Police, as part of their training, are shown how to deploy manipulative questioning methods that are designed to trip up guilty people into confessing or revealing things that they don’t want to reveal. The problem is, these techniques not only work on guilty people, they also work on innocent people, or people who maybe aren’t so innocent, but nonetheless minding their own business and hurting no one.

“Police officers are under no obligation to tell you the truth and can even accuse you of being under suspicion for something regardless of whether you’ve done anything to provoke that suspicion,” advises one criminal defense attorney oakland county. “So understanding how they’re going to operate is the key to protecting yourself.”

Manufacturing Your Consent

Police need your permission in order to conduct searches and detain you without probable cause. In order to get your permission, they can lie to you.

“One of the most popular ones is that they’ll tell you that you fit the description of a suspect who was involved in some egregious crime,” said the defense attorney. “They’ll also tell you that they have witnesses that say they saw you doing this or that. They’re under no obligation to tell the truth, but you’re under no obligation to believe them, either. If they have actual evidence, there’s nothing you can do about that, but you don’t want to help their position by consenting to a search that they have no right to otherwise conduct.”

Another tactic, he said was that they will promise you leniency with the judge. “They can promise you anything, but they’re under no obligation to follow through with that promise. It’s basically a ruse to get you to consent to a search that they have no legal right to perform otherwise.”

Police will often tell suspects that if they have nothing to hide, they have no reason not to consent to the search, or that their silence can be taken as a sign of guilt. “Your silence cannot be taken as a sign a guilt under the law,” the defense attorney said. “The police might assume you’re guilty, but that does nothing for their case. You have a right under the law to remain silent, and you should use that right when dealing with police, regardless of your guilt or innocence.”

One last trick police will use to manufacture your consent is ask quick subtlely posed questions as responses to something you say. “This is police questioning 101,” the defense attorney said. “They ask you if you’ve had anything to drink, you say no, and then they say, ‘Ok, so you don’t mind if I have a look around?’”

“You should say that you do mind, regardless of how they protest.”