Edward Teach wrote:
neighnotney wrote:Dan simply should not have talked to the police in this situation. I know he did not have anything to hide, but that doesn't matter. To anyone who would say otherwise, look at why he was released (they found his passport on file). Nothing he said helped him get off--it actually only hurt him by making the officers suspicious.
You think if he stood there, mute, the officers would have been less suspicious?
I was thinking about preemptively responding to this argument but decided not to, because I figured no one would actually think that. While it may feel unnatural to stand there mute, it is well within your rights, and the officers know that. When you talk to an officer he is not thinking of ways that your story absolves you, he is thinking of ways that it implicates you. Officers know that it is smarter for you to not say anything. They may be annoyed by it, but of course they know that. Their whole tactic is to get you to say something that could potentially implicate you. So while you may feel like you are being suspicious by not defending yourself or responding to the officers' questions, they actually know that you are doing what is best for you.
You obviously have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for being silent. Being silent is not evidence of guilt. A cop who has detained someone for looking like a terrorist isn't going to let that person go because he says, "Oh, I'm just out for a run!" He isn't going to let that person go for being silent either. But in one situation the person has simply given the officer fodder, whereas in the other he has not.