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Originally Posted by transplant99
Absolutely....but here is the rub. Law enforcement does do that. They do break the rules in pursuit of who they think is guilty (not always but numerous examples). And who is it that investigates them if the accusation is brought up? Other law enforcement, and that is a really hard pill to swallow and believe they will be neutral when it comes to deciding.
Then the judge gets to decide based on evidence presented to him from both those parties and a single person accused that had no representation when it was supposed to have occurred. That is a massive problem in my mind. Where is the equality in that?
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This seems to be tangential to the issue at hand. Yes: the police do break the rules of investigation/interrogation frequently. But the issue of who investigates the police in such circumstances has no bearing on the main question here, which is the consequences for the person being investigated/interrogated. Police interrogations are recorded (with the exception of very basic questioning that commonly occurs of witnesses at the fresh scene of a crime) and are reviewed by prosecutors for admissibility before they are ever even forwarded to defence counsel or presented to the court. So any problems with the interrogation can be brought to light and dealt with at multiple stages in the process: prosecutor file review, defence file review after disclosure, judicial review in the course of the trial process, or in the course of the case for the defence at trial.
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One question...how does any of that change if a lawyer is present?
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This, to me, is the better question. And I think the answer is fairly simple: because any lawyer will simply tell his client to say absolutely nothing. The only exception to this would be if the lawyer has reviewed all available evidence and is satisfied his client is in no legal jeopardy if he cooperates with the police. Such situations are likely to occur only late in the course of the legal process if at all, particular where a person is clearly a suspect and not a mere witness. Waiting for such a situation would, of course, hamper the ongoing investigation, possibly to a similar degree as a suspect/witness saying absolutely nothing to police.