Talking in the US context. The Miranda warning says anything you say can be used against you in a court of law but never to support your case. So as I see it talking to the cops makes no sense irrespective of whether you have committed a crime or not. So why do suspects sit for hours long interviews with the cops?
Edit:- “… never to support your case”. As some commenters pointed out the Miranda warning doesn’t say that. That’s right, I meant it in an implicit way. I just saw a defense attorney’s YT video who said that’s the hidden part.
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Being in a police interrogation is extremely high stress, and the police do all they can to make you feel like the only thing you can do is talk to them.
You have to 1) know your rights 2) have the capacity to remember your rights
Drugs have a heavy impact on committing a crime….so they often don’t have the self restraint of remaining silent
Then there are people who truly believe “if I have nothing to hide why not share everything”
Finally; cops can question you even if you invoke your rights to remain silent….looping all to #2; it’s hard to not want to defend yourself from their leading/implicating line of questions
Just because you have the right to remain silent to not incriminate yourself doesn’t mean you have the intelligence to do so.
People under stressful situations will try to defend themselves in any way they can, and the most common way of humans doing that is to try and talk their way out of a situation, even if that means in the long term they’re just damning themselves.
Cops will also try every trick in the book to get people who are actually shutting up to talk and those methods are way more effective than people think they are.
> The Miranda warning says anything you say can be used against you in a court of law but never to support your case.
Because if you provide exculpatory evidence – which people often do – it never goes to court. A suspect is just that; people often provide information under questioning that leads to them being eliminated as a suspect and getting cut loose. Those instances never really make headlines or podcasts though, for reasons that I trust are obvious.
People are messy, and they are more likely to be messy when they are scared, hungry, stressed etc.
To quote the late George Carlin:
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Most people don’t have the self-control or intelligence to control themselves in such a situation. Combine that with drugs, alcohol, and/or mental illness and you have a recipe for a disaster. Police also use psychological tactics including white-lies and many times outright lies to make you think they are your friend. “If you just tell me what you know about what happened I can make this a lot easier for you”. No. Absolutely not. They can’t help you, they don’t want to help you, and they won’t help you. But they will put you in a situation where you feel it’s your best interest to just appease and diffuse the situation when really all you can do to help yourself is to STFU. Even talking to the cops as a witness can put you in danger.
A lot of times what happens is you’re brought in to talk to the police, but you aren’t being detained so they don’t necessarily “read you your rights” so you can talk and talk but they’re under no obligation to mirandize you.
The Miranda laws exist for a reason. Cops don’t like that reason.
Thus they have gotten very good at circumventing the spirit of those laws while remaining within the letter of them.
You should absolutely shut the fuck up anytime you’re read your Miranda rights, but it’s a scary stressful time anytime that happens and the police have a vested interest in getting you to waive those rights, and are really good at getting you to do so.
It’s abusive exploitation, and hard to defend against. That’s why people do it. They might be criminals, but they’re also victims in this respect. And society tends to turn a blind eye when the ends justify the means.
You should also consider the survivorship bias. The ones who tend to end up being arrested and interrogated are more likely the ones who aren’t aware that they can stop talking and call a lawyer. The ones who have the foresight and knowledge of the system usually aren’t the ones being arrested.
Have you ever met anyone? Most people can’t shut up. Even if their freedom depends on it.
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