifth amendment can in fact be used against you in a court of law as if it were an admission of guilt you can also learn how a careless implication of your Fifth Amendment release can also lead you to do prosecution for the separate offense of lying to the police which is a separate crime the last thing you want to do when you're trying to avoid being prosecuted for murder is then putting yourself in a position where you can get prosecuted for the crime of lying to the police when actually you shouldn't have said a word at all and the book will also explain why you must not worry about seeming polite and respectful when you are talking to police about your legal rights I am NOT suggesting in any way that you should go out of your way to be rude or impolite that's ridiculous that's counterproductive and I'm not suggesting anything of the sort but the book explains about the countless cases in which real live innocent suspects made the tragic mistake of thinking well I guess I better take the edge off what I'm saying if I sound too unequivocal about what I'm saying the police might take offense they might take it as a as an insult so I don't want to make it sound like I think I definitely need a lawyer I'd just be kind of tentative maybe I need a lawyer you think maybe I can have a lawyer is that okay if I get a lawyer you wanna know what happens when you talk that way to the police you end up in a prison cell this book tells you how it happens in this book tells you how to avoid it finally finally I mentioned earlier that 50 years ago the Supreme Court said you can't use the fifth amendment against somebody has evidence of guilt and that's was taken his unquestioned by the Supreme Court just fifty short years ago but oh how far we have come my dear friend Justice Scalia who was my hero in so many other ways was the leader until his death on the court of the view that actually only guilty people of any real reason to protect or to care about the fifth amendment he wrote that the problems caused by the risk of self-incrimination are wholly of the guilty suspects own making because an innocent person will not find himself in a similar quandary it's a tragedy that he didn't live to read the book he would have seen how painfully wrong he was about that and Justice Alito another giant of the court subscribed to the same madness just three years ago in a horrible case of Salinas V Texas he wrote the opinion for the court the plurality opinion in which the court held that the exercise of your Fifth Amendment rights if you don't do it just the right way can now be used against you in a court of law as evidence of your guilt and in a later case also argued and won by the US Department of Justice that same year in the US Court of Appeals they persuaded one Circuit Court of Appeals to hold that your invocation to the fifth amendment can also be used against you as evidence of your guilt a lot of liberal critics have justifiably lamented this horrible executing of the court in that case and the fact that the opinion was handed down by the five most conservative justices on the court the five on the only five republican appointees on the court but the truth be told to give crediting blame where they are respectively do the dissenting opinion written by the so-called liberals in that case would have been even worse for you and me and for the defense of our liberties and to give blame where blame is due justice the the opinion in Salinas V Texas was an opinion although it was written by the most conservative members of the court the US Department of Justice the Eric Holder Barack Obama's Justice Department filed an amicus brief in the court urging the court to do justice such a thing to which we as a nation could just me cry out thanks Obama what is wrong with the Supreme Court the final question that I'll ask and share with you well I can give you the answer Scalia himself answers that question shortly before his death he wrote truthfully we federal judges live in a world apart from the vast majority of Americans after work we retired of homes and planted suburbia or to high-rise coops with guards at the door they're out of touch and it's not their fault they don't have any idea what peril the rest of us face and any ordinary routine encounter with police justice sotomayor just for this year speaking of Brooklyn law school correctly complained that there are no criminal defense lawyers on the court right now in in the name of diversity we worry so much about getting people on the court who are a different gender or a different and yet we've got nine people on the court at the time of Scalia's death we had nine people on the court none of whom had ever done any significant criminal defense work at all none of whom had ever been arrested or charged we proceeded with a crime none of whom probably ever admit an innocent person was ever prosecuted convicted of a crime we had nine people at the time of the court almost all of whom had spent virtually all of their entire professional adult lives working for the government and most of them several of them at least working as US attorneys that's the problem we need real diversity on the court we need somebody who's actually who cares passionately about the defense of American constitutional and civil liberties which of course leads me actually divided last question I see ones coming in right now from Twitter will you please agree to serve on the Supreme Court yes I will I am here I am here today for the first time in American history this is the first time at Canada's ever announced his his candidacy for a position in the US Supreme Court on the internet if you know or have any contact with Donald Trump I want you to send an email to him on Twitter say dear president Trump and we'll use hashtag justice to Wayne that's how we'll do this you let him know that you support my candidacy if you believe that somebody like me ought to be part of the Supreme Court you let Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump know that's how you feel I'm wearing your tie as you can see if you don't know Donald Trump but you know how to get a hold of Kevin Bacon let him know because he I understand is not too disconnected from Donald Kobe you get touch with virtually anybody I'm told thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you you

Channel: The Cato Institute

Views: 350,461

Rating: 4.8812189 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: -FENubmZGj8

Length: 34min 47sec (2087 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/BlogSpammr]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DAD218W

[u/jeroth]

Does anyone have the correct wording to exercise the 5th according to salinas v texas? Thanks

[u/stmaximus]

Just like everybody else I loved that original video about not talking to cops, but its hard to take this guy seriously after he expresses his affection for "Nino"... ugh