The police show up and start asking you
questions about a crime.
Should you answer them?
For most of my life, I thought if you're
innocent, then absolutely. Cooperating
with authorities, I mean, it feels like
the right thing to do. And if you've got
nothing to hide, what's the worst that
could really happen? But later in life,
I started seeing that sometimes talking
to the police can sometimes hurt truly
innocent people. Not all of the time,
but enough to be aware of the dangers.
I'm Ken LaCourt. I research into
questions like this, and I do my best to
give you the most balanced answers I can
find. And today's elephant in the room
is how can helping the police create
problems for an innocent, honest person?
I'm going to tell you about the dangers
of the cooperation trap, and then look
at how the truth can hurt. How purely
truthful statements can work against
you. Next, the witness trap, which can
be a dangerous assumption. We'll then
turn to your rights, and finally, how to
protect yourself. This isn't a how-to
for criminals, but important information
everyone should know. So, for most of my
life, I would have easily fallen into
what they call the cooperation trap.
I've had police help me out in life, and
I've never had them try to frame me for
something. So, I have a natural instinct
to help them out. And if I was innocent,
explaining my side to police seemed like
the obvious path with little downside.
And then I watched a video by James
Duane, an attorney and a law professor
in Virginia, and it genuinely changed
how I look at it. I mean, if you want a
deeper dive into that concept, go ahead
and take a look at his for more details.
For small police matters, I'd still be
100% cooperative, but for something more
serious, we should all be aware of some
of the potential pitfalls. Now, this is
a US-centric video, and I realize about
half of you don't live in the States,
but it's it's the system I really know
about. So, some of the details may not
apply to you, but the general concepts
are mostly the same everywhere. So,
first, let's start with the crazy number
of laws the United States has on its
books.
The first federal criminal code passed
by Congress in 1790 listed about two
dozen offenses. Things like treason,
piracy, and murder on the high seas.
Today, estimates put that number above
5,000 statutes and 300,000 regulations.
I mean, we're talking about a legal
universe so large it includes criminal
penalties for selling onion rings that
look like a real onion ring, but are
secretly made from diced onions. For
shipping false teeth across state lines
if you're not a licensed dentist. And
for exporting a penny or a nickel out of
the country without a special license
from the US Mint. Now,
those are oddball laws, but still,
people are surprised all the time by
admitting to something they thought was
completely harmless and giving the
government another way to go after them.
Okay, so now let's talk about
conversations with the police.
If you tell an officer something that
you think proves your innocence and it
ends up going to court, there's a good
chance the jury will never hear it.
Because under the federal rules of
evidence and in many states, your own
out-of-court exculpatory statements are
usually treated as hearsay when the
defense tries to bring them up at least.
It's only allowed with some very
specific exceptions. But anything you
say that hurts you, that's different.
Your out-of-court statements can be
offered up by the prosecution and
they're usually admissible. So it's not
a two-way street. The rules make it much
easier for the state to use your words
against you than for you to use those
words to clear name. Now, I want to be
careful here because police misconduct
is a real thing, but not nearly as real
as many people think. Police get
caricatured as predators just waiting to
trap innocent people, but that's a
rarity. In any serious investigation,
detectives routinely clear far more
people than they charge. But here's a
realistic nuance. When police believe a
suspect is guilty, even before the facts
are all in, They're then working to make
that case. And a police officer's
threshold for that can be pretty low.
So, once they're there, the tactic
shift. It stops being a search for truth
and starts being a search for
confirmation.
And one of the tactics that they can use
is to lie. In the United States, it's
totally legal for them to do that. You
can trace the green light for this to a
1969 Supreme Court case called Frazier
versus Kupp, in which officers falsely
told a suspect that his partner in crime
had already confessed and named him. The
court ruled that the lie alone wasn't
enough to make the resulting confession
involuntary.
Today,
officers are trained in all 50 states to
use deception as a core interrogation
tool. They can tell you your
fingerprints were found at the scene
when they weren't. They could tell you
your friend gave you up, or that it
would all go easier if you could just
explain your side. None of that has to
be true.
But if you lie to federal investigators
or police in most states, that's a
crime. Take a look at Martha Stewart. A
famous celebrity went to jail, but not
for insider trading like most people
think. In fact, she was innocent of
that. She profited from inside
information, but it's the leaker who has
the legal problem.
Nevertheless, she panicked during an
investigation, lied to investigators,
and ended up doing 5 months in federal
prison, losing about a quarter of her
net worth. That pattern shows up
repeatedly throughout white-collar
cases. Situations that often just start
with an officer saying, "We just have a
few questions." But the police lying,
that also isn't improvised. For 60
years, police have been taught the Reid
technique, which presumes guilt and is
designed to systematically break down
denials.
So, when you sit down across from a
detective who just wants to hear your
side, you're not necessarily having a
conversation. You're facing a structured
system with a track record of producing
confessions. England banned deceptive
interrogation tactics
40 years ago. A lot of other countries
prohibit it or restricted as well. And
and look, I don't fully understand the
psychology of this, but sometimes those
tactics combined with certain types of
people lead to innocent people
confessing to crimes.
An example, the Norfolk four. In 1997,
four US Navy sailors were convicted of
the rape and murder of an 18-year-old
woman in Norfolk, Virginia. None of
their DNA matched the crime scene. All
of the forensic evidence pointed to
another man whose DNA did match and who
said under oath that he acted alone.
Police used pressure tactics to get the
four to confess, telling at least one
sailor he failed a polygraph,
threatening them with the death penalty,
shoving photos of the victim's body in
their faces, and feeding them details to
include in their confessions.
One by one they broke.
Now, the confessions contradicted each
other, they contradicted the physical
evidence, and and even the guilty man's
own confession, but they were convicted
anyway and they spent years in prison.
Now, they were eventually freed and paid
millions after dozens of former agents
and prosecutors spoke out publicly,
but none of that helped them in the
interrogation room 20 years earlier.
Now, to me it seems unthinkable that I'd
ever confess to a crime I didn't commit,
but I bet those sailors would have said
the same thing. And it's also odd that
an innocent person telling the truth
could actually get them in trouble. Yet
it'll be clear after just a few short
examples.

[Sponsor segment omitted: Morgan & Morgan advertisement.]

Okay, so back to deciding whether to
talk to the cops or not. And And this is
the one I never understood how the truth
can hurt.
A lot more than you think.
It seems counterintuitive until you
understand how investigations and trials
actually work. Here's an example. Your
neighbor is found dead and police
question you. You mention, truthfully,
that he owed you $500 and kept putting
it off.
You weren't angry about it, but now a
prosecutor has a motive for you.
$500 debt, and that's a narrative they
can build on.
Or here's another scenario.
Your business burns to the ground at
3:00 in the morning and police say
they're trying to rule out arson.
You had nothing to do with it and and
you never left the house after getting
home from work at 6:00 p.m. But then a
witness comes forward and tells police
that he's sure he saw you jogging at
9:00 p.m. that night. Now, that happens
in the real world. People make mistakes
like seeing someone's picture on a news
story and their brain fills in bad
information. So, without your
volunteered information about staying
home, a witness saying he saw you
jogging hours before the fire should
have no bearing on the case, but it does
now because it impeaches your testimony.
Now, he's called as a witness to help
prove that you're a liar and an
arsonist. But sometimes the one who gets
messed up with the facts turns out to be
you because being questioned by the
police triggers a genuine physiological
response. It's not about innocence or
guilt. It's about stress. Cortisol and
adrenaline, they flood your system. Your
body's chemistry shift can make your
behavior look off and it can also make
your memory less reliable, impairing the
thing you need the most.
The urge to feel silence gets stronger
and people become more susceptible to
accepting suggestions. Even suggestions
that subtly reframe what they thought
they remembered. That's a real thing.
So, even a person telling the absolute
truth is working at a disadvantage the
moment the questioning starts. Here's
another layer that doesn't get enough
attention. Police notes are summaries.
They're not transcripts.
What ends up in the report is what
matters at trial and what ends up in the
report is filtered through the
detective's handwriting, memory, and
interpretation. Now, that's becoming
less as video becomes more ubiquitous.
So, I'm not saying that officers act in
bad faith as a matter of course. I'm
just not. But a detective who already
believes you're guilty will hear your
words through that lens.
And when there's a discrepancy between
what you say you said and what the
report says you said, the professional
witness wins almost every time.

Okay. So, you've absorbed
all that and you're still not worried
because you're not a suspect, you're a
witness. And and you have some
information that might help and helping
always feels like the right thing to do.
It's also called the witness trap and it
can be a dangerous assumption. Often,
the distinction between being a witness
and a suspect exists only in your head.
Police aren't required to tell you if
they stop viewing you as a to and start
viewing you as a suspect. Your status
can change mid-conversation,
mid-sentence. And again, an officer can
say you're not a suspect even if that's
a lie. It's a common tactic to get you
to lower your guard, and it works
because most people want to believe it.
And especially for complex cases, it's
easy to mess up an account of events or
a timeline or say something that
contradicts physical evidence.
And if your recollection changes between
interviews,
you look like now you're lying. Now,
none of this requires bad intent or for
you to have done anything wrong. They
just require you to keep talking. A
personal story here.
Soon after I left Fox News, federal
prosecutors read some articles about
Fox. Those articles had a lot of lies in
them, but nevertheless, that prompted
them to open a wide-range investigation
into the company.
We called it a fishing expedition, and
after years, they quietly folded it with
no charges filed against anyone.
I was subpoenaed to go across the
country to New York and testify. I'd
never done anything close to being
illegal and didn't even plan on getting
an attorney until my attorney friends
slapped some sense into me. They
explained how dangerous it would be for
me just to show up alone. Because, for
starters, the government had access to
every email I'd ever written. Tens of
thousands of them.
And what you realize after working at a
place for 20 years, there were hundreds
of people I'd met and conversations that
I'd had that had completely disappeared
from my memory. And if I, trying to be
as truthful as possible, testified that
I'd never met someone or said something,
that opens up perjury charges, even
though I didn't intend to lie. So,
that's why lawyers train you to testify
very carefully, and phrases like I don't
recall have kept a lot of innocent
people out of jail.
Most people who talk to police as
witnesses, they're genuinely trying to
do the right thing, and there is a right
way to do it, through an attorney or a
formal statement or some other legal
mechanism that won't bite you.
The instinct to help is a good one, but
it doesn't have to mean an improvised
conversation with a well-meaning officer
at the front door of your apartment. So,
here's where a lot of people think the
story gets better. You have rights. In
the United States, we have the Fifth
Amendment, Miranda warnings, the right
to an attorney. Those are your rights,
and the system has a lot of safeguards
built right into it. And if the police
cross a line, the case often can get
thrown out. So, first it's worth saying
something about the Fifth Amendment
itself because it has a reputation of
only helping guilty people.
The assumption is that people plead the
Fifth because they have something to
hide. But, let's look at why it exists
because the Fifth Amendment's roots go
back to England's Court of Star Chamber,
a secret of royal court where defendants
were forced under oath to answer any
question put to them without being told
the charges against them, without being
shown any evidence, and without ever
facing their accusers.
It was the legal equivalent of a trap
with no exit. America's founders wrote
the Constitution to balance a necessary
government against an out-of-control
one, and the Fifth Amendment wasn't
written to protect criminals. It was
written to protect everyone. It forces
the government to build a case on
something other than breaking a suspect
down on the witness stand along with the
pitfalls that telling the truth can
bring. But, to be clear, it can also
help guilty people evade justice.
Another American right that can come
with complications stems from Miranda
versus Arizona, which compels police to
inform you of your right to remain
silent and to have a lawyer. But, here's
what a lot of people don't know. Miranda
only applies when you're in custody.
A voluntary conversation like police at
your door chatting with you or on the
street, that doesn't trigger Miranda
protections. And that pre-arrest window
is exactly when a lot of damage can get
done. Interestingly, some people make
huge mistakes just thinking their
conversations are protected in instances
where they clearly aren't. I know the
city manager of a pretty large American
city and he explained to me how people
applying to that city to be a police
officer are first required to take a lie
detector test where they were asked all
sorts of things about potentially legal
behavior. He told me that pretty much
every year at the end of a recruiting
interview at least one person would be
put in handcuffs and arrested. Now,
these were guilty people and not bright
ones who confessed to a felony because
they wrongly thought they had some
protection. But back to innocent people
in silence because even just being
completely silent can create problems
for a suspect. The Supreme Court ruled
in Salinas versus Texas that simply
remaining silent without verbally
invoking the Fifth Amendment can itself
be used as evidence of guilt. Say you're
brought in for questioning and police
ask you why you sold some guns to a
felon. And when they get to that
specific part of it, you just stop
talking.
You didn't say I want a lawyer or I'm
invoking my Fifth Amendment right, you
just stared down and didn't say
anything. That can be used against you
in court. The officer will testify about
your awkward silence and then that can
be used as one more piece of
circumstantial evidence that you had
something to hide.
The words matter and they have to be
unambiguous. The Supreme Court's ruled
that even words like maybe I should talk
to a lawyer, that's not enough. There
are a few simple things to know in the
United States that offer up strong
protections. So here's how to protect
yourself. The one move that works best
in most situations whether you're a
suspect, a witness or someone who
generally has no idea why police are
talking to you is
I'd like to speak with an attorney
before answering any questions.
Just those 11 words, that carries a lot
of legal weight. Now, if you're in
custody, the questioning has to stop.
The law is completely unambiguous. And
if police interrogate you more after you
were clear, those statements will either
get tossed or maybe the whole case. Now,
if you're not in custody and are on the
street or at your door, ask if you're
being detained. If no, you're free to
close the door or walk away.
If yes, ask for a lawyer and go quiet.
Now, some people wonder if asking for an
attorney will make them look guilty. And
the answer is legally no. Asking for a
lawyer can't be used against you in a
court in any way.
Investigators who've been doing this for
years say they've seen plenty of
innocent people lawyer up. They expect
it from anyone who knows their rights.
It doesn't change what they can charge
you with, but it closes the door on a
conversation that could hurt you.
Now, it might raise some suspicions
outside of the legal world. Absolutely.
As a journalist, when there was a
missing kid, for instance, and and a
family lawyered up, that usually made us
more suspicious. I mean, just because
you have a legal right, doesn't mean it
won't hurt your public perception. But
still, that's not the same thing as
being charged with a crime or or going
to jail. So, where do I personally stand
on this? Look, I think it's hugely
important to know what pitfalls might
exist.
But but I'm not an absolutist like James
Duane. If the cops show up and they're
asking about a stolen car or a
suspicious person in my neighborhood,
I'm glad to help. Of course, all of
these are judgment calls. In my personal
life, I'd probably only seriously clam
up if there was some reason to think
that I could get in trouble by by a
zealous prosecutor. Like a self-defense
case, if I shot an intruder, I'd be
absolutely silent. Or an accident where
someone was seriously hurt, because you
know lawyers are coming down the pike.
Or if I did something certainly illegal
or even mildly in the gray area.

[Personal anecdote omitted: the presenter's account of his sister's
unsolved murder and his family's full cooperation with police at the
time, offered as a case where he judged full cooperation to be the
right call despite the video's general cautions.]