Source: Mankiw Blockchain Law
Recently, several clients came to the law firm to consult on issues related to criminal cases involving blockchain and digital currency. During the consultation, I found that the clients had Some common issues are sorted out here for your reference, so that you can respond more calmly when facing police inquiries. If something happens later, you can also calmly respond to police inquiries without a lawyer present.
01 What should you pay attention to when the police just come to your door?
1. Stay calm and confirm that the identity of the police is correct.
First of all, if the police find you and say that you are suspected of a certain crime, Don't panic, stay calm, and first make sure that the other person is a real police officer and not someone pretending to be a police officer. During this process, we can ask the person coming to show their police officer ID, and the real police will take the initiative to show their police ID to identify themselves.
There is another point that needs to be noted in the process of confirming the identity of the police: If the police who come to arrest are police from outside your area, they must have the police station in your jurisdiction. Accompanied by police officersIf you are not accompanied by police officers from the police station in your jurisdiction, you can immediately call 110 to call the police and let the local police confirm the authenticity and legality of the police officers who are performing the task.
2. Check the documents and initially determine the nature of the case involved
After the first step of the police arresting you is OK, we will Another document you need to look at is the summons or detention warrant produced by the police. So why do we need to see this certificate? Because this certificate will state the alleged crime of the person involved, either the crime of illegal business operations or the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes. After seeing the crime clearly, we will have a preliminary impression of what we have committed in order to cope with the subsequent interrogation by the police. .
Another important point is whether the police produces a summons or a detention warrant, which determines where you will stay for the rest of the time.
The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the duration of a summons or custodial summons shall not exceed twelve hours; if the case is particularly serious and complex and requires detention or arrest measures, the duration of a summons or custodial summons shall not exceed 24 hours. . In other words,if the police only summon the person concerned to cooperate with the investigation, it will only last for twelve hours at most. If the time exceeds twelve hours, the person concerned will be criminally detained. If the police do not criminally detain the person concerned, it will be a procedural violation if the summons takes more than twelve hours.
If the police come to your home and show you a detention certificate, you will have to spend at least the next three days in the detention center. Pay special attention here, when the person concerned has been detained. Under such circumstances, taking the parties to the police station may involve procedural violations. Because it is also stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Law that after detention, the detainee should be sent to a detention center immediately for detention, and no more than twenty-four hours at the latest. It can be seen that according to the law, it is normal to send a person to a detention center immediately, and it is abnormal to send him to a detention center no later than 24 hours.
3. Master the key points of on-site interrogation techniques
The scene continues back home. After the police produce a subpoena or detention warrant, they will definitely interrogate the person concerned on the spot with some questions. My consistent policy on how to answer the police’s questions is: Tell no lies and no truth.
How to say this?
Don’t tell any lies: Naturally, it means don’t lie to the police, because the police already have some relevant facts before summoning you or detaining you. You just said it for verification. Lying is of no use. If the confession is untrue, the police can continue to investigate the case with objective evidence. If you make an untrue confession, you cannot get a lighter punishment for confessing. statutory circumstances.
Not telling the whole truth: It means telling the police about things that are related to the case. If the police ask about facts that are not related to the case, then we don’t need to tell them. So everyone must accurately understand the meaning of "not telling the whole truth". This is not instigating confrontation with the police, just like "martyrs".
4. Key elements that must exist in an on-site search: search warrant, witnesses, searcher
While the police are interrogating, there will definitely be other police officers Conduct searches, search items in your home, and seize property related to the case. Players in our blockchain are usually mobile phones, digital currency exchange account passwords, cold wallets, or wallet private keys. When the police conduct a search, we must pay attention to the police must produce a search warrant. If the police do not have a search warrant, they must ask why there is no search warrant, because the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that in the event of an emergency, Searches can also be conducted without a search warrant. Butno matter whether there is a search warrant or not during the search, witnesses must be present. At the same time, personnel from the public security agency or personnel hired by the public security agency cannot serve as witnesses, nor can anyone with an interest in the case serve as witnesses.
During the search, the police must make a search transcript to record the search process in detail. The transcript needs to be signed by the searcher, witnesses and the person being searched. The seizure list also needs to record the appearance of the seized items in detail. feature. It also requires the signatures of the searcher, witnesses and the person being searched. At this time, the person being searched must carefully read the search transcript and the seizure list. If the record is untrue, raise objections in a timely manner.
Basically based on my past experience, this is basically what the police did at the client’s home. The purpose of saying this is just to let the parties involved have some basic understanding, calmly deal with the police's investigative behavior, and not be confused. By the way, see if the police have any procedural violations. As for further actions, the family members still need to entrust a lawyer to intervene as soon as possible. Understand the relevant case facts as early as possible and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties in a professional manner.
02 Unfortunately, I was taken away by the police. What should I pay attention to?
What I mentioned earlier is what we should do when the police burst into our home and caught us off guard. In fact, this is just the beginning of the entire criminal prosecution process. The first step in a long march of thousands of miles, the confrontation with the police has just begun. Now let me talk about what we should do if we are really unfortunately arrested by the police and forced to take coercive measures.
1. Contact the lawyer promptly and establish contact as early as possible
Be sure to let the family members contact the lawyer as soon as possible The detained parties should establish communication channels with their lawyers as soon as possible. However, before establishing contact with the lawyer, the detained client must have experienced the first formal interrogation by the police. Why is it said with such certainty? Because the Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the criminal suspect has been interrogated or taken by the investigative agency for the first time. From the date of compulsory measures, the person has the right to entrust a defender. The police will interrogate the person as soon as possible after taking compulsory measures against the person concerned, and prepare a transcript of the interrogation.
Don't fantasize, let alone talk about the plot in the TV series. I won't speak until my lawyer arrives; I require my lawyer to be present and participate in the interrogation. Because this is stipulated in the laws of countries with common law systems, the right to the presence of lawyers is not included in my country’s Criminal Procedure Law. Therefore, the parties involved can only deal with it alone when being interrogated by investigators.
2. Four major points that parties should pay attention to when facing interrogation
In this case, the question arises. As a party against whom compulsory measures are taken, you should How to correctly respond to interrogations by police investigators? As for the substantive issues in the interrogation, I have briefly summarized them in the previous content by saying "tell no lies and tell no truth". Next, I will talk about what issues the person being interrogated should pay attention to during the police interrogation and preparation of interrogation transcripts.
(1) Interrogation staffing
When the police interrogate a client, more than two people must be present, and these two people must be investigators.
strong>It cannot be unrelated personnel such as security guards or temporary workers; if the person concerned is detained in the detention center, the interrogation must be conducted in the detention center and cannot be conducted outside the detention center. If the person concerned has just been subjected to compulsory measures, MeasuresIf the person has not been sent to a detention center, the interrogation location must be at the police station or the interrogation room within the public security bureau. The above information is also recorded simultaneously at the beginning of the interrogation transcript. Therefore, when signing the final interrogation transcript, you must first pay attention to whether the identity of the interrogator recorded in the transcript is legal, and whether the interrogator recorded in the transcript is consistent with the actual person. The interrogators are consistent, and whether the interrogation location complies with legal requirements and is a reflection of the real interrogation location.
(2) Interrogation time arrangement
The interrogation time should be within a reasonable time period. For example, the police conducted interrogations in the middle of the night without guaranteeing the parties’ rest, or used continuous and uninterrupted fatigue interrogation without guaranteeing the parties’ rest, food and water, and used disguised torture to extract confessions from the parties. The first point of attention for lawyers when judging whether investigators are fatigued during interrogation is the interrogation time in each interrogation transcript, to see if there are still interrogations after the detention center has reached its daily closing time (of course, This kind of situation refers to the kind that is particularly late, and the occasional temporary overtime does not matter), or the interrogation is continued by different groups of investigators during a continuous period of time, or the interrogation is continued after only giving the parties a small amount of rest time. Normal interrogation situation. Therefore, it is particularly important to accurately record the interrogation time in the interrogation transcript.If the party discovers that the time recorded in the interrogation transcript is incorrect during the interrogation, the interrogating investigators will be required to change the interrogation time to the correct interrogation time.
(3) Avoid falling into "leading questions" and protect your legitimate rights and interests
After passing the interrogator and interrogation time and place, the interrogation transcript gets to the point , that is, the main text part of the interrogation transcript. When the party is first interrogated, the party's identity information, whether he is a deputy to the National People's Congress, and the notification of the suspect's rights and obligations will be asked. After that, there will be interrogations related to the case. In terms of answering questions , I have already said how to answer, and here I would like to remind you, Be careful of the "leading questions" of investigators. If you are not careful, you may fall into the "pit" of investigators' leading questions. Many responsibilities will be placed on you that do not belong to you.
The most classic elicitation question is "Did you kill people with this knife?" On the surface, the question seems to be about the murder weapon, but the question itself contains the implicit assumption that you are the murderer. internal logic. Therefore, you must be particularly careful about the investigators' leading questions during interrogations. If you encounter investigators using leading questions to ask questions, you must explain the situation in detail to avoid falling into the investigators' logical trap. In criminal interrogation, extorting confessions by torture is prohibited, but leading questions are not prohibited, so the parties concerned must pay special attention.
When investigators record the transcripts of the parties, they will not 100% restore the statements of the parties. Instead, they will summarize the meaning of the statements of the parties in the same way as the clerk records when a civil case is opened. A question arises here. What should we do if there is a deviation between the statement of the party in the transcript recorded by the investigators and the statement made by the party himself on the spot? Of course, we must ask the investigators to change the transcript, whether they are willing or not, we must insist, no If we are asked to change the transcript, we will not sign it, or we may write at the end of the transcript, "The record is inconsistent with what I said."
Don’t take this suggestion as a joke. In the process of real case handling, there have been more than one situations where the transcripts were inconsistent with the statements of the parties, and the parties were basically in the way. At the police's urging, he quickly read through the transcript and signed it quickly, or he was asked to sign without being allowed to read the transcript carefully. He did not read the transcript carefully and signed at the end of the transcript, "I have read the above x pages of the transcript, and it matches what I said." Finally, When the lawyer checked the transcript with the client, he found that what was written was completely different from what was said.
Some people think that it is possible to point out during the trial that the transcript is not the true statement of the parties at that time. At this time, the prosecutor will come up with the "three axes": "Did the police use torture to extract confessions during the interrogation?" "Have I read the transcript at that time?" ""Did you sign it voluntarily?" Basically, after the three-axe was swung out, it is only possible to reverse the interrogation transcript by applying for access to the simultaneous audio and video recordings. However, with the existence of these "three-axe", the court basically The application for access to simultaneous audio and video recordings will also be rejected and the interrogation transcripts will be accepted as final evidence. Therefore, it is particularly important to promptly ask investigators to modify any discrepancies with their own statements during the interrogation.When investigators do not use torture to extract confessions, it is even more difficult to change the content of the interrogation after signing.
I believe that no matter who it is, what they fear most is that they will be tortured by the investigative agencies during the interrogation process, which will cause the parties to suffer such a physical or mental blow that they will not be able to bear it. Such a blow resulted in a confession that was contrary to the true intention of the person concerned.
So what is torture to extract a confession?
According to Articles 2 and 3 of the "Provisions on Certain Issues Concerning the Strict Exclusion of Illegal Evidence in the Handling of Criminal Cases" It can be seen from the provisions of Article 4 that violent methods such as beatings, illegal use of restraints, or harsh methods that are disguised as corporal punishment; threats of violence or serious damage to the legitimate rights and interests of the person and his close relatives are used; illegal detention and other illegal physical restrictions are used. Confessions of criminal suspects and defendants are collected through free methods; the above three situations can be regarded as extorting confessions through torture.
It can be seen that torture to extract confessions not only includes the physical violence suffered by the parties, but also includes serious mental threats. After clarifying the specific circumstances of torture to extract a confession, how should the parties protect their rights and interests if they are tortured to extract a confession during the interrogation process.
(4) If a person is tortured to extract a confession, the evidence needed to safeguard his rights
First of all, it is necessary to firmly remember the time and place of the tortured confession and the investigation involved in the interrogation. personnel. Because after the party was tortured to extract a confession, he applied for the exclusion of illegal evidence and excluded the transcripts obtained by torture. When making the application, he must first provide clues or evidence materials about the torture. The clues here refer to Point to the clear person, time, place and method suspected of illegal evidence collection. Therefore, if the person concerned is tortured to extract a confession, he must keep the relevant clues firmly in mind, otherwise it will be extremely difficult to apply for exclusion without clues.
Secondly, according to the "People's Court Rules for Excluding Illegal Evidence in Criminal Cases (Trial)", if you want to apply for the exclusion of illegal evidence, one way is to provide relevant clues, and the other way is to provide relevant materials, and the content of the materials includes Injury photos, physical examination records, hospital medical records, interrogation transcripts, interrogation audio and video recordings, or testimonies of fellow prisoners, etc., which can reflect illegal evidence collection. Therefore,after being tortured to extract a confession, the client can report the situation to the prison guards in the detention center and request treatment by doctors in the detention center or request to be transferred to a hospital for treatment; or he or she can have the prosecutor of the prison visit the prison room every day. Cangshi reported the situation of being tortured to the prosecutor,this is not done so that they can immediately protect your rights and interests, just to preserve enough evidence of tortured confessions. In order to facilitate subsequent applications to exclude illegal evidence, transcripts obtained through torture and extorted confessions will be excluded from the final evidence.
03 Conclusion
The above is what I used in two articles As a party concerned, we must not think that after mastering this information, we can fight against the investigative agencies on our own. Knowing these is to protect your rights. Protecting yourself is the first priority. Leave the rest to professionals to serve you.
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