If you ask a police officer if something is illegal, can they lie? It's been established that police in the US have pretty broad discretion in terms of being permitted to lie. If you ask an on-duty police officer if something is legal, can they lie about that? I know there is a previous question that asked &quot;Can the police lie about whether I am compelled to do something?&quot; but I am asking &quot;Can the police lie about whether I am permitted to do something?&quot; For example, say you're visiting a state where you're unfamiliar with local laws, and by some strange coincidence there is someone giving marijuana samples, but there is also a police officer nearby. If you ask the officer, &quot;Is it legal to have small amounts of marijuana here?&quot; could the officer say &quot;It's fine. Go for it!&quot; but then arrest you anyway? Note, I do not use marijuana. That just seemed like the clearest example of something where laws vary greatly from state to state.
There is no clear rule on this matter, but there is a reasonable prospect for using an entrapment defense in this case, when deliberate deception is employed. There are two tests for entrapment: the subjective test and the objective test. The former focuses on the defendant's state of mind: whether the defendant is predisposed to commit the crime without law enforcement pressure. The latter is where the officer uses tactics that would induce a reasonable, law-abiding person to commit the crime. It depends in part whether the jurisdiction recognizes one of these defenses. An example of objective entrapment: &quot;A reasonable, law-abiding person could be tempted into committing prostitution for a substantial sum of money like $10,000.&quot; Similarly, applicable to this question: A reasonable, law-abiding person could be tempted to undertake a pleasurable action having been assured that the action is actually legal. Where the subjective test applies: The fact of asking about the legality of an action is evidence that the defendant was not predisposed to commit the crime.
There are various ways in which a minor cannot assist a police investigation, and it might be useful to say in what ways any civilian could do so (TV shows notwithstanding). A civilian cannot conduct a custodial interrogation, nor can most of them gather physical evidence (so that a proper evidence log is maintained including relevant information on method of collection, the evidence isn't contaminated etc. – stuff that requires a modicum of training). They cannot execute a search warrant. On the other hand, anyone can provide information that is useful to the police, and it can be done without giving your name or indicating that you are a minor. A minor can serve as a witness at a trial, and it can be helpful to police to know that they have a witness to a crime. A minor can also be used the same way an adult is used, as a confidential informant. There is not a lot of data on that practice given the confidentiality of juvenile records, but there is an article to read (&quot;Juvenile Police Informants: Friendship, Persuasion, and Pretense&quot;. The article does suggest that parental consent may be necessary in some cases (such as wearing a wire to a drug transaction). There is a law in Washington requiring every county's prosecutor to have a local protocol for using informants, and there should be guidelines developed by a work group, however the results (if any) of that group's meetings are not available on the internet. It is possible that there are specific restrictions on the use of minors as informants in some jurisdiction. The article explores the subtle distinction between &quot;informant&quot; and &quot;friend&quot;, applied to minors. California has a law that limits the use of minors – none under 15, those above with approval of a judicial officer and parent, though those 13 and older can be used as bait in a cigarette or alcohol sales case. New York does not have a blanket prohibition against using a minor as an informant, but there may be relevant guidelines for a particular department.
There are certain situations where the law may require you to provide some information -- particularly when you've been pulled over for a traffic violation -- but it is typically limited to basic identifying information. Beyond that, it is legally advantageous to refuse to answer questions. If you are doing so, though, you should explicitly invoke your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and your Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Invoking the Fifth prevents the police from using your refusal to answer as evidence, and invoking the Sixth requires the police to stop asking you questions. It may, however, be practically disadvantageous to refuse to answer questions, as there are cops who are just looking for a reason to act like a psychopath.
&quot;I have done nothing wrong&quot; You got up in court and, when the judge asked if you had done anything wrong, you said: &quot;yes&quot; (guilty). So, in the eyes of the law, you are in the wrong. Police are entitled to make mistakes and, when they do, the accused can either accept the consequences of that mistake by pleading guilty and paying the penalty or they can defend themselves and show that the police made a mistake. Unfortunately, while you have a right to a defence, you don't have a right to a defence at no cost.
There is a lot of confusion over the difference between reasonable suspicion and probable cause. They are not the same thing. Reasonable suspicion is any justifiable belief that a crime has been or is about to be committed. Probable cause requires an officer to have actual, tangible evidence that you have committed a crime. Only after probable cause has been established can an officer arrest you (with limited ability to search your immediate person and effects). Reasonable suspicion only requires some articulatable justification that you did something wrong. The police can detain you on reasonable suspicion, and they do not have to tell you why. This is called a Terry stop (after Terry v. Ohio where the Supreme Court ruled this was legal). However, they can only detain you long enough to ascertain whether or not they have probable cause to arrest you. If after conducting a preliminary investigation they can't find probable cause to make an arrest, they have to let you go. In that video, we have a guy walking around in Texas with a shotgun and some shells. We never see what this guy looks like or how he's carrying himself, but he appears to be a troll. The cops received a call, so they investigated. They had all the reasonable suspicion they needed to detain him. Texas is an open carry state (a person can walk around openly with a gun), and it is not a stop-and-identify state (the police cannot demand that you ID yourself). Therefore the man did not break any laws. But neither did the police officers. They were doing their job by asking questions, and after failing to find any evidence, they let him go. If he had run before the officers had cleared him to leave, they could have chased him down and arrested him. That is, after all, what a detention is. You don't get to run away because you don't recognize a cop's authority to stop you. And fleeing a law enforcement officer is a crime. But you do have the right not to answer any questions, including (in some states) what your name is.
Being misunderstood is not a crime. You could concoct scenarios where any number of statements could be a crime if interpreted unfairly. "I went to Georgia last weekend." "I choose to believe you mean the country instead of the state, and you don't have a passport, therefore you admitted that you went to a foreign country illegally!" The police would be free to investigate, but they wouldn't be able to get a warrant or arrest him based just on an ambiguous statement, let alone obtain a conviction. Of course, if the younger sister decided to accuse him, and the older sister decided to lie about having a relationship with him, that puts the statement in a whole other context - but if someone is falsely accusing you and someone else corroborates their story, you're probably in trouble no matter how exactly that came about.
united-states Since &quot;lying&quot; is not a clearly-defined legal concept, we need to look at a specific kind of (non)statement. Some lies are plainly illegal, for instance saying in the context of a sale that &quot;this column is made of pressure-treated lumber&quot; when in fact it is make of sand and Elmer's glue is fraud. A receptionist being told to say &quot;Mr. Smith is at a conference in New York&quot; when he is actually drunk in Chicago is a legal lie. Now the question is, who can refuse to tell this lie (without suffering employment consequences), and on what grounds? Generally, in the US you can be ordered to tell such a legal lie as part of your employment duties. If I refuse, I can be fired. If you refuse, you can request a reasonable accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, since you proffer that your religion requires you to tell the truth / forbids you from telling a falsehood. If you make a claim for a religious accommodation, then the issue becomes whether there is a reasonable alternative. Such an accommodation might be that you instead say &quot;Mr. Smith is not available&quot;; or perhaps someone else who does not have a religious objection will be forced to act as receptionist for the day. This is specifically about religion. &quot;I don't want to&quot; or any similar idea does not provide protection against being fired. However, bear in mind that there is no official list of approved religions and their beliefs which the courts will refer to in determining whether your refusal was protected. If you claim &quot;As a Pastafarian, I can't lie&quot;, the courts will not accept the premise that declaring yourself to be Pastafarian (a parody &quot;religion&quot;) is valid. The available governmental resources on the fine line between general moral code and religious beliefs are quite sparse.
This is a deescalation tactic. By giving some ridiculous far out reason, the officer hopes to distract you from any combative or aggressive feelings you have about being stopped. You can do this too, if someone you think is getting progressively angrier might try and hurt you, bringing up something random forces their mind off their anger, even just for a moment. And sometimes, that's enough to avoid a conflict. As for the legality of telling you the reason, no they are not required to tell you the reason, as has been mentioned several times on stack exchange. If an officer says to himself, "I think this guy has crack on him because of X," and it's captured on his body cam, then he's covered. He can prove to the court that he did have reasonable suspicion to detain you, even if he later tells you, "I have a report of zombies in the area and I need to see your ID to determine if you have a death certificate."