Struggling to find cite, but wasn’t there a case where a man was arrested for robbery, and attached to a ‘lie detector’ in the Police station which included an upside down collander on his head and “attached” by wires to a copy machine with a single page saying ‘liar’ on it. Whenever the detectives asked him a question and they thought he was lying, they touched the ‘copy’ button and out popped a sheet of paper saying ‘liar’ and the guy thought he was nicked so he confessed. Apparently as the suspect declined his Miranda protections (right to an attorney / right to remain silent) the confession stood and the guy went to prison.
I recall reading about it in Con Law 301 but can’t find a cite…
GomiBoy: that anecdote was told in David Simon’s non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets as something done by Baltimore homicide detectives. It was them depicted on the TV show Homicide: Life on the Street (based on that book) and on The Wire (also produced by Simon).
You can always lawyer up through legal aid or the public defender. It’s in in the Miranda. I, personally, would only plan on having a crim defense attorney on retainer if I actively did things that skirt the law.
Maybe this is getting too GD, but doesn’t the fact that cops are allowed to lie to you act to RUIN the reputation of the police in the community? People are SURPRISED that minority communities are anti-police? If I had ever had an experience like Frylock’s, I would never do anything to assist a police officer ever again. In good conscience, why should I EVER answer a police officer’s question, about anything? Tactics like that give one no reason to trust the cops. It seems to me that the prudent thing would be to always go the ACLU route.
I can’t resist hijacking with this story from my younger days about an encounter with a police detective.
The warehouse (Coca Cola) I worked at in college was broken into. The safe was broken into and some money stolen. I found this out when I showed up for work early in the morning and the police was everywhere.
A co-worker and I were standing outside (not allowed in) talking about…whatever. We were laughing from time to time. A plain clothes detective kept looking at us.
He finally came over and demanded… “LET ME SEE THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOES!”
Hmmm…ok…we showed him. He looked at the carefully, looked at me and said “We found a shoeprint outside that matches yours.” then stood there glaring at me.
I basically said “ok…”
He stormed away.
We kept talking…the detective looked over again and came stomping over.
“LET ME SEE THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOES AGAIN!”
The co-worker looked at the detective and cracked me up when he said “How much do you get paid?” I fully expected him or I to get ‘brought in for questioning’…but to my surprise he turned around and walked away never to bug us again.
After reading this thread, I realize he was not being dumb…he was trying a simple technique to get one of us to confess.
wonder if police are protected under frazier v. cupp if they create a flase reward poster offering $150,000.00 to addicts who they are hauling in and threatening, interrogating? then they get these false statements against an innocent person and they charge her and have her languish in jail for 7mos with no indictment and the police could do that under frazier v. cupp? i think that stretched the freedom of their deception to obtain statements… right? cause usually the lies involve the suspect who wasn;t involved in these interrogations. she had already obtained a lawyer thank god… please give me any insights… thanks