Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt
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@Dashrender said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
No, I don't have the transcript of the interrogation, but come on - do you really believe that they didn't mention CP to the defendant before the defendant made that statement of guilt?
I did mention in my "why it wouldn't be ambiguous" checklist that I was basing that on the assumption that they did, in fact, make it clear that he was arrested for suspicious of CP. If he said it casually outside of that context, then clearly it would be a different matter.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@Dashrender said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@Dashrender said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@DustinB3403 they shouldn't need it, he told them that they knew what was on there. That should be all the evidence needed.
Edit After Fork: This is in response to the news article:
Suspect can’t be compelled to reveal “64-character” password, court rules
The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution bars people from being forced to turn over personal passwords to police, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled this week.In a 4-3 ruling, justices from Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned a lower-court order that required the suspect in a child-pornography case to turn over a 64-character password to his computer. The lower-court ruling had held that the compelled disclosure didn’t violate the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights because of statements he made to police during questioning.
“It’s 64 characters and why would I give that to you,” Joseph J. Davis of Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County told investigators in response to their request for his password. “We both know what’s on there. It’s only going to hurt me. No fucking way I’m going to give it to you.”
Scott's response here tells us that Scott believes the password bit is unneeded. That the admission through comment is all they need to convict the defendant...
so the conversation should be only about the admission, and nothing about the password thing.
Except that each instance of CP, is it's own charge. So the police and DoJ need to be able to tally the number of instances to charge the person with.
That is a red herring - of course it's true, and makes for a longer sentence, but he's admitted to at least one. Nothing else really matters. As scott said - in some places, that admission would be the end of - go directly to jail for one count of CP. if they are going for distribution or something, that could be entirely differnt, though, if they accoused him of that too.. his admission would cover that as well, and he can now get jail time for two counts - 1) CP and 2) distro of CP...
Sure they won't be able to get him on 100+ counts.. meh
But that's the argument being made here. The police want to potentially charge a person with additional crimes, and without the defendants willing participation can they not do that.
that's fine - that's additional charges - that's it's own matter, not one that THIS discussion is about... this discussion is about the fact that the defendant admitted his guilt to at least one count of CP on the laptop (pending the transcripts showing that the cops said - we know there's CP on there - or some such shit).
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
He is now saying, now that he's been proven clearly wrong.
No, it's what I said since the OP. Go back and actually read the discussion. You've not even discussed by topic yet.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@bnrstnr said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
This is nothing like what happened. They asked for his password and he said "we both know what's on there"
If you need to use a murder, or something else, as an example, here you go:
Cop: "We want to search your house"
Defendant: "We both know what's in there, and it's going to hurt me"
That is not an admission to anything... There could be a really mean dog in there that is literally going to hurt him.I agree with the example. But disagree with the interpretation afterwards.
The bit in bold... that's why it doesn't mean "anything". It means that what the cops suspect is true, and therefore their claims are all that are needed (under oath, sure.) If he only said that something was in there that would hurt him, that would definitely be ambiguous. My point is that I believe by authorizing the cops' beliefs that he voluntarily removed the ambiguity (once the cops state what it is that they know to be there.)
It's ambiguous to us until the cops state what it is, but once they do, it's not ambiguous anymore.
A validation that a crime has occurred, doesn't require you to comply and submit evidence against your case though.
Doesn't require. You keep using that word, but he already volunteered, for at least the crimes that they were suspicious of.
He volunteered the bit about "it wouldn't be good for me" he doesn't need to volunteer his password so the cops can make an easy case.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
This entire conversation spawned from the fact that scott believes that if you admit to a crime that you need to give up any and all evidence of said crime (and possible other crimes to the police because they ask nicely).
Um... right. Find any post like that please. Any, in any conversation, anywhere by me. You keep stating this known false thing, and acting like people can't read the thread and see that I never said that, and no one ever responded to me saying that. Or anyone saying that other than me, either.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@Dashrender said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
The actual computer isn't relevant - this is what Scott is saying.
He is now saying, now that he's been proven clearly wrong.
This entire conversation spawned from the fact that scott believes that if you admit to a crime that you need to give up any and all evidence of said crime (and possible other crimes to the police because they ask nicely).
FFS, happy thanks giving.
Scott never said that.
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@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@DustinB3403 said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
@bnrstnr said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
This is nothing like what happened. They asked for his password and he said "we both know what's on there"
If you need to use a murder, or something else, as an example, here you go:
Cop: "We want to search your house"
Defendant: "We both know what's in there, and it's going to hurt me"
That is not an admission to anything... There could be a really mean dog in there that is literally going to hurt him.I agree with the example. But disagree with the interpretation afterwards.
The bit in bold... that's why it doesn't mean "anything". It means that what the cops suspect is true, and therefore their claims are all that are needed (under oath, sure.) If he only said that something was in there that would hurt him, that would definitely be ambiguous. My point is that I believe by authorizing the cops' beliefs that he voluntarily removed the ambiguity (once the cops state what it is that they know to be there.)
It's ambiguous to us until the cops state what it is, but once they do, it's not ambiguous anymore.
A validation that a crime has occurred, doesn't require you to comply and submit evidence against your case though.
Doesn't require. You keep using that word, but he already volunteered, for at least the crimes that they were suspicious of.
He volunteered the bit about "it wouldn't be good for me" he doesn't need to volunteer his password so the cops can make an easy case.
But no case needed, he's already admitted to it. Cases only matter when someone claims to be innocent. You've missed the entire point in every response. You aren't just not on the same page, you are reading a different book.
The rest of us are all discussing the same thing. We might have different opinions on how the situation will play out, but we are on the same topic. Every post you make is like you are answering a conversation on Reddit and don't realize where your posts are going.
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@Dashrender said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
Again, I'll walk this back (and I'm positive Scott will too) IF, IF the transcript shows that the cops never mentioned CP on the laptop before the defendant made that statement.
Right, we don't have all of the "evidence" here, but we have to make certain assumptions. We assume that the context is clear, we assume there wasn't duress, we assume that the cops are really cops and not breaking the law, we assume that the news article is accurate, etc. We aren't in a position to actually convict the guy, but the implication of the article seems to be that the cops can based on reasonable assumptions.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Admitting That Someone's Suspicion of Guilt Is Correct Constitute Admission of Guilt:
The rest of us are all discussing the same thing. We might have different opinions on how the situation will play out, but we are on the same topic. Every post you make is like you are answering a conversation on Reddit and don't realize where your posts are going.
Right, for the play out thing - the judge might say - you know I'm not going to accept that statement as a straight out admission of guilt, therefore we're having a trial, and the jury can hear this statement - and they can decide what he meant by it.
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Interesting read. I am from the UK, so it totally doesn't actually matter - but I would agree with Scott here.
If the police say: "We think there is child porn on your laptop, please give us the password."
Then the person being interviewed says: "You know whats on there."
... regardless of password, or whatever else, you now know what is on there. They hung themselves.
If they said "No.", sure - no issue. But they didn't.
Guilty!
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It reminds me of the movie "Law Abiding Citizen".
The suspect would "confess" to all kind of things but if you actually listened to what he said it wasn't a confession at all.
Not that a movie is real life but still.
