All of ymeskhout's Comments + Replies

I already said I don't consider alternative explanations on their own to be indicative of lying. I don't know where you're getting this notion that speculation is evasion, here's what I said on the matter:

If a client is either factually innocent or guilty-but-sober-minded, there’s no difficulty getting them to admit the incriminating nature of incriminating evidence. If a client is lying — whether to me, themselves, or just desperately trying to manifest a reality which doesn’t exist — it’s like pulling teeth.

5Jiro
You've described this kind of speculation as specific to liars, yet innocent people will end up having to do it too. If an innocent person was shown evidence, of course he's going to try to explain why the evidence is consistent with his innocence. Why do you think he wouldn't do this?

If they have no idea what's going on then there's no need for this exercise. There's other ways to cooperate in truth-seeking.

2Jiro
If they have no idea what is going on, but have been accused, they need to do what they can to maximize the chance of being believed. Sometimes this means responding with a theory. And such responses will look like evasion by your standards. There aren't (useful) "other ways" for an innocent person with no direct knowledge to act, unless he gets lucky, like by catching the culprit.

I don't consider alternative explanations on their own to be indicative of lying, especially if the alternative theory as a whole more accurately comports with reality. This is why there are two parts to this exercise: surviving the gauntlet of facts and dethroning the other survivor (if any).

2Jiro
But if the innocent person doesn't know what's going on (other than his own innocence), his alternative theory might not comport with reality--because he has no idea what's going on. All he can do is make hypotheses and try to confirm them. It may take several hypotheses before he gets it right. If you're going to "force liars to commit to a single alternative theory", you've put the innocent person in a position where unless he gets lucky and picks the right answer the first time, he can't defend himself because he committed to the theory and it turned out not to be true, and he doesn't get to change it.

Why would lying be a natural response for a non-liar falsely accused of lying?

2Jiro
The response wouldn't actually be lying, but it would be indistinguishable by an outsider from the kind of deflection that you describe here and that you consider part of lying. And I don't think "this example is unrealistically convenient" lets you handwave this away. The exact response "maybe a friend of Gillian's stopped over" is specific to your example, but that type of response is not. If Jake is innocent in this scenario but accused of lying, the only possible response is to try to come up with ways to explain the available information. That's the exact same thing that would be deflection when done by a guilty person.

I've never encountered this framework before but I'm curious. What do you find useful about it?

3Matt Goldenberg
It gives me everything I need to replicate the ability. I just step by step bring on the motivation, emotions, beliefs, and then follow the steps, and I can do the same thing! Whereas, just reading your post, I get a sense you have a way of really getting down to the truth, but replicating it feels quite hard.

It's certainly possible to just constantly amend a theory and keep it technically cohesive, but I've found that even dedicated liars eventually throw in the gauntlet after their contortions become too much to bear. Even if a liar refuses to give up, they still have to grapple with trying to unseat the truthful (and much less convoluted) theory. That's why there's two parts to this exercise: surviving the gauntlet and dethroning the other survivor.

I didn't take a position on what balance between convenience vs ambiguity we should strike, it's always context-dependent. That said, second-person pronouns like "you" tend to be significantly less ambiguous than third-person pronouns. Because you generally know who is talking to you directly (see what I did there?) whereas "they" can potentially refer to anyone in the world.

I mentioned this in another comment, I used an unrealistically convenient example for illustrative purposes. A real-life application of my rubric on a real-life lie would be much more complicated and take multiple detours.

1Jiao Bu
There's still a principle I feel needs addressed.  An authority figure (or at least someone who is supposed to be my ally) seems to be turning up the heat, adding pressure, escalating, questioning my veracity, fishing around for lies.  And in that situation, evasive, defensive (possibly offense as a defense) and justifying tactics could be a natural response for the innocent. Simply put, how do you make useful distinctions within that?

I'm unclear on what the distinction is exactly. This is a tutorial that works for catching a talented liar but also creating common knowledge between yourself and a bad liar.

The example was intended to be unrealistically convenient, since the goal there was just an illustrative example. Had I used an actual lie narrative from one of my clients (for example) it would've gotten very convoluted and wordy, and more likely to confuse the reader.

I acknowledge there are limitations when you're dealing with unknowable lies. Beyond that, it was really hard to figure out how rare "lies with convenient flaws" really are. I don't know what denominator I'd use (how many lies are in the universe? which ones count?) or how I'd calculate the numerator.

I think a realistic example would be useful! I suspect a lot of the nuance (nuance that might feel obvious to you) is in how to apply this over a long conversation with lots of data points, amendments on both sides, etc.

The whole point of the sentence was to demonstrate how bad ambiguity can get with pronouns, and this exchange is demonstrating my point exactly. The issue might be that you're making some (very reasonable) assumptions without noticing it narrows the range of possible interpretations. The only unambiguous part of the sentence is "John told Mark", but every other he can be either John or Mark.

Edit: my apologies for any rude tone, it was not intentional. All of us necessarily make reasonable assumptions to narrow ambiguity in our day to day conversations and it can be hard to completely jettison the habit.

3Dacyn
I don't agree that I am making unwarranted assumptions; I think what you call "assumptions" are merely observations about the meanings of words. I agree that it is hard to program an AI to determine who the "he"s refer to, but I think as a matter of fact the meanings of those words don't allow for any other possible interpretation. It's just hard to explain to an AI what the meanings of words are. Anyway I'm not sure if it is productive to argue this any further as we seem to be repeating ourselves.

No, because John could be speaking about himself administering the medication. It's also possible to refuse to do something you've already acknowledged you should do, so the 3rd he could still be John regardless of who is being told what.

3Dacyn
If it's about John administering the medication then you'd have to say "... he refused to let him". But the sentence did not claim John merely acknowledged that he should administer the medication, it claimed John was the originator of that statement. Is John supposed to be refusing his own requests?

That's the thing, I generally present as very masculine and if anyone referred to me as 'she' I would find it more confusing than anything else. If I actually cared, maybe I'd look for what effeminate signals I gave off, but I can't imagine a scenario where I would find it offensive or get mad at the person.

Yes, and there were areas I could've gotten into in terms of how other languages rely on pronouns. One that I am most familiar with is French and its distinction between singular and plural 'you' (tu & vous), and vous also can be singular if used formally. So if anyone is translating from French, you have to make a judgment call regarding whether each vous is plural or formal singular. Some information is inevitably lost in the transfer.

My entire criticism of his luxury beliefs framework is that it is arbitrary and applied in a selective ad-hoc manner, largely for the purpose of flattering one's pre-existing political sensibilities. The very fact that you're adding all these previously unmentioned rule amendments reinforces my thesis exactly. If you think my criticism is off-base, it would be helpful if you pointed out exactly where it is contradicted. Something like "if your critique is correct then we should expect X, but instead we see Y" would be neat.

1Jiro
I don't have to make up things after the fact to say "he probably chose the polygamy example because polygamy is weird". It's obvious.

He's not asserting that the upper class rejected monogamy in a way that was widely adopted. He does say this about his classmates, but his classmates aren't the entire upper class.

He claimed that monogamy was rejected by the upper class sufficiently enough to cause divorce and single parenthood to spike, he literally says "The upper class got high on their own supply." I consider that "widely adopted", and if you disagree with my description, it helps to specify exactly why. Regarding his classmates, his favorite anecdote has been one person who says polya... (read more)

1Jiro
There are various types of opposition to monogamy. Outright support of polygamy is not the only one. Yes you can. Of course, it's not "making it up", it's "figuring it out". If there are obvious explanations why he might want to use that example other than "he's biased against leftists", you shouldn't jump to "he's biased against leftists". And "polygamy is a lot weirder" is too obvious an explanation for you to just ignore it. If you're criticizing his version and not your version, you pretty much are required to accept his framework.

Sure, polyamory is bizarre and unconventional, but that only further undermines Henderson's assertion that it was widely adopted (enough to have an impact) by both the upper and lower class of society circa 1960-1970s.

I didn't present the oil tycoon story as a luxury belief example, but rather as an example of a story that carried the same "saying but not doing" lesson. I did present "support for a harsh criminal justice system" as an example of a luxury belief that Henderson would contest, even though it perfectly fits his template.

0Jiro
He's not asserting that the upper class rejected monogamy in a way that was widely adopted. He does say this about his classmates, but his classmates aren't the entire upper class. You may be assuming that if the lower classes did it, and the upper classes promote it, that implies that the upper classes must be responsible for the lower classes doing it. That doesn't follow. A luxury belief is something that people have on an individual level, so there's no requirement that the individual have any influence. (In this case, I'd say that there are several aspects to rejecting monogamy, and some are common enough beliefs that the upper class may have some influence, and some are not. Polygamy falls in the second category.) You said that he didn't use such a story because he thinks anti-leftist examples are uniquely compelling. "It isn't bizarrely unconventional" and "it isn't even a luxury belief" are alternate explanations to "he's biased against leftists". Support for a harsh criminal justice system isn't bizarrely unconventional, so there is still a reason other than "he's biased against leftists". And luxury beliefs should imply a more extreme elite/non-elite imbalance than just "somewhat fewer people support it". A substantial number of poor people support a harsh criminal justice system, even if not as many as rich people. For the same reason, supporting Trump isn't a luxury belief.

By being cavalier about the danger, you signal that you are not among the lower-status people for whom following the advice is dangerous. The people for whom the behavior is dangerous are either smart enough to realize it, but they won't publicly contradict you, because that would mean drawing attention to their lower status; or are stupid and will follow your advice and will get hurt (which is what makes it a costly signal).

This is a really good reformulation of the underlying idea behind "luxury beliefs" that improves upon it and makes it much more useful.

My kingdom for a truly universal footnote format

I wanted to include very basic examples first:

For example, observing that most birds can fly, assuming that flight is a necessary trait for being classified as a bird (composition), and subsequently excluding penguins from being birds because they don’t fly (division). Or observing that mammals tend to have fur, assuming fur is a necessary trait for being a mammal, and therefore excluding dolphins as not mammals. Or observing that weapons tend to cause bleeding and therefore excluding blunt instruments like clubs and batons. The list goes on.

I am planning ... (read more)

he is not only willing to have an affair, but he’s willing to break the law to hide it.

This too is another example of the fallacy I'm describing. The fact that OJ Simpson was acquitted of a double homicide doesn't change my mind that he did in fact kill two people, all it tells me is that the legal system did not find him guilty of the allegations. If someone started every conversation about OJ with "exonerated celebrity football player OJ Simpson", it's obvious what connotations they're trying to convey without having to communicate them directly.

I'm sorry, but this is exactly the fallacy I'm describing in my post. Sometimes the innocent is convicted, and sometimes the guilty is acquitted, which means the only thing that makes "convicted" true in all circumstances is "the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations". Nothing more. Now, you may certainly make very plausible Bayesian predictions about the fact that someone has been convicted, but they will always be probabilistic rather than determinative.

Consider the hypothetical where Trump's conviction gets overturned or vacate... (read more)

I disagree that there is such a thing as objective "centrality", just as I disagree there is such a thing as objective definitions. All language is made-up, and it's only useful to the extent others share your (arbitrarily designated) meaning or boundaries. There are scores of real-life examples that clearly illustrate this, such as the fact that the word for 'sake' refers to all alcoholic drinks in Japanese, or how some languages make a distinction between maternal/paternal aunt/uncle, or how Russian treats light blue and dark blue as separate colors, etc... (read more)

2AnthonyC
In the space of all possible languages and words, sure, but real languages are (or at least always have been to date on Earth) created and used by humans, with human minds/tendencies. Despite massive cultural/historical/individual variation, that still moves us quite a ways away from truly, fully arbitrary word meanings. I see two counterpoints to your observation of how different languages split and lump concepts:  1) Languages tend to cluster in the ways they do or don't split. Number of basic color words varies but the order in which they appear as number increases is mostly constant. Number of relationship words varies but as it increases the splitting happens along the axes of gender and degree-of-relatedness and which line we're related through. Most times a language has a hard-to-translate word, it can still be translated as a compound word, and if not, it can usually be roughly defined in a sentence or two, and work as a loanword from then on.  2) Languages tend to enable new word formation by native speakers with relatively easy agreement on their meaning. English has (had?) no single word meaning "niece and nephew" but many people hear or read the word "nibling" for the first time and figure out the intended meaning with no explanation whatsoever. There's also things like the bouba/kiki effect, which points towards how some of the ways sound ties to meaning are related to synesthesia and metaphor. On the other hand jargon (in any field including law) - where words are actually defined by inhuman category boundaries feels much less natural to most people. From an objective perspective the jargon words are least arbitrary. However, the ease of learning natural language words suggests they're not so much arbitrary as they are running along grooves natural to human thought instead of natural to the physical, non-human world.

I think this post might be a good illustration of the sticker shortcut fallacy I'm describing. Instead of directly describing the information you want to impart, you're instead relying upon the label dredging up enough 'good enough' connotations attached to it.

  • I think it's non-fallacious to use language as a shorthand, the same way we say "do you want to play baseball?" rather than "do you want to play a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding?"
  • What information, specifically, do you believe "Trump
... (read more)
2DirectedEvolution
  I disagree. The label 'dredges up' (implies) a sound argument. One syllogism that might be implied by "Trump: convicted felon" is something like this: This is a valid syllogism, though you may reject the premise. I don’t think it qualifies as deceptively bad. It could be false but popular, but that has to be argued.

If the problem is ad hoc application, then it doesn't matter if the archetype is "central" or not, no?

My objection to "MLK is a criminal" is that it has to make too many unannounced jumps to get to its conclusion. The principle I can glean from this type of denouncement is something along the lines of "[Criminals] should not be honored by statutes" but whether or not this is a good argument depends entirely on what definition of [criminal] we're using. If we adopt a barebones definition of the word, we'd end up with something like "[anyone who has ever bro... (read more)

Indeed, it's the same fallacy.

Edit: for those who disagree, can you explain why? I don't believe that "Trump is a convicted felon" tells us anything new except that a court found him guilty of a felony. I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but so what? If people are actually interested in the connotation avalanche that is attached to that label (such as 'bad person', 'dishonorable', 'malicious', etc) then why not just use those direct descriptions instead?

1DirectedEvolution
Because those are unsupported claims about his character, while noting his conviction (particularly given that he was covering up an affair) is specific evidence of his bad character. Moreover, it is evidence of a particular way in which his character is bad - he is not only willing to have an affair, but he’s willing to break the law to hide it. If I tell you X is a bad person, that tells you nothing except my opinion of them. If I say “they were recently convicted of a felony for falsifying business records covering up an affair,” you can judge for yourself whether or not you think this fact reflects on their character or is worthy of punishment (ie by denying them your vote for President).

It's interesting hearing about your background. One of my approaches when I negotiate cases with prosecutors is that I openly admit the strengths of the government's case. I've recently had a factually innocent client who was charged as an accessory to burglary, but it seemed obvious to me she had no idea what the other people were up to. When I talked to the prosecutor, I fully acknowledged "This aspect does indeed look bad for my client, but..." and I've always wondered whether this approach has any effect. In this particular instance I did get the case dismissed (and many others like it), but I'm curious if it's a lesson I can continue extrapolating.

2frontier64
Yeah openly admitting that I have a strong case is good for credibility building. One of the most annoying things is when defense attorneys ask, "Why is Alice is getting a sweetheart plea deal and Bob is getting jail time when they both committed the same crime and both have minimal criminal history???" "Uh, Alice's case is almost purely circumstantial while Bob is caught on camera, that's the difference." "But they both did the same bad thing!" "Do you understand how plea deals work?" "[Some nonsense showing that the defense attorney indeed doesn't know how plea deals work]"

I think I recognize the power I wield in these circumstances. However, it only exists because I work to ensure my credibility doesn't get diluted too often.

5frontier64
Yeah I stupidly left out the key point of my comment. Added it in edit.

I think they fully know they're lying about the facts. Where I'm more inclined to believe they've achieved self-deception is within the realm of positive thinking and unshakeable confidence about their anticipated results. Many of my clients seem to earnestly believe that their antics will get their case dismissed or somehow overturned on appeal, but that seems to be a coping strategy necessary to cope with the unimaginable torture of the upcoming years in prison.

The American Bar Association writes the Model Rules of Professional Conduct which are not governing but intended to serve as a template for attorney bars to adopt. Right off the bat that's at least 50 different jurisdictions (plus DC, plus Puerto Rico, plus federal judicial districts, plus many more) that may or may not adopt the RPCs with or without any modifications. Sometimes the modifications are done to comport with state constitution, a judicial committee, a piece of legislation, new case law, or whatever else. So very often, I don't even know that I... (read more)

-1M. Y. Zuo
The disclaimer doesn’t need to enumerate a full list, as long as it points out that a nebulous cloud of potential and actual caveats exists and may apply is sufficient.

You would think that the revolving door would help repeat offenders wisen up through experience, but the overriding effect is that they're repeat offenders precisely because they lack the capacity to wisen up.

What happened with 11 magic words is too arcane and unpredictable to "game". It mystified even me, and I've had the experience of going through criminal proceedings magnitudes more times than even my most decorated clients. I've commented here to a similar question but gaining my sympathy through lying is 1) not likely to be consequential and 2) very likely to backfire.

Correct, there are indeed potential advantages to lying to your attorney under very specific and narrow circumstances. You also have to consider the risky gamble this presents because you can't predict every aspect of the machinery. Maybe the jury never would've paid attention to the alibi aspect of the case, but if the alibi witnesses get exposed as liars by the prosecution, that alone could swing jurors from acquittal and towards conviction.

If a client tells me they know for sure that their alibi witness will be lying in their favor, then I'm not allowed to elicit the false testimony from that witness. If they admit to me to robbing the store but (truthfully and without omissions) say they were wearing a mask and functional gloves, then that lets me know what facets to focus on and what to avoid. If they're sure enough they left no fingerprints, then I can comfortably ask the investigating detectives if any fingerprints were found. If the circumstances allow it, then I may even get my own exp... (read more)

3ErickBall
So, then it seems like the client's best move in this scenario is to lie to you strategically, or at least omit information strategically. They could say "I know for sure you won't find any fingerprints or identifiable face in the camera footage" and "I think my friends will confirm that I was playing video games with them", and as long as they don't actually tell you that's a lie, you can put those friends on the stand, right?

Not that exact line, but that notion is communicated all the time. You can imagine that it's not very convincing.

That's interesting, I was not aware of this dynamic. Were there any particular posts that served as a good summary or lodestar for people's stances on this topic?

As a relative outsider and with the job I have (and also fully acknowledging the self-serving aspect of what I'm about to say) this strikes me as a naive and self-destructive position to hold. People in the real world lie, cheat, manipulate, and exploit others, and it seems patently obvious to me that we need mechanisms to discourage that behavior. A culture of disdain towards that conduct is only one aspect of that fight.

3trevor
Never mind, I think it's more of an EA thing than a Lesswrong thing. If you're more focused on rationality than effective altruism then I'm not sure how helpful it will be. Behavior discouraging mechanisms are of course a basic feature of life, but reality is often more complicated than that. I think that the lodestar post is Social Dark Matter, which as a public attorney you'll probably find pretty interesting anyway even though it's long.

Baby, I'm the only one you need.

The closest author I found would be the The Secret Barrister from the UK.

FWIW when I was having these conversations with my clients, I was explicitly thinking of the exact same ideas presented in the Sequences. I do think that overall, LW would benefit from a higher appreciation of deception and how it can manifest in the real world. The scenarios I outlined are almost cartoonish, but they're very real, and I thought it useful to demonstrate how I used very basic rationalist tools to uncover lies.

Again, I think it was a fine and enjoyable post.

But I didn't see where you "demonstrate how I used very basic rationalist tools to uncover lies," which could have improved the post, and I don't think this really explored any underappreciated parts of "deception and how it can manifest in the real world" - which I agree is underappreciated. Unfortunately, this post didn't provide much clarity about how to find it, or how to think about it. So again, it's a fine post, good stories, and I agree they illustrate being more confused by fiction than reality, and other rationalist virtues, but as I said, it was not "the type of post that leads people to a more nuanced or better view of any of the things discussed." 

Ruby1614

I'd be pretty interested in the non-cartoonish version, also from people who are more competent and savvy.

I get that a lot of people are concerned about this post due to the unabashedly displayed contempt for the clients

I hope it was crystal clear that if I had any contempt, it was strictly reserved to the clients who feebly but blatantly lied to me. Even then, being lied to happens so often that it only bothers me when it's persistent and pervasive past the point of it being funny.

2trevor
Ah, sorry, I probably should have explained something important: around a decade or so ago, Lesswrong people and others noticed that the act of finding and justifying contempt for Acceptable Targets was actually an unexpectedly serious flaw in the human brain. It looks kinda bad on the surface (causing global conflict and outgrouping and all), but it's actually far, far worse. I think this might have been noticed around the time of the rise of wokeness, and when EA started getting closer to the rationalist movement (EAs, too, often felt intense negative emotions about people who aren't "getting with the program", although now that they know about it, most know to mitigate the effect). The rabbit hole for this is surprisingly deep, and different Lesswrong users have different stances on the human drive for search and justification of Acceptable Targets. You basically walked into invisible helicopter blades here; I'm not sure what could have possibly have been done to avoid it.

Not gonna lie, I admire Saul Goodman and his (non-illegal) courtroom antics. The first season of Better Call Saul was also a highly authentic vignette into public defender life.

2PoignardAzur
Did you ever get one of your clients to use the "Your honor, I'm very sorry, I'll never do it again" line?

I could have been more precise with my wording, but I never meant to imply that there are no innocent defendants.

Agreed. Almost all the advice in the link is too useless or too attenuated to consider.

It depends on the jurisdiction. Some states only recognize "marital communications" privilege which means whatever is going to be barred has to be something that was disclosed within the sanctity of wedded communications. States also differ on whether the privilege must be raised by the witness or by the defendant.

3CronoDAS
Ah. It turns out that I was mistaken in thinking that the 5th Amendment guaranteed the right to refuse to testify against one's spouse; the text of the amendment doesn't mention spouses at all. (Mandela effect strikes again?)

L A Y E R S of happy little accidents

It sounds like with "factual lies" you're saying that certain lies are about something that can easily be verified, and thus you're unlikely to convince other people that you're being truthful.

Not necessarily, I was referring to lies about the case itself, and those always have the potential to be exposed by either my investigations or the prosecutor.

Why do you say that sympathy lies are not very consequential (assuming they are successful)? My model is that defendants have a pretty large range for how hard they could work on the case, working harder incre

... (read more)

I appreciate the feedback but it's a tension with no obvious answer. Writing simply is a much higher priority for my argumentative writing, where clarity takes precedence. Simplicity takes a backseat for my story-telling prose because the aim is painting an aesthetic collage with my words as much as it is conveying information. There are small poetic touches that I treasure and I would think others would also appreciate. I could have used puppet instead of marionette, but it makes me picture something out of Sesame Street where the puppeteer is below the p... (read more)

7Ruby
For balanced feedback, I enjoyed the choice of diction, and particularly those two words. Trivia: in racetracks, a "chicane" is a random "unnecessary" kink or twist inserted to make it more complicated (and more challenging/fun).
8Adam Zerner
Very good point. I mistakenly assumed that the only goal is to communicate one's ideas, but in retrospect it is obvious that things like -- I'm not sure how to describe this. Aesthetics? Artfulness? How well it flows? -- matter as well, and that such things are a big part of what you were going for in this post. Therefore I take back what I said and think it makes a lot of sense to use colorful, non-simple words. I'm glad I learned this. I'm going to keep it in mind when I read things and hopefully incorporate it into my own writing as well.

I appreciate this systemic approach to analyzing lying! The Pros/Cons depend heavily on the type of lie, and you can split it roughly between "factual lies" and "sympathy lies". Factual lies are about whether or not this thing did or did not happen, while sympathy lies are used to generate sympathy from others (e.g. "if I get convicted I'll lose everything").

Sympathy lies are more likely to be successful, but they're also not very consequential. It's possible that it could have an effect at the slimmest of margins, but the risks give it an expected payoff ... (read more)

It sounds like with "factual lies" you're saying that certain lies are about something that can easily be verified, and thus you're unlikely to convince other people that you're being truthful. Is that accurate? If so, that definitely makes sense. It seems like it's almost always a bad idea to lie in such situations.

Why do you say that sympathy lies are not very consequential (assuming they are successful)? My model is that defendants have a pretty large range for how hard they could work on the case, working harder increases the odds of of winning by a go... (read more)

They did go through with it! And yeah they were already dating so she was cool with it. At first he was beaming because he thought his case would get thrown out soon enough, but I had to explain to him that spousal privilege does not apply retroactively, but even if it did it would only have protected communications made between each other and not events either would have independently witnessed. He looked earnestly surprised and crushed, and of course he didn't tell me his scheme beforehand because he know I would have told him it was idiotic.

3CronoDAS
That's surprising and I think I must be missing some context. Random Googling seems to suggest that spousal testimonial privilege applies to events before the marriage, at least in federal court - if he did legally marry his girlfriend, she shouldn't have had to testify at his trial if she didn't want to. Different states do treat spousal privilege differently, though, but am I missing something else? Did the police learn something from the girlfriend before the marriage that the prosecution can use in court without having her testify?

Interesting! I wasn't aware of this exception. Writing about the law is hard because there are always a million different caveats, some of which will be obsolete by the next year.

2M. Y. Zuo
Why not add a disclaimer spelling out that what’s written could be false or misleading depending on the caveats?

It's perfectly reasonable for any client to be suspicious of my motivations and alignment, I'm after all paid directly by the same government that is gunning to throw them behind bars! The clients that are most honest with me are overwhelmingly either newbies to the criminal justice system or factually innocent. The ones who lie to me the most are frequent flyers whose guilt is not in doubt (non-legally speaking). Everyone wants to be let out of jail, the problem is that the latter group has no viable recourse available to make that happen, and their typical temperament drifts them towards pathetic dishonesty.

5jmh
An unsurprising corollation there but I have to wonder if there is not also some causative relationship present as well.
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