Aspie biker wrongly convicted of rape gets 2 years prison

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There are many links to these videos, but however you surf to these videos (google "why never talk police without lawyer video" if you want to see how oft-linked they are), everyone, NT or not, American or not, should watch these videos.

http://boingboing.net/2008/07/28/law-prof-and-cop-agr.html

The first speaker is a law professor at Regent University. This is notable because Regent is a private evangelical fundamentalist Christian university that many non-fundamentalist-Christians seriously look down upon. A lot of the lawyers who worked in the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush -- you know, the ones who told him and his administration that torturing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan was OK? -- came from Regent. These people tend to be the kind of people who say stupid things like "Well, if you're innocent, you have nothing to hide, eh?" So the fact that this guy is saying stuff like this should make you listen even harder.

The second speaker is an officer from the Virginia Beach Police Department. (Regent is in Virginia Beach VA.) So he's the guy who knows how to make you talk.

Both of them basically say "Look, even if you're innocent, the police can probably get you to say almost anything if you let them. So if you're picked up by the cops, be polite, ask for your phone call and to speak to a lawyer. Say NOTHING else and be simple, direct and polite in your requests." (That last sentence was lifted from the comments, but it works.)

While just about anyone can be made to say just about anything by a skilled interrogator, I think it's especially important that people on the spectrum know this, even if they just know how to parrot it. If you're in a country that has an equivalent to the Fifth Amendment (i.e. at least anywhere the legal system is based on English common law), take full advantage of it.

ObDisclaimer: I am not a lawyer nor a police officer, but my dad was a judge in Canada for about 13 years, so I pay attention to this stuff a lot more than most would.

Latest news
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news...ectid=10719821

5:30 AM Sunday Apr 17, 2011

Aaron Farmer got a formal apology and $350,000 this week for the 27 months he spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Police consider the case closed, but it remains wide open - and it smells.

For one thing, whoever raped the woman Farmer was wrongfully convicted of raping in Christchurch in 2003 remains at large. Police are not investigating, presumably because the trail has long gone cold.

But the case raises deeply disturbing questions about police mindset and practice, which may not be easily dismissed. Associate Justice Minister Nathan Guy, who announced the compensation package this week, was at pains to emphasise that "we have a strong and fair justice system in New Zealand but occasionally it gets things wrong".

Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Burgess - who, as it happens, was the Acting District Commander in Christchurch during the period that the case against Farmer was being prepared - gave an equally bland response.

"We know that our interviews are subject to scrutiny," he said, "and the courts have told us 'Don't mislead suspects'. So to do it is just dumb."

His remarks referred to the fact that a detective told Farmer that his DNA had been found on the victim. It had not. And later, more sophisticated DNA testing specifically exculpated Farmer.

But Burgess' comment is a none-too-subtle piece of sophistry. It seeks to imply that the fault lay with that single officer, who has been sternly criticised by the courts and his superior but is still working for the police - though not as a detective.

The problem is that the Farmer case hints at a much deeper systemic failure. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction, on the grounds that his lawyer had not presented potentially important alibi evidence, and ordered a retrial. When the new DNA evidence excluded him, the Crown dropped the charge.

Robert Fisher QC, who was engaged by the Ministry of Justice to advise on the matter of compensation, found that "[the] deceptive police conduct ... did not contribute" to the conviction. But much more damning was his conclusion that "the evidence positively supporting [Farmer's] guilt was particularly thin". Apart from the alibi evidence and the improbability of the timelines, he raised six separate and striking differences between Farmer and the rapist as he was described by the victim.

In other words, a single barrister quite easily spotted gaping holes in the police case which the police themselves had either missed - or wilfully ignored. Not only did Fisher draw the conclusion that Farmer was not guilty beyond reasonable doubt - a cornerstone of our criminal justice system - but that he had established his innocence by the same margin.

This is not, then, a matter of a single bullying cop attempting to bluff a suspect into a confession. The case against Farmer went across the desks of senior officers and Crown prosecutors, who pursued it despite its manifest and manifold implausibilities. And it has been almost four years since the Crown abandoned the case. That's a long time to wait for Guy's "strong and fair justice".

Police can be seen as demonstrating a police commitment to call officers to account, but the Farmer case will do nothing to ease disquiet, particular when top brass seek to make light of a serious - and apparently cynical - failure to do the right thing.

This is why the phrase:

"Innocent until proven guilty" is false. Because cops try to find the person whom they believe is guilty and make a case around whom they think is guilty, not who is innocent.

That's why the knew phrase is:

"Guilty until proven innocent"