Ain't no cop legally required to act in your best interests

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    ·
    2 years ago

    i think anti-lawyer sentiment is a symptom of how fucked up our legal system is. i mean did they have so many lawyer jokes in the USSR? :fry: ?did they?

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      yeah anti-lawyer sentiment definitely comes from the fact that unless you can pay for it you have no access to the law. So you can be legally in the right and have that just not matter

    • buh [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think it's anti-bourgeoisie sentiment being redirected due to capitalist realism

    • WallOfBacon [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      To a certain extent but 95% of company lawyers and a plurality of divorce attorneys are human shitbags.

      It's like that airline attorney arguing that they shouldn't have to pay restitution because the people in the airplane died instantly on impact. Lawyers attempt to defend corporate murder on a technicality.

      • GaveUp [love/loves]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        yea defence lawyers are cool even if they have to defend genuine criminals because the legal system should work that way

        corporate lawyers are all about fucking over consumers or destroying the competition

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I want to say an episode of Citations Needed mentioned that a lot of the anti-lawyer sentiment originated with the bourgeois pushing for "tort reform" to get rid of "frivolous" lawsuits (like the woman who spilled boiling mcdonald's coffee on her lap and needed skin grafts).

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        2 years ago

        they also came back to it in Copaganda episodes, there used to be a bunch of Cool Defense Lawyer shows, but they've all been replaced by cops & prosecutors, with defense as villains

  • MaoistLandlord [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    How do you even contact a lawyer after getting arrested? I have a card with several lawyer contacts in my wallet, but if I got arrested can I just request to get my wallet and call them?

    Also, how do you ensure your conversations in jail are private? They ‘turn off’ the cameras and mics when you call your lawyer or when they come to your holding room, but surely cops still watch it anyway and lie about how they obtained the info

    • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Your lawyer is probably not going to ask you to incriminate yourself, and unless you're explicitly saying the location of evidence there won't be a way to use privileged communication with your lawyer. I imagine both criminal defence attorneys and PDs are painfully aware that cops can't be trusted.

      As for contacting an attorney, I genuinely don't know. I'm guessing if you don't have a lawyer's number memorized they'll just give you a PD and there's probably some dumb supreme court decision saying you only have the right to a lawyer, not a lawyer of your choosing.

      • KnilAdlez [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Total guess, but I bet a PD would be happy to hand off the case to someone else. If they give you a PD, just ask the PD to call your lawyer. Worth a shot at least.

    • CriticalResist8 [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think if you have the name of a lawyer that's sufficient. They might call your lawyer for you. In the US at least. In Canada you'll just call a hotline that will tell you to say "I have been instructed not to answer that question" and then they can still interrogate you.

      And in the rest of the world idk. In most countries you get something similar to those two models.

      As for private conversations, your lawyer has been doing this for years and even if the cops still manage to record your convo with the lawyer, that's something your lawyer knows about already and will advise you properly on the spot. Dw.

      But yeah, your best bet regardless during interrogation is to say "I have been instructed not to answer that question" to anything they ask past what you are legally obligated to tell them. You also don't have to sign anything they present you with, even the transcript from your own interrogation you can refuse to sign that.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I assure you you are markedly better off with a lawyer than without also refuse to say anything without a lawyer present