any and ALL evidence that will ever be used against you, will be provided by you. no more no less.
SAY NOTHING..
and read
"The Art of Cross-examination", by Francis L. Wellman
"Adventures in Legal Land" by Marc Stevens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oqmxKrd2VQ&feature=channel
It's not exactly true that they will use "no more, no less", but I understand your point.
This is an area in which I can honestly say that I am an expert (unlike grow topics...), and though I've not yet watched the video, I'm itchin' to post. Rogue cops are my WORST nightmare, not only for personal reasons, but -- professionally -- they make my job insanely frustrating.
We no longer live in a society in the US where our laws (including our constitutional rights) actually protect us. The sad fact is that the police and everyone else in the prosecutorial chain WILL FUCK YOU OVER if that's what they want to do. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on a lawyer. It doesn't matter how badly the cops violated your rights. It doesn't matter what you said or didn't say. If they decide they are out to get you, they will lie, cheat, plant evidence, conspire, go to no ends to make their case. I see it happen EVERY day.
Nothing ticks off a cop more than to face someone who knows their rights. And once you make a cop mad, you're screwed. Here are two stories:
Cops came to my door once because they had "heard" that I had a grow room. "We need to search the premises, Mam," they said, as they tried to step into my front door. I said, "I assume, then, that you have a warrant?" "We don't need a warrant. We have probable cause," they lied (because they CAN LEGALLY LIE). "Besides, if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?" I said, "The problem is that this is my home and you are strangers. I don't allow strangers into my home, and I certainly don't allow strangers to go through my personal belongings. It's called 'a right to privacy'. When you have a warrant, I'll be happy to let you in." He got red in the face, and started with the threats. "We won't wait for you to let us in. We'll show up with a full team and a battering ram, and we'll not only bust down your front door [an obviously VERY expensive double door], we'll bust it up. We'll rip the shit out of every room in this house. Is that what you want?" "What I want is to see a warrant, Sir." Bad Cop #1 then says to Bad Cop #2, "Sounds like she wants us to tear up this door." To which I replied, "I wouldn't put you through the trouble of breaking down the door. You bring that warrant and the doors will be standing wide open for you when you return."
I left the doors open wide all day long, until dark. The cops didn't return. But, for the next 4 years -- until I finally moved to get away from the harrassment -- they CONSTANTLY caused trouble for me and for all of my young adult kids. I even considered a civil suit, but frankly I just wanted to move and have it all behind me. It was a small town, and they are the WORST for this kind of thing.
As for remaining silent if you're pulled over other than to refuse a search, most police now call for the dogs. The legal defense that they don't have probable cause to detain you while everyone waits for the dog to arrive (which is a GOOD defense and SHOULD force the judge to drop the charges) is completely ignored by the judicial system. Cops say they smell weed (whether or not they do), you don't let them search, the dog comes out, and REGARDLESS of whether the dog picks up a scent, the cops will SAY that the dog picked up a scent. They search, and if they find something, they'll really push it because you didn't let them search in the first place. In our state, you are completely screwed if you are pulled over and the cops want to search. It's a lose-lose situation. In fact, most of the time you are better off saying, "Yeah, I've got a small bag under the seat and a pipe in the glove box, but that's it." In those instances, when there's just a little weed and/or paraphenalia, a cop is more likely to confiscate it (for personal use) and let you go with a warning. But if you don't cooperate and the dogs are called out, you're busted and you're going to jail. Period.
I am a big fan of the police dash-cam, but even those are manipulated in favor of the cops. Which brings me to Story #2: In a case where a disabled autistic boy was accused of pointing a gun at a cop, the dash cam WOULD have proved his innocence. Instead, the cops said that their dash cams weren't working properly. Two cars, two cams, and NEITHER was working properly. Yeah, right. The boy was being questioned without his parents there allegedly because someone in the apt complex reported seeing him slash car tires. When the parents showed up and offered that the boy was with them at a church event when the tires were slashed, with at least 100 witnesses, the cops should have left. Instead, they threw the boy to the ground and began to beat him, stating that he'd pointed a gun at them !!!! While the boy was being beaten in the head -- a head which contains the brain which was already damaged from infant trauma -- the mother screamed and screamed until the officer said, "Shut the fuck up or I'll arrest you, too!" The mother called 911, not knowing what else to do, saying, "2 cops are beating up my autistic child for absolutely no reason!!!" She was told "This line is for emergencies only," and then the operator hung up. By the time she hung up with 911, her mentally and physically disabled son was beaten and tazed until he'd pee'd his pants and lay unconscious. So why did this crazy story happen? Turned out that the boy's mother had filed a noise complaint against her neighbor,
and the neighbor was a cop -- a little fact she didn't know until after this happened. At the trial, the cops testified that the boy had to be tazed because he kicked the cop car door so hard that it bent and broke the door. What they didn't know was that the boy has a neuromuscular disease affecting his legs, that he wears full leg braces just to be able to walk, and that he was physically incapable of kicking anything, much less kicking so hard that he could bend a car door from the inside out!
At the trial, the judge told the boy, "I believe you have told us the truth. You are a very credible, polite young man. I'm sorry this happened to you." He then pronounced him guilty of 2 felonies. No lie. Totally true story. To this day, the boy has night terrors and is scared to death of cops. And now he not only has to deal with the hardships of autism and the inability to walk (he has since lost the use of his legs entirely), he now has 2 felonies on his record.
I hate cops. I hate the judicial system of which I am a part. I fight the fight, but it's no longer what it used to be. There's no justice in it anymore. There's nothing "fair" about it anymore. Laws and rights are useless when you're up against the hypocrisy of our judicial system.
It's all about pleas and fees. Nothing more. Revenue for the state and/or feds, and/or vendettas by the local cops who are often acting out of a 'roid rage (steroid use to beef up).
Freedom doesn't exist in the US anymore. We're not protected or safe anymore -- and the reason is
the cops, and absolutely
not peace loving weed smokers and disabled kids...
I will get off my soap box now. This is definitely a topic that raises my blood pressure.
