3/29/2026 at 3:38:45 PM
Without even looking at the AI part, I have a single question: Did anybody investigate? That's it.Whether it's AI that flagged her, or a witness who saw her, or her IP address appeared on the logs. Did anybody bothered to ask her "where were you the morning of july 10th between 3 and 4pm. But that's not what happened, they saw the data and said "we got her".
But this is the worst part of the story:
> And after her ordeal, she never plans to return to the state: “I’m just glad it’s over,” she told WDAY. “I’ll never go back to North Dakota.”
That's the lesson? Never go back to North Dakota. No, challenge the entire system. A few years back it was a kid accused of shoplifting [0]. Then a man dragged while his family was crying [1]. Unless we fight back, we are all guilty until cleared.
[0]: https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/29/apple_sis_lawsuit/
by firefoxd
3/29/2026 at 7:39:01 PM
The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth.The incentive is to prosecte and prove the charges.
Speaking from the experience of being falsely accused after calling 911 to stop a drunk woman from driving.
The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false, bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts. Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case. Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict.
by rcvassallo83
3/29/2026 at 9:20:30 PM
There needs to be consequences for shitty, procedure-ignoring police work. Period.Minimum 1 year of jail time for grossly wrongful arrests that could be avoided with standard procedure or investigation tactics that were not applied.
by retrochameleon
3/30/2026 at 12:07:22 AM
I agree with this sentiment but when you start punishing this sort of thing you create more incentive to cover it up. It's a tricky problem and I'm not sure there's a perfect solution.What we really need is a change in police culture.
by helterskelter
3/30/2026 at 12:27:18 AM
Then the system should be redesigned such that transparency is a priority and cover ups are not feasible. And when cover ups eventually get found out, the punishments even more severe.by retrochameleon
3/31/2026 at 12:03:31 PM
Add even more disincentives for coverups (i.e. hard prison time) and rewards for whistleblowers.by account42
3/30/2026 at 2:34:02 AM
We already have administrative punishments for the police when they incorrectly assign blame and cause a public relations mess.Is the termination of your career and/or potential retraining and social embarrassment not already an incentive to cover up?
by true_religion
3/30/2026 at 11:42:48 PM
If the punishment fails to correct the behaviour, it is insufficient punishment or the wrong punishment. In this case, I'd say that individual punishments are the wrong tool to correct systemic behaviour. It should be career-ending for brass and prosecutors to be effective.by tremon
3/30/2026 at 3:16:16 PM
Medicine has a culture that adapts to this quite well. If you make an honest mistake and communicate it, you are often persecuted by your peers but not hung out to dry legally by your hospital and generally your actions are always defensible.Similar practices are used in law enforcement, but the legal implications are seemingly more severe
by vablings
3/30/2026 at 4:49:22 AM
> change in police cultureuntil then, there's a simple rule which works well: never talk to a cop. Or at least say the minimum number of words possible, give them nothing to use against you. Present ID if they ask for it, but never admit anything. If they persist, "lawyer". That has worked for me.
by jcgrillo
3/30/2026 at 2:25:54 AM
These dialogs always prompt me to chime in with my solution: make the police be self-insured, backed by their pension fund.The police today have zero incentive to serve the public, they have zero skin in the game and can literally get away with murder.
Any time you hear the call for "law and order", that is the audience that supports the current system, because they like it like this.
by pstuart
3/30/2026 at 3:29:32 AM
Great idea, Except that this will never happen because public sector unions are important voting blocks. Public sector unions should be abolished (don’t have a problem with unions) but the conflict of interest is just too great.by balderdash
3/30/2026 at 9:00:13 AM
Great point. Obviously can't expect them to vote against their own interests, because higher standards, higher accountability, and higher transparency will always be against those interests.by retrochameleon
3/30/2026 at 1:13:13 PM
> These dialogs always prompt me to chime in with my solution: make the police be self-insured, backed by their pension fund.I'm curious, what exactly do you mean by "self-insured"?
(Is the idea to combine literal insurance underwriting for retirement planning with a monetary incentive system for ongoing work performance)?
by xtajv
3/30/2026 at 11:48:08 PM
They mean that penalties and restitutions for wrongful prosecutions and wrongful convictions should not come from taxpayer money but private insurance. Right now, police departments feel zero pain from judgements against them so they have no reason to structurally correct their behaviour.by tremon
3/30/2026 at 11:51:30 PM
how is police going to pay for private insurance though? from police officer salaries (which come from taxpayers)?by bdangubic
3/30/2026 at 2:54:02 PM
Police in some states are actually self-insured, though not backed by a pension fund.by forshaper
3/29/2026 at 8:59:54 PM
> The thing about the legal system is there's no incentive to investigate to find the truth.The truth is much more complicated and involves politics. For example Seattle (and possibly other cities?) enacted a law that involves paying damages for being wrong in the event of bringing certain types of charges. But that has resulted in some widely publicized examples where the prosecutor erred by being overly cautious.
by fc417fc802
3/29/2026 at 11:32:53 PM
And then you have Florida who will bill you about $100 a day for finding yourself in a Florida jail, regardless of whether charges were dismissed, you were found not guilty or any such thing.And to nobody’s surprise, failure to pay this bill is in itself a Class B felony…
by FireBeyond
3/30/2026 at 12:09:25 AM
That sounds like a recipe for domestic terrorism - the systemic disenfranchisement of people who have done nothing wrong for no apparent reason other than sheer greed. How long has this been in effect there?by fc417fc802
3/30/2026 at 1:23:16 AM
The system doesn't push the issue on people who can't afford it. Blood from a stone and all that.by cucumber3732842
3/30/2026 at 1:39:38 AM
I'm confused. Are you suggesting such a ridiculous system is letting class B felonies slide here? That would certainly be the pragmatic approach to being evil but in that case simply treating it as regular debt and going through civil channels would be more than sufficient.by fc417fc802
3/30/2026 at 10:13:20 AM
Are you letting stuff in your backlog that you'll never get to before the product is gone or irrelevant "slide"?Sure they could round those people up pretty easily just by following up on any contact with the system that they have, but why, for what, to cost the state more money that will likely never be repaid? Especially when sticking a body on DUI detail is hugely in the black. They'll just let that debt, it's accruing interests and the threat of further incarceration linger on the books indefinitely. If the person ever gets their life together they'll have to pay it or face incarceration.
I'm sure someone somewhere has written a DB query to select from outstanding balance where <exists in some other DB that is a proxy for people who have money to pay> and prioritize those cases.
by cucumber3732842
3/30/2026 at 3:47:49 AM
Are you suggesting that Florida it’s to go ‘soft on “crime”’? That would fly in the face of almost all available evidence.I have extended family in Florida. The system absolutely can and does and will push the issue. There’s a reason that it’s a crime not to pay for your incarceration even if you have a finding of factual innocence against you.
by FireBeyond
3/30/2026 at 10:06:41 AM
Your family isn't sleeping under a bridge or whatever. Of course the system wants your money or the money of people on comparable economic footing you associate with. If you can work as a debt slave to the system it wants you to do that even if it means a never ending cycle of robbing peter to pay paul, sleeping on other people's couches, etc. The man sleeping under a bridge cannot, so the cops and the DA and everyone else just go fry bigger fish. Maybe they push the issue 1/100th of the time and incarcerate someone every now and they but they absolutely do not prioritize it the way they do someone who could pay even if only by moving heaven and earth. The system doesn't want to manufacture yet another felony and then incarcerate someone for it out of thin air, that just costs the system more money.Source: my tiny keyhole view into the system. The parties involve always have have discretion to downgrade stuff to something else, or not pursue it at all and are incentivizes.
by cucumber3732842
3/30/2026 at 5:13:02 PM
> The system doesn't want to manufacture yet another felony and then incarcerate someone for it out of thin air, that just costs the system more money.You say this like Florida doesn't have both the most private prisons in the country, and the most inmates held in such facilities.
"The system" doesn't care. Florida has, repeatedly, shown a willingness to cut back on education and healthcare.
And private prisons have repeatedly been shown to be a hotbed of corruption.
by FireBeyond
3/29/2026 at 11:38:38 PM
That sounds absolutely terrifying.by autotune
3/30/2026 at 12:54:58 AM
> The narrative they "investigated" was so obviously false, bodycam evidence directly contradicted multiple key facts. Officials are interested only seeking to prove the case. Thankfully the jury came to the right verdict.I don't get it, if they only care about prosecuting and proving the case, wouldn't they go by the bodycam evidence? They didn't prove the case. Maybe if their incentive was to prosecute and prove the charges, they'd go by the obvious evidence. Or am I missing something here?
by bko
3/29/2026 at 11:31:27 PM
There’s a judge down in Texas, Dallas area I believe, who is in social media a lot because he will excoriate prosecutors who bring bs in to his court room. He’s not soft on crime but hard on rights and process. If a defendant did the wrong thing, he will have the appropriate amount of sympathy, down to zero. At times he will tell them, we all know you got lucky here, do better. But he won’t let prosecutors slate by on garbage charges or statements or investigations by police. Which leads to my primary point at least for this discussion in particular:To me the scariest part of this as a process is how many times (I’d casually estimate at least 75%) it is blindingly obvious that the prosecutor has not read the statement of charges or officer statements until everyone is in front of the judge. I get on one hand this judge seems to often be handling probable cause hearings but so many of these should never have resulted in any paperwork being turned in to the prosecution, let alone anyone having to show up in court.
by FireBeyond
3/30/2026 at 1:19:30 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fleischer_(judge)by phonon
3/30/2026 at 8:13:53 AM
It's fascinating to me that judges are elected in Texas, and what's more, run as members of a political party.by komali2
3/30/2026 at 12:28:25 AM
There is an incentive . It’s called fraud by negligence. I’m hoping she sues everyone here.That’s seems to be in the realm of poissibility here if I am understanding things correctly (imo)
by pylua
3/29/2026 at 8:27:32 PM
I would absolutely never call the police on a woman. Simply walk far away and let her be someone else's problem.by hnuser123456
3/30/2026 at 12:24:22 AM
Unless it’s a Karen chasing you and yelling and threatening to call the police on you for some asinine reason?by loloquwowndueo
3/30/2026 at 8:16:15 AM
Imo they're right, if you're faced with the option of running away from some crazy person or interacting with the police in the USA, the safer option is to run.A police interaction can escalate to ruinous heights within seconds due to no fault of your own. Remember that cop that got scared by an acorn falling and started shooting at random? I don't care how many "good cops" there are, I'm not rolling the dice on encountering an acorn cop.
by komali2
3/29/2026 at 11:27:06 PM
Society went through the necessary lessons with DNA and fingerprints. Putting people in jail because the computer produce a match is a terrible idea, especially when its done by an proprietary dark box that no one really understand why it claims there is a match. It can be used as a tool of investigations to give the investigators an hint to find real more substantial clues, but using it like in fiction where the computer can act as the single truth is terrible for society and justice.A month ago or so people on HN discussed facial recognition when looking victims and perpetrators in child exploitation material, and people were complaining that meta did not allow this fast enough. Neither the article or the people in that discussion draw any connection that the issues in this article could happen. People seemingly want to think that the lesson is "Never go back to North Dakota", as that is a much easier lesson than considering false positives in detection algorithms and their impact on a legal system that is constrained in budget, time, training and incentives.
by belorn
3/29/2026 at 7:06:35 PM
Yes, of course someone should have investigated, but the larger point here is that people don’t because they are being sold a false narrative that AI is infallible and can do anything.We could sit here all day arguing “you should always validate the results”, but even on HN there are people loudly advocating that you don’t need to.
by latexr
3/29/2026 at 10:34:40 PM
I don't think people on HN think "AI is infallible", I think people on HN believe HN is sufficient enough for "most tasks". In the context of HN "most tasks" refers to programming tasks, not arresting and jailing people tasks.You should always validate the results, but there is an inherint difference between an AI generated tool for personal use and a tool which could be used to destroy someones life.
by HDBaseT
3/30/2026 at 2:29:23 AM
The problem is that the people who will put this in place rate capability on a linear scale: in their view the ability to write software is sufficiently magic, so such an ability is obviously good enough to recognize criminals. From their perspective, there are hurdles to be crossed (like probable cause) and an AI flagging a suspect feels like a magical intelligence crossing those hurdles and allowing them to continue in the process.They don't validate the results of their fellow officers, or the validity of warrants, or anything else that predicates an arrest. Why would they start with this?
by ultrarunner
3/30/2026 at 6:35:59 AM
What about cops and legislators? They thing AI is infallible and thats very convenient for them since they can thus not mandate cops having to double check tmwhat the AI suggestsby samrus
3/29/2026 at 7:17:41 PM
We can barely convince powers thar be that eye-witness testimony is unreliable, after all.by dpkirchner
3/29/2026 at 8:34:16 PM
Where are you seeing people being told that AI is infallible? AI is being hyped to the moon, but "infallible" is not one of the claims.To the extent people trust AI to be infallible, it's just laziness and rapport (AI is rarely if ever rude without prompting, nor does it criticize extensive question-asking as many humans would, it's the quintessential enabler[1]) that causes people to assume that because it's useful and helpful for so many things, it'll be right about everything.
The models all have disclaimers that state the inverse. People just gradually lose sight of that.
[1] This might be the nature of LLMs, or it might be by design, similar to social media slop driving engagement. It's in AI companies' interest to have people buying subscriptions to talk with AIs more. If AI goes meta and critiques the user (except in more serious cases like harm to self or others, or specific kinds of cultural wrongthink), that's bad for business.
by harshreality
3/29/2026 at 10:03:08 PM
> To the extent people trust AI to be infallible, it's just laziness and rapport (…) that causes people to assume that because it's useful and helpful for so many things, it'll be right about everything.Why it happens is secondary to the fact that it does.
> The models all have disclaimers that state the inverse. People just gradually lose sight of that.
Those disclaimers are barely effective (if at all), and everyone knows that. Including the ones putting them there.
by latexr
3/29/2026 at 8:37:55 PM
> Where are you seeing people being told that AI is infallible? AI is being hyped to the moon, but "infallible" is not one of the claims.I see all kinds of people being told that AI-based AI detection software used for detecting AI in writing is infallible!
You want to make sure people aren't using fallible AI? Use our AI to detect AI? What could possibly go wrong.
by jmalicki
3/29/2026 at 9:44:59 PM
Where did you see this claim about AI-based AI detection?by the_af
3/29/2026 at 4:45:13 PM
I think you missed many important points."The trauma, loss of liberty, and reputational damage cannot be easily fixed,” Lipps' lawyers told CNN in an email.
That sounds a LOT like a statement you make for before suing for damages, not to mention they literally say "Her lawyers are exploring civil rights claims but have yet to file a lawsuit, they said."
This lady probably just wants to go back to normal life and get some money for the hell they put her in. She has never been on a airplane before, I doubt she is going to take on the entire system like you suggest. Easier said than done to "challenge the entire system", what does that even mean exactly?
by bl4ckneon
3/29/2026 at 4:51:39 PM
It was worse than that, the reporting from an earlier story[0] ...Unable to pay her bills from jail, she lost her home, her car and even her dog.
(Also, what happened to journalism - no Oxford comma?)
by 3eb7988a1663
3/29/2026 at 5:14:46 PM
As an aside AP Style is not use an Oxford comma, and that's been the rule for 50+ years https://www.prnewsonline.com/explainer-how-to-use-oxford-com...by cguess
3/29/2026 at 5:26:42 PM
This is upsetting.by 3eb7988a1663
3/29/2026 at 6:03:30 PM
Yes, finding out how badly wrong you were is never fun. Of course the lack of ubiquitous Oxford comma use is itself and separately displeasing.by erikerikson
3/29/2026 at 6:02:37 PM
AP Style is simply wrong on this, then.by krferriter
3/30/2026 at 4:08:49 PM
Well, omitting the Oxford comma is the traditionally correct thing to do. I use the Oxford comma, it makes sense, but it is new. A hundred years ago it would have been considered an error by nearly every editor.by kbelder
3/29/2026 at 5:06:43 PM
Indeed let out on Christmas Eve with no money 1000 miles from your homeland.Where your home was lost to foreclosure because one JUDGE did not look at the paperwork.
There should be a way to personally sue somebody when they don't do their job. Protecting the innocent. The JUDGE failed badly here.
Flimsy evidence would mean no warrant. Do your basic investigation please... Rubberstamping JUDGE caused this.
Why are they not named? Like they are a spectator. Infact they are the cause.
by frankharv
3/29/2026 at 9:29:10 PM
TBF isn't it rather unreasonable that our system permits your home to be foreclosed while you're detained prior to a hearing?Also rather unreasonable to arrest someone who is clearly neither violent nor a flight risk. You could literally hold the trial via video conference at that point and there would be no downside.
by fc417fc802
3/29/2026 at 11:36:37 PM
At the risk of sounding like more of an anarchist (irony, autocorrect went with absurdist which isn’t entirely wrong either) than I might usually feel, that all depends on who you believe the system is for and works for? If you believe it’s “capitalism” as been so often proven, then it could be said that it’s entirely “reasonable”.by FireBeyond
3/30/2026 at 1:41:47 AM
> depends on who you believe the system is for and works forWe are still enough of a democracy to blame ourselves for this. We could choose that the system is of the people, by the people, for the people. I think too many of us simply don't agree with that, except in the narrow situation where we are talking about ourself.
by rootusrootus
3/30/2026 at 2:18:07 AM
We could just overcome the tens of billions shoved into our faces aimed at undermining it and brainwashing us, and choose that the system is of the people?The deck is so unbelievably stacked against it.
Another thing: many people hav e been permitted to vote in let's say 40 elections (at different levels), out of which maybe 1 had a candidate that indeed supported a "system that is of the people", and 39 didn't. Gets tough then doesn't it.
by deaux
3/29/2026 at 5:18:13 PM
You have more faith in the country than I do.by segmondy
3/29/2026 at 11:01:04 PM
Normally, I would be a bit more grim, but people love their animals. I pray even the staunchest authoritarian would see the injustice of losing a dog.by 3eb7988a1663
3/30/2026 at 2:12:28 AM
You're not aware of Noem killing her dog by shooting it in the face, lining up three horses and shooting them, while being proud of it all?by deaux
3/30/2026 at 4:18:56 PM
iirc the dog was a dangerous animal and had attacked people and animals uprovoked quite a few times. didnt hear about it so not sure about the horses, but typically people dont just execute horses when they aren't injured or at risk of living out a traumatic existence. who knows, media spins and all that jazz, but I wouldn't hesitate to end a liability of a dangerous dog or a horse in suffering that had no chance of recovery, however reluctant id feel in the momentby konfusinomicon
3/29/2026 at 7:26:41 PM
anyone in the chain of responsibility should be punished so severely that they will be still crying about it in 2030by redeeman
3/29/2026 at 9:20:38 PM
The real problem here is she'll get money, who knows how much, but that ultimately does nothing to actually address the problems in the system.Effectively it just raises taxes to cover the cost of these failed prosecutions.
Everytime one of these cases happens, a cop and a prosecutor should be out of a job permanently. Possibly even jailed. The false arrest should lose the cop their job and get them blacklisted, the prosecution should lose the prosecutor's right to practice law.
And if the police union doesn't like that and decides to strike, every one of those cops should simply be fired. Much like we did to the ATC. We'd be better off hiring untrained civilians as cops than to keep propping up this system of warrior cops abusing the citizens.
by cogman10
3/29/2026 at 11:39:02 PM
> The false arrest should lose the cop their job and get them blacklistedThere is actually a federal register for LEOs that have been terminated for cause or resigned to avoid termination.
The police unions that operate in the jurisdictions that employ 70% of US police have negotiated into their CBAs that the register “cannot be used for hiring or promotional decisions”. Read into that what you will.
by FireBeyond
3/30/2026 at 12:19:31 AM
I'm generally pretty for unions, but the police union is one that's a complete cancer on society. It pretty much solely exists to make sure cops are free to harm the public without any sort of accountability.by cogman10
3/30/2026 at 1:46:15 AM
Agreed. And I think we really, really need to put more effort into a "police the police" organization. Someone who has power only over the police, who the police do not have power over, to act as a check.by rootusrootus
3/30/2026 at 11:24:26 AM
We might call this the administration of the executive. Maybe we can vote for that or something.by 1718627440
3/30/2026 at 1:44:58 AM
> police unions... test my support for the idea of unionization. I have even said in the past that I think public sector unions are especially important because their boss (the people) are the most capricious and malicious of all.
Maybe we could find a way to put guardrails on what they could and could not negotiate into a contract. Wages, benefits, basic job environmental conditions, stuff like that -- okay. But administrative policies which exist to prevent bad behavior should be non-negotiable.
by rootusrootus
3/30/2026 at 7:42:36 PM
It's not the police union's fault that there is literally zero pushback against them.Somehow Teacher unions have near zero power but cops can collectively bargain for the right to murder people to get a paid vacation.
It isn't because they have a union. Most of them don't have more than a high school diploma and minimal training. You can replace them with ease. A strike shouldn't even be considered a threat. They often can't strike, and their normal threat is work to rule, ie follow the law.
It isn't the police union that keeps judges from throwing the book at cops. It isn't the police union that keeps 40% of the country rabidly insistent that gently reforming police would turn this country to ash. It isn't the union that forces them to die in car crashes far more often than they ever face lethal violence.
A union isn't magically powerful and never can be. The employer can always just replace the members. Funny how that keeps unions in check for such skilled jobs as Teachers and Bureaucrats and Nurses and ATC employees, but for people who usually have just a high school diploma and a few weeks of training suddenly it's impossible call the strike's bluff? I hear TSA bodies are desperate for work.
It's a narrative. Police unions are allowed to exist to encourage you to hate unions. Police unions have correctly identified that nobody even attempts to push back against them and are simply doing their job: Advocating for their members. You aren't required to accept a Union's terms. America is chock full of better trained private security that would be happy to scalp a police force.
Hell, police departments are often run by political candidates. Why don't the pro-union ones just get voted out by supposedly anti-union people?
by mrguyorama
3/30/2026 at 9:40:18 PM
What makes police unions different from other unions is cops have a lot more power to make life miserable for their political enemies. They have effectively a legal right to harass anyone they'd like.The worst a teachers union can do is strike.
Cops can assault and murder people then claim self defense. It's unlikely another cop will arrest them, and it's unlikely a prosecutor will actually do their job in prosecuting them.
This sort of undue power is what enabled Joe Arpaio to setup a concentration camp. That's somewhat the extreme of what cops can do. And he did, eventually, get prosecuted for it (though he was pardoned). But that was literally after years of those sorts of stunts. [1]
I can guarantee that Arpaio isn't the only corrupt cop out there. He just got too much national attention which ultimately ended his career.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20101020184811/http://www.kpho.c...
by cogman10
3/31/2026 at 4:12:24 AM
Clearview again. ICE is using it too, and their people think it is an oracle that is always correct, so that when someone shows a passport card or a RealID showing that they are someone else, a US citizen or permanent resident, they are usually accused of having a fake ID. It's a flawed tool and it misidentifies people sometimes.by not2b
3/30/2026 at 4:41:00 AM
>No, challenge the entire system.Agree in principle. But people like her does not have the resources, financially and emotionally to go through the legal system again. Unless there are charitable lawyers who are willing to do it on her behalf for free.
by NL807
3/29/2026 at 8:19:36 PM
> Whether it's AI that flagged herIt absolutely was. There's no question of this. Now we need to ask how was the system marketed, what did the police pay for it, how were they trained to use it?
> anybody bothered to ask her "where were you the morning of july 10th between 3 and 4pm.
Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value. Those statements probably won't even be admissible in court without other supporting facts entered in first.
> we are all guilty until cleared.
This is not at a phenomenon that started with AI. If you scratch the surface, even slightly, you'll find that this is a common strategy used against defendants who are perceived as not being financially or logistically capable of defending themselves.
We have a private prison industry. The line between these two outcomes is very short.
by themafia
3/29/2026 at 8:48:26 PM
>Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value.How is that hearsay if she's directly testifying to her own whereabouts?
Hearsay would be if someone else was testifying "she was in X location on july 10th between 3 and 4pm", without the accused being available for cross
by LocalH
3/29/2026 at 8:55:28 PM
No!"I was at the library" is firsthand testimony.
"I saw her at the library" is firsthand testimony.
"I saw her library card in her pocket" is firsthand testimony.
"She was at the library - Bob told me so" is hearsay. Just look at the word - "hear say". Hearsay is testifying about events where your knowledge does not come from your own firsthand observations of the event itself.
by Borealid
3/30/2026 at 1:49:17 AM
You don't know what hearsay meansby Larrikin
3/29/2026 at 10:58:16 PM
> Legally that amounts "hearsay" and cannot have any value. Those statements probably won't even be admissible in court without other supporting facts entered in first.I just want to understand your argument: you believe that any alibi provided is hearsay, and has no legal value, and that they can't even take the statement in order to validate it? That's your position?
by jmye
3/30/2026 at 1:57:19 AM
The condition here being she was already arrested. You don't arrest someone first and then try to establish their alibi second. That would be an investigation which would be prior to getting a warrant which would allow you to arrest someone. You will never talk yourself out of an arrest, you might talk yourself out of an investigation.You can offer your story to the police but the fact that you did or what you said to them will not come into evidence in court. You cannot call the officer to the stand and then ask them to repeat in court what you said. That would be "hearsay." So, for a lot of reasons, if you're already arrested, you probably don't even want to tell them any of that. It can only be used against you and never for you. Get your lawyer and have them ready the case to prove that alibi for you.
by themafia
3/30/2026 at 11:27:34 AM
> but the fact that you did or what you said to them will not come into evidence in court.What?? Isn't it that everything you say can be used in court? Aren't interrogations and arrests recorded?
by 1718627440
3/30/2026 at 7:07:27 PM
It can be used in court _against you_.You're never going to get your statements made in an interrogation into the record as exculpatory evidence.
The purpose of the interrogation is to find _other crimes_ you are also guilty of and charge you with those.
The police are not going to build a case against you, arrest you, and then immediately try to destroy their own case.
There's some real Hollywood confusion here.
There are two legal issues here. First is fighting the false arrest. Your statements will not help you here. Second is a civil rights violation case. The police negligence, if it can be established, is the basis of your case.
In either scenario your stated alibi is not meaningful.
by themafia
3/29/2026 at 7:30:26 PM
IANAL but AFAIK custodial interrogation triggers Miranda, lawyers, and those awful awful civil liberties we’re trying to get rid of.Better just to apply Musk or Altman software to the problem and avoid it entirely.
by tmpz22