That's silly. Research psychologists seek to find common mental processes, and while there are some whose methodology can be challenged, that's true for any research area. Have you ever read a single psychology study?

Yet the European model has not produced better medical researchers, quantitative macroeconomists, or weather predictors.

The author is a graduate student in psychology, not an amateur. Graduate students are expected to write academic journal articles as part of their studies.

That's just silly.

Not going to happen. First of all, I've never seen a contingency contract like that, and the very idea is kind of bizarre. Secondly, if he sued you he's likely going to stop being your lawyer, and loses the ability to pursue the original defendant's assets. Thirdly, if you are doing a contingency case chances are you don't have money yourself. Fourthly, a contract like that could likely be voided by a court. Fifthly, any lawyer who tried enforcing a contract like that could just be countersued for malpractice, because suing a judgment-proof defendant ain't the smartest idea in the world.

Or just not set up a service whose main purpose is to locate copyrighted materials?

True, although you can generally go after assets that have been transferred out of the corporation in an attempt to avoid the judgment. The dude can't just pay himself a $6,000,000 "bonus" and then tell the other side that the company's broke.

Well hearsay applies to police statements as well; a lot of statements contained in police reports, for example, are inadmissible hearsay, though prosecutors sometimes try to get them in. The system is generally loaded against the innocent, though, simply because of the usual disparity in resources between the state and the defendant (though not always).

My point was just that as the accused you're not in the best position to determine what "time-sensitive information" is, and you certainly can't trust the police on that matter, because they will have no problem trying to guilt you. See, for example, Rhode Island v. Innis. At the very least invoke your right to remain silent, ask for a lawyer, and if the cops keep pressuring you or try guilting you about "time-sensitive information" and you feel that guilty about it you might be able to get what you say tossed at trial if it's used against you.

As for the opinions of judges, I moved from law to the sciences so I like to think I have a good perspective on both, and I've found that lawyers and scientists frequently get the other subject wrong, at least in the sense that they frequently don't really understand what the other is trying to accomplish. Approaching it as a science would not be a good idea for many areas of legal reasoning. Judges need to make distinctions between things that are frequently on a continuum. Yes, you can theoretically identify someone from an IP address, just like you can identify someone from a mail address or a telephone number. But it's harder with an IP address. The judge therefore has to decide where on the continuum does it get hard enough to identify someone to the extent that it's not really "personally-identifiable information" as contemplated by the contract; he picked IP address on the "not PII" side of the spectrum and frankly I probably would have done the same thing. And the judge didn't poll law professors, but in a sense they did poll judges -- for the exact point of law you point to, the judge cites another court case (1 judge) and an appellate court decision (at least 3 judges) who came to the same conclusion. I mean, scrolling through the slashdot story you posted, a lot of the commenters (and I would suspect a good percentage of them are network engineers, programmers who work with networking, etc.) agree with the judge.

It's entirely possible that in Virginia Beach police officers are allowed to testify at sentencing, though if so I think that would be an unusual situation compared to most jurisdictions. Alternately, he may mean that when deciding on the verdict or the sentence the judge may take Bruch's testimony about cooperation into account. Either way, I don't think Bruch is intentionally making things up, but I do think he is probably overestimating his own importance to the process. For that tiny minority of cases that actually go to trial and sentencing, the prosecutor presents the charges and guilt is decided based on statute, and the judge doesn't have much discretion to ignore it. The judge may (or may not) have discretion when it comes to sentencing, but the prosecutors are the state's mouthpiece when it comes to sentencing, and the judge is probably not going to care much about what Bruch has to say. Also, you have to realize the entire criminal justice system with its multiple layers of procedure was created to deal with human limitations. Bruch might think he's some sort of wise, objective adjudicator but in real life nobody is, not even the judge. That's why these procedures are put in place.

Is it possible that talking to the police without invoking your right to remain silent could benefit you in the long run? I guess if the stars align right it's possible. But 9,999 times out of 10,000, it's better to talk to a lawyer before talking to the police, so you'd be taking a pretty huge gamble not doing so. And it would really be a gamble because you are never going to be in the position, as the accused, where you can objectively evaluate whether it's possible or not, no matter how smart or well-educated you are. And there are plenty of honest cops who try to put innocent people away, so it's not really a question of corrupt or not, it's just that you don't want to gamble that the police will have a hunch you're innocent rather than a hunch that you're guilty.

Anyway I hope I don't come off as too harsh, you're obviously a smart guy and you've given this a lot of thought, it's just that these issues have been debated for over 200 years and I think you're ignoring a lot of that history and taking an overly rosy view of the police. Since you seem to have an interest in the law, have you thought of pulling a Karl Auerbach and just actually going to law school? The schools are desperate for applicants so strong candidates have lately been able to negotiate pretty nice scholarship packages.

The general rule is you can use statements that the opposing party says against them. There's a complicated reasoning behind it, but basically it's to avoid letting you using self-serving statements in your defense without giving the jury or the judge the opportunity to evaluate them.

Well Duane is essentially giving legal, not moral advice; what is the best legal recourse for you, not what helps you sleep at night. And if the cops have decided you are a suspect, you are placed in a defensive position and don't also have to help solve their case for them, and you are not legally responsible for further crimes just because you invoked your right not to speak.

The leniency idea just doesn't really make sense to me, because once the cops hand over things to the prosecutors then they don't really get a say in how the case is conducted. They certainly don't usually get a say at sentencing. If that's going to be an issue, better to give information through your defense attorney, especially if you are guilty, because your lawyer will be in the best position to negotiate a deal. It's always better to negotiate any kind of deal with the prosecutor, not the cops. First, because cops are trained to lie to you, and second because the prosecutor is bound by the rules governing lawyers which requires him or her to maintain a certain level of honesty.

I think a lot of people just get convinced that they're smart enough to talk the cops into thinking they're innocent, and as I think Duane is trying to say, that's just a loser's game. Remember, while the prosecutor can use anything you say to the police against you, he or she is going to pick and choose what makes you sound the worst, and you don't get to bring up what you said in court because that's inadmissible hearsay.

Of course not, and nobody is saying that. This is about talking to the police when you are a suspect in a crime.

I think Bruch and Duane are saying different things when they talk about "help." Bruch is saying talking to the police, if you're innocent, might help get you released from police custody. Duane is taking a long view, at the overall criminal justice process, and saying that talking to the police will only create evidence that can be used against you. Under Duane's logic, it's better to just spend the night in jail and save your words for your lawyer than try talking your way out of it to the cops in order to get home that night to watch the Daily Show.

"This appears to contradict Professor Duane, who said repeatedly that even if you're innocent, "it CANNOT help" to talk to the police, and that "you CANNOT talk to the police out of arresting you". Unless Bruch was lying, then Duane's statement was wrong"

It doesn't contradict it at all. If you're innocent, it cannot help to talk to the police, It might not hurt if you're innocent, but it won't help. And I'm pretty sure he means you can't talk the police out of arresting you if they plan on doing so; you're not going to change their minds.