[pliftkl]

If you tell a police officer that you did a crime, then your words are admissible as evidence against you. If you tell a police officer that you did not commit a crime, you can't have the police officer testify in your defense that you told him that you did not commit the crime.

Witnessing things is a completely different matter.

[anotherman554]

"If you tell a police officer that you did a crime, then your words are admissible as evidence against you."

This is because the people who wrote the evidence rules believe nobody would admit to a crime unless they are guilty. So it's a hearsay exception.

The exception isn't meant to be a sinister trick to treat you unfairly, it's meant to lead to the right people going to jail and the right people not going to jail.

[SilasX]

Ehhh that's still misleading. It makes it sound like when the officer testifies about your statements, it goes through a magical filter in which only the inculpatory(is that the word?) stuff can come in, but not the exculpatory. Like...

During Mirandized interrogation:

Doe: "I grabbed her wrists after she picked up a knife to attack me."

In court:

Prosecutor: "What, if anything, did you learn from questioning Mr. Doe?"

Officer: "He said he grabbed her wrists."

Defense attorney on cross-examination: "In what context did Mr. Doe grab her wrists?"

Officer: "After she picked up a kni--"

Prosecutor: "Objection! Hearsay!"

Judge: "Sustained. Jury will disregard anything about the accuser picking up a knife. Wrist grabbing stuff is fine."

^Not remotely how it works, at all, but what you might falsely believe from being told "your words are admissible against you, not for you".

[kkielhofner]

Talking to the "regular" police and talking to a federal investigator are two completely different things. At the federal level they have "false or misleading statements"[0] which is a felony with a five year max. People have been convicted and done prison time on this alone based on nothing other than the notes and testimony from a federal investigator. At the state level probably the best they have is "obstruction of justice"[1] which requires things like physically interfering with the police or destroying evidence and even those actions have lesser penalties than "false or misleading statements".

I have a friend who is a federal criminal investigator and his advice when/if the feds show up is to say nothing other than "Do you have a business card? Someone will be in touch." and get a lawyer ASAP.

[0] - https://www.iannfriedman.com/blog/2019/april/federal-charges...

[1] - https://www.pallegarlawfirm.com/obstructing-justice-in-flori...