Loose lips can get you arrested or, why you shouldn't talk to the police

August 4, 11:02 AMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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So, the police are investigating a crime, and in the course of their investigation, they come to chat with you about what you know or may have seen. You've done nothing wrong, so you have no objections to sitting down with the investigating officers and telling what little you may know. But the questioning becomes more intense, you find yourself stumbling over facts that don't seem important to you, but have the police pricking up their ears. And suddenly you realize that you're not just a helpful witness; now you're a suspect.

What did you do wrong?

The answer, unfortunately, is that you talked yourself into trouble -- yes, even innocent people can do that. You've probably heard that before from your paranoid brother-in-law, or a lawyer friend, but you didn't do anything. Who would have believed that your life could be turned upside down by a few words?

Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law is one of the people who does believe that loose lips sink ... well, not ships, but reputations and even lives. In an engaging and lively 27-minute lecture (I know, I know -- but it's worth watching), without assuming any malice on the part of the police, he explains just how you can talk yourself into trouble, and why you shouldn't talk to the police at all when suspicion wanders in your direction.

Note an important issue addressed early in the video: There are now so many laws on the books that even the government can't tell you the number. The chance that you unknowingly broke a law or two is very high -- as is the likelihood that you just may confess to a crime that you never knew existed.

But Prof. Duane is a lawyer -- and an academic one at that. What do the police themselves think of the wisdom of spilling your guts in an interview with law-enforcement officers? Well, as it so happens, in the very same classroom, just after Prof. Duane finishes, Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department steps up to the podium and says ... well ... that Prof. Duane is basically right. In fact, Officer Bruch fills in a lot of important details about how people get themselves into trouble. Watch and learn.