Usually, the synthetic drugs are much more difficult and expensive to make as they're far more chemically complex than the simpler 'traditional' recreational substances.

There are a few cases of some reasonably difficult to make drugs - such as LSD - however make one large batch and you've just created a year's supply for an entire average sized nation, so it does tend to balance out.

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, Boston started out small and the two ways that it grew were 1) to fill in water areas, and 2) annexing surrounding towns.

So Boston Proper usually refers to the core of the city that either was part of the original settlement or at least wasn't part of some other town that got annexed and turned into a neighborhood. There's a good map here where you can see the outline of the Shawmut Peninsula shaded in, which is the original city, surrounded by made land, as well as surrounding towns and neighborhoods that used to be towns. Also that map is old; since it was made, the town of Hyde Park to the south was also annexed and became part of Boston. (Also not shown are massive sections of made land in East and South Boston for the airport and the seaport)

Anyway, Boston Proper isn't the same thing as Boston or Metro Boston.

Well as long as the video went something like this.

Did you ever put that to the test, or were you just assuming it was that tough?

Yes, what does Apple know about magnetic quick-separation connectors for wired devices? Nothing, obviously.

No they're not.

It's from Holmes' "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table":

Bostonians have long been known for their provincialism, and why not? Everywhere else just isn't interesting, important, or worth going to.

Or Boston proper?

Poor choice of words: I don't mean to say that power and return are wired together. I meant to say that all three phases share one neutral line.

Post before coffee, regret at leisure.

A friend of mine is researching power surges in the local town.

Most building codes under-specify the gauge of the neutral/return wire. For illustration, if you have three phases each rated for N amps, there is one shared neutral/return wire rated at N amps going out. At the end of the runs all phases are connected to the shared neutral line.

This is due to the nature of 3-phase electricity: the phases will tend to cancel out, so in a perfect setup you would need no neutral/return at all. Of course, the load on each phase won't exactly balance, and the load can vary as people connect/disconnect appliances, so you still need the neutral line in practice.

(Not true for house wiring, which has one or two phases coming in. Each phase has a return with the same gauge as the supply.)

This was fine when appliances were (generally) resistive loads, but nowadays switch-mode power supplies are common. When you do some math, it turns out that this type of load appears equivalent to 120 Hz power coming together at the neutral/return junction. Since 120 Hz [equivalent] power does not cancel out, the power in the return wire can be 3x as large as the building codes allow.

I've got a book explaining all this. Typically the neutral line will heat up and catch fire, breaking the circuit. Once that happens the various phases are connected without a neutral, playing hob with whatever is on those circuits and making occasional high-power ground loops and other unexpected behaviours.

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.