Right to Remain Silent, But Not the Ability

It is a hallmark of Anglo/American Law that a person accused of a crime has the right to remain silent.  It is a hallmark of Anglo/American criminal law that very few of the accused have the ability to remain silent. 

In England, all you have to do is shut your mouth.  In America, you can go with option A, shutting your mouth, or you can choose option B and go all Dave Chapelle and say any of fifty ways, “I plead the fifth.”  

It sounds awesome for the common man.  It is awesome for the common man.  Why, do you think that The Man would allow this to happen, to make it difficult on himself to convict criminals? There was the nasty history of torturing suspects to get supposed confessions, and other overzealous police practices. 

Potentially overzealous police

I don’t think that’s why The Man allowed the right to remain silent.  It’s because the vast majority of people have no ability to remain silent.  It damn near never happens. Accused criminals find all kinds of ways to vomit up the truth to the police within about ten seconds of the police pulling up and asking why they pulled you over.  

Think I made that up? I didn’t. It happens time and again, with a couple of recent examples. The Sun, world’s greatest news source, reports on Barry Hodge, who was driving his work van when he was pulled over by officers. Could Barry keep it together like Jay Z?  No, he couldn’t he was sweating and shaking and vomited out the truth, that he had a £700 stash of cocaine in a Kinder Egg shell before telling police he had more in his house.  Hodge told the stunned officers: “I just want to be honest I’ve got another two ounce of prop in the house and loads of benzo. You can just go round and get it.”

This kid is not gangster, not at all.

I mean, if you’ve got a good alibi, that is a good reason not to remain silent. If you’ve got a good excuse, that’s another reason.  I got pulled over one time in rural Mississippi going about 70 in a 55 on Highway 49, heading home at 2 a.m..  The nice gentleman from the Mississippi Highway Patrol asked if I knew how fast I was going. I said I did.  He asked why I was going 70, I said that I had to drop a deuce something fierce and was 30 miles to home and just might make it, if he was gonna let me go.  Now, had my skin been a couple of shades darker, that might not have worked and I definitely would have gotten a ticket and probably gotten an ass-whipping, but it was true and he didn’t look like he wanted to stick around to find out of it was true. He tested me. He said I had just passed through a town that had a gas station, asking why hadn't I stopped there.  I told him I had stopped there before and wasn’t gonna get hepatitis.  He asked if I had been drinking.  I said I'd had one Jack Daniels about two hours before. He asked why only one. I told him I thought I might have to drive home.  He asked why, and what was I doing driving on Highway 49 at 2 a.m..  I told him I had been at a party in Itta Bena and everyone started pairing off, leaving me with an angry chunky girl who had gone to Duke, who kept hollering out that she was a Cameron Crazy and trying to punch me in the chest, so I stopped drinking.  When she tried to get in my sleeping bag the second time, I said it was time to go. He laughed and told me to stay away from violent chunky girls – because non-violent chunky girls are the best kind of girls, bar none - and get home safe and try to keep it near 65.  A lot of that had to do with the fact that I’m white and I made him laugh, like my high school drivers’ ed teacher suggested as the only way to get out of a ticket. 

Now, if you’re hauling a £700 stash of cocaine, or the cop doesn't look like the kind of guy who has it in him to laugh about violent, horny, chunky girls, there’s no way you should say anything about having to drop a deuce.  No, at that point, you just shut up, take your ticket and try not to chunk your drawers.  When they pull you over and ask if you know why they pulled you over, you say, “Nope” because you don’t actually know why they pulled you over, and if they actually tell you, and it’s a bullshit reason, you may have a defense of unreasonable search. All that goes out the window, however, when you tell them you have a bunch of coke in the trunk, and more at the house.

I mean, I think the police get bored. 

Actual picture of under-zealous Baltimore police

You’ve got to try to give them something to work with.  Criminals make it too easy on them  Take Tayvon Wilson, who, according the Ledger-Enquirer, walked into a Columbus, Georgia, Walmart and picked up a 55-inch TV and walked out, past surveillance cameras.  That wasn’t going to fit in his pocket. And those video cameras were going to be recording.  The only way to make sure they weren’t recording is to fall down somewhere in the store due to Walmart’s negligence and have a personal injury. At that point, Walmart would let everyone know that the cameras were only dummies and there was no video being recorded.  Seriously, my law firm has a case right now against Office Depot where a manager assaulted a customer, the general manager told the police there was a video recording of everything, and then lo and behold, Office Depot gets notice of a personal injury claim and there is not only no video, there’s no video cameras in the whole store, even though they sell the damn things. Happened with HEB, too, on a slip and fall.  But, Tayvon Wilson didn’t slip on the way out, so Walmart had the video.  And when police approached him, he asked for a ride home.  He got a ride to jail.

 

Not actual picture of Baltimore police station

C'mon, man, you've got to make it harder on them.  I guess some folks watch CSI and the Jason Bourne movies and think that every inch of America is covered with video cameras that feed right to a video control room / million-dollar lab where there are eight scientists doing nothing all day but solving the one random crime.  You’ve got to do some spy or serial killer level shit to get that kind of manpower on your ass.  No, the police pretty much assume that everyone will just blurt out the truth when they ask why you think they pulled you over, and that most criminals assume the police pulled them over for carrying a trunk full of cocaine instead of simply driving while being black or poor.  No, the Tayvon Wilson’s and Barry Hodge's of the Anglo/American world make it too easy on the police.  So, pro-tip: Stop.  Make their lives more interesting so they have a decent story to tell that makes them look cool instead of making you look stupid.