Today, I discovered a couple of resources on what you should say to police. One, I found on my own:

It’s just text, and a reasonably quick read.

The other was a link sent to me via IMs by someone I know from high school:

That second one is a WMV file — a video recording of a lecture by a law professor, with some follow-up by a police officer (who I’m pretty sure is one of the professor’s students, studying to become a lawyer himself). This law professor is good, and worth watching, even if the entire video (including the cop) is something like 50 minutes.

“mcsalmon” had this to say in reddit discussion:

The video linked to is an hour long and worth every minute spent watching it. It’s a brilliant deconstruction of the 5th amendment and it’s intent and it’s modern usage. Highly recommended.

Moral of the story: Don’t tell the police anything.

First example:

Cop – “Do you know how fast you were going?”

Me – “I have nothing to say.”

Second example:

Cop – “Would you mind answering some questions?”

Me – “I have nothing to say.”

Third example:

Cop – “We’ve been sitting in this interrogation room for ten hours. I’m making $60 per hour in overtime. I can sit here for another twenty, at that rate. Are you sure you don’t want to say anything?”

Me – “I have nothing to say.”

If you’re going to tell a cop anything other than “I have nothing to say,” it should be “. . . without an attorney present.”

It doesn’t matter if you’re innocent of wrongdoing, will say nothing but the truth (even by accident), and were 1000 miles away from the scene of the crime — saying something can get you convicted. It doesn’t matter if you use the word “hypothetically” all the time, either. It really doesn’t matter if something is said to be “off the record” (there’s no such thing according to the cop in the video). Just don’t do it.

Remember, Martha Stewart wasn’t convicted of wrongdoing — she was convicted of saying something that sounded like a lie in a court of law. Remember, if you say something and a police officer misremembers it later, it’s your word against his — and jurors are more likely to believe a cop. Just don’t tell them anything.

It’s a lesson I’ll take to heart.