Just curious if this ever really happens, because in all the true criime “case file” type dramas with real policeman, the real life police interviews look kind of boring, with none of the yelling and badgering you see as SOP on most TV cop/detective/criminalist dramas.
Are real life detectives and/or police allowed to scream at and badger suspects in order to elicit a confession or not?
Yes, they are. Allowed.
In a taped interview of one of the famous serial killers you can see and hear the cop giving the suspect hell.
Peace,
mangeorge
They are also allowed to lie to you and offer you deals that they have no authority to provide. Once I had a couple of cops working on me for a couple of hours to try and get me to say a friend of mine was shooting out windows with a BB gun. They told me I could be charged with attempted capital murder, that if I told them my friend did it they would let me go home right then, and later that they had picked my friend up and he was in the other room saying I did it. Of course, I knew that we DIDN’T do it (and they caught the kids who did it later), and I knew what they were trying to do, but someone who was more easily alarmed or ignorant of the law probably would have confessed.
Since they’re allowed to fabricate outright lies and make any threat they want, I can’t imagine yelling to be that big a deal. They’re not allowed to do some things like getting physical, but we all know it happens sometimes anyways. The really dumb thing in those shows is the suspect not simply saying “I want a lawyer” and then shutting up completely during the tirades.
On one show where they interviewed a real detective who dealt with murderers, he said that going ape-shit on these guys usually doesn’t work. They showed some of his work getting confesions, and like you said he just sat there talking to the guy like a … friend - very boring. But he got a lot more confessions than he ever would have going the dramatic route.
So I believe they can do it, but for the more serious and more experienced criminals, it’s just not done because it doesn’t work. Kinda makes sense; why would a tubby little bald guy in a bad suit yelling and waving his arms around scare a guy who already spent 10 years in jail and kills bikers and drug-dealers for a living? He’d probably just chuckle to himself thinking about what he’d do to the guy if he could get those damn cuffs off…
Of course, what a cop is “allowed” to do doesn’t always matter. If there isn’t a camera on a cop, he’ll do whatever he wants to. I’ve seen cops breaking rules numerous times, and a friend of mine interned with a police department, and they used to push suspects down the stairs all the time. (“Oops!”) I was almost beat up by four cops once, when they made an illegal turn & cut me off and I honked my horn at them. I’ve also seen police driving 70+ mph in 30mph zones with no lights or siren, flying through stop signs at 45 mph with no lights or siren, and one time I saw a police car flying around a traffic circle with screeching tires and it almost hit a man in a crosswalk, with no lights or siren. He had to literally jump out of the way to avoid being hit. He shook his fist at the cop & yelled; it’s a good thing the cop was in a hurry or he probably would have been beat up. (Notorious town for cops beating people up)
I’m sure they aren’t allowed to do that in the UK. Why are they allowed to do that in the USA?
It’s only allowed if another police officer is there to play ‘good cop’.
Yes, we can yell and scream and lie and make (some) threats.
We cannot coerce or make promises that we can’t keep.
The test for the court is if the behavior “shocks the conscience”. If an officer’s behavior is too over the top, the confession can be thrown out.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is a very fine line, and one I prefer to stay away from. I’ve never yelled or badgered a person during an interrogation. It’s just not my style, and I find that calm questioning (along with a bit of psychology) is far more effective. I, too, always wondered by suspects don’t “lawyer up” once the cops start yelling at them.
Absolutely. mangeorge is correct. Having viewed many interrogations & listened to more, if a suspect waives his Miranda rights,yelling, badgering, and insults are all routinely done. I recall one spefically-a guy killed his 6 kids & wife. The police (3 or 4) were very upset & angry & carried on almost out of control for 2-3 hours until the DA showed up. He wasn’t much better. BTW, even if Miranda is invoked, questioning still often continues, because if the defendant later testifies, his unMirandized words can be used to impeach him. Badge is right silence & request for attorney is best . Very rarely,if at all, can a suspect “convince” the cops to let him go.
On the flip side, if he does NOT waive his Miranda rights, and “lawyers up,” giving him a hard time can be viewed as coercion, and if he DOES say anything before his lawyer arrives, this can be used to have that information thrown out of court.
Always wondered why that never seemed to happen on cop shows…
Master-not so sure. If a guy asks for a lawyer all questioning must stop. As the police are walking out,what if he then spontaneously confesses? That would be admissable. Cop shows are just Hollywood. They always show cops advising the guy of his rights as they"hook him up" & put him in the car. That never happens. There are tape recorders in all police cars & the cops hope for some spontaneous admissions from the guy in the back seat.
Even the reality one’s, like Cops. The cops on these shows are very aware of the cameras. Once in a while, you can a cop forget for a second and do something unscripted. I’ve heard that that particular show does a lot of editing.
I’ve witnessed the use of threats by law enforcement much closer in content to what’d you’d see on ‘NYPD Blue’ than on ‘Cops.’ When I was 17 I accompanied a friend to the sheriff’s office to retrieve his wallet that he had left behind at a party in a vacation home from which a theft of several guns had been committed. The detective that we spoke to didn’t ask directly about the theft, but stated in very graphic & obscene language that if the guns weren’t returned pronto the persons responsible would be sent to the state juvenile detention facility where they would be raped on a daily basis.
I didn’t know anything about the party or the theft and the detective wasn’t even addressing me, but even so I was still terrified.
An interesting book for those interested in this is “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets”, the book that the TV show was based on. The author spent a year with the Baltimore Homicide squad, and witnessed a lot of interrogations. As I recall, one sergeant was fond of just yelling at people more or less at random, and hoping something would pop up. Surprisingly often, it did. Other detectives were more like badge, gently nudging suspects into incriminating themselves more and more.
As to why more don’t lawyer up – according to the author, and I’ve seen this elsewhere, a lot of suspects genuinely believe that if they just tell the detectives the right story, they can walk right out, so they swallow the detectives’ bait under the impression they’re being thrown a lifeline.
On the other hand, it was mentioned that there were hardened characters for whom “interrogation” was along the lines of:
“Anything you want to say this time, Dennis?”
“No sir, just want my lawyer.”
“OK.”
I just read about a real interrogation by Canadian cops. They arrested a biker hitman, a hardened ex-con. He had no intention of talking but he was definitely being detained under arrest. He couldn’t raise his sleazy rich lawyer so the cops detained him all night in an interrogation room and a skilled interrogator just talked to him. At first it was, “I’m not talking”, “where’s my lawyer”, “I want to go sleep in a cell”, but the cop kept talking to him, explaining the facts of life, started getting some responses, kept at it, and by five A.M. the guy had turned rat and was ready to enter into a plea bargain and witness protection.
It wouldn’t even be considered interrogation, more like a one-sided conversation until the arrestee saw the light.
I would also recommend “Homicide” , a good book, interesting to read about these real life homicide cops who, to make a living, to do their job, almost daily investigate murder scenes and interrogate suspects. A bunch of guys in plain clothes who just go into work and wait for the phone to ring.
If I’m being interrogated by Detective Medavoy, I’d probably just snarl back at him. When Andy Sipowitz walked in the door, I would probably confess to every crime committed in the ‘one five’ over the last 24 hours.
:eek: