Legality of Columbo's trick with the cigar box

Cafe Society
1

Given the way this thread has been going, I’m not sure I need to bother spoilering this — but you’ve just reminded me of a Columbo episode I’ve always sort of wondered about: SHORT FUSE.

The idea is, Roddy McDowall plants an explosive in a cigar box in his uncle’s car, figuring the guy will open said box — and thereby start the countdown to boom — during a drive through bad weather on that lonely winding mountain road tonight; the charred body later gets found near debris in general and the car’s exploded gas tank in particular; between some evidence burning up quickly and some getting washed away by plenty of rain, a luckless homicide detective finds nothing conclusive and gets informed that it could’ve been an unfortunate accident on a wet road in the dark.

Columbo, after spending the episode pretty much going nowhere, gets in an aerial tram ride with McDowall and says, hey, check out this unopened cigar box the investigators found near the wreckage! How cool is that? Gosh, lemme open it right now and lookit all o’them cigars inside, doop-dee-doop-dee-doo!

And so McDowall holds out as long as he can — but, thinking that the guy in front of him is about to kill him, eventually decides, well, either I toss those cigars out of this tram, or I die, because, again, this guy is about to kill me. And so he gives himself away — but, again, solely because Columbo is so convincing in the I’m About To Kill You role.

I’m just saying: there’s “basically” bullying someone into confessing, and then there’s “actually” bullying someone into confessing — to the point where I honestly don’t know whether it’d be admissible. I mean, that’s a step beyond putting a gun to a suspect’s head, right? Do real-world cops get admissible confessions by explaining in court that they started an I-Don’t-Even-Need-To-Pull-A-Trigger countdown to death?

2

When is opening a harmless cigar box worse than pointing a gun at someone’s head? McDowall was never in danger, and Columbo never threatened him with harm.

What Columbo did was ask McDowall, in a very roundabout yet persuasive way, whether or not he rigged his uncle’s cigar box to explode.

3

Right. I don’t recall the episode but I’m sure there was no bomb in the cigar box. This was not bullying at all, absolutely nothing wrong with technique. Columbo probably may not have even lied to the suspect. That guy was guilty and hung himself.

4

Yeah, Columbo created a situation (with no actual danger) in which only someone actually guilty would have any reason at all to be afraid. I don’t see that as bullying the suspect at all.

5

Well, if we’re dispensing with spoilers: is a cop allowed to gain admissible evidence by pointing a gun at the suspect’s head, and threatening to pull the trigger unless the guy confesses, if there’s no bullet in the gun but the guy believes otherwise and fears for his life? Or, say, to act like he’s doing a Russian Roulette scenario with the guy who isn’t talking, such that he even pulls the trigger once or twice before the guy (a) who thinks he’s about to be killed, (b) complies — only to reveal it was zero bullets instead of one?

Is that a crime?

6

But you’re missing the point that in your scenario, anyone would fear for their life with a gun pointed to their head- guilty and innocent alike. But in the Columbo scenario you described, only a guilty person would fear for their life. An innocent person would have nothing to fear but secondhand cigar smoke from Columbo lighting one up.

7

But, AFAICT, there’s nothing in the law of assault that says it doesn’t actually count as assault if, oh, sure, you’re intentionally causing the fear of physical harm — but, well, only someone who’d committed a specific crime would realize that that’s what you’re doing.

8

I mean, I’m no lawyer, but thinking through the scenario…

Defense lawyer: Your Honor, I move to throw out the evidence of my client’s guilt by throwing the cigar box out of the tram window, on the grounds that the evidence was gotten by threatening and intimidating my client, who had every reason to believe there was a bomb that would go off if the cigar box was opened.

Judge: And why would your client think there was a bomb in the cigar box?

Defense lawyer: Uhhhmm…

The only way the argument would fly that the suspect was in fear for their life would be by admitting that they put the bomb in the box. Catch-22.

9

Right. Colombo didn’t threaten to blow them both up; he threatened to admire cigars. Even in California, that doesn’t constitute assault.

10

Well, if Columbo had lit a cigar, the secondhand cigar smoke may be considered assault in the state of California. Columbo had no intention of actually lighting a cigar, but the killer didn’t know that. Maybe the killer’s defense lawyer had a case there- “your Honor, my client threw the cigar box out the window because they were afraid of the threat of secondhand smoke, not because they thought there was a bomb in the cigar box”.

11

But doesn’t that cut both ways? Imagine that Columbo helpfully explains that the suspect’s reaction — as you say, being in fear for his life — only makes sense if the guy had put a bomb in the box. And so Columbo gets asked, in front of the judge: did you intend to make the suspect fear for his life? I’m asking because he did fear that your actions would physically harm him; did you plan this out ahead of time, figuring that your actions would cause him to fear that he would be physically harmed?

Does answering ‘yes’ involve admitting that Columbo committed a crime?

I mean, yeah, I get the argument that there was no bomb and the bluff only worked because the suspect had committed a crime, but — if I’m right — is that relevant? Can the prosecution make use of evidence that directly and only results from an investigator committing a crime?

12

Who is making this unsupported allegation? If there is a person present who would testify under oath to this fact, then it makes sense to continue. Until then, you have nothing but an anonymous claim.

Ultimately, the defendant would have to state under oath why he felt scared when Columbo opened a cigar box, and that testimony itself would be the evidence they need, because no judge or DA is going to offer him immunity for murder to nab Columbo for opening a cigar box.

13

Again, I’m no lawyer, but I don’t see any crime committed by the investigator (I’ll just say Columbo- easier to type). One, there was no intent to harm on the part of Columbo. Two, there was no reason for the suspect to fear they were in any harm- if they were innocent. Three, if the suspect did fear for their life, the only way they could convince a judge of that fact would be by confessing to planting the bomb. Even if the judge did throw out Columbo’s stunt as evidence in that case due to it being coercion or whatever, the judge still has the resulting confession.

14

In this digression (I haven’t seen this episode) how did Columbo know 1) a bomb had been used that 2) was in the cigar case? By the description above, evidence had been destroyed by the crash, explosion, and rain.

But, as with all Columbo episodes, if the perp would JUST SHUT UP not only would they get away with it, but Columbo would have the worst closure rate of any LAPD detective.

And he could always call his bluff. How much explosive could there have been? Was it C4? If it wasn’t, he could take his chances.

Or just assume (correctly, it turns out) that there is no explosive, because Columbo wasn’t stupid enough to find evidence and not examine it.

15

I couldn’t help but think of this…

16

He first became suspicious when he was listening to a phone call made from the car just before the bomb went off. The murderer’s nervous behavior listening to the same call tweaked his antenna too.

There was also some hanky-panky going on at the company the murderer inherited that pretty much gave him away.

17

But how does Columbo testify against the guy?

Imagine that we’re in court and the defendant hasn’t testified yet; doesn’t Columbo get called to the stand to explain that, well, sir, my sole evidence that he put a bomb in a box to kill a guy is that — when I opened such a box in front of him, in an enclosed space — he reacted the way I’d intended him to: like a bomb was about to go off. That is my testimony, stated under oath: that he reacted as if my actions were about to get him killed. If that HADN’T caused him to fear that he’d be physically harmed, he wouldn’t have reacted that way; but, as I expected, my actions DID cause him to fear that he’d be physically harmed! Is that a crime?

If Columbo doesn’t explain that, then the defendant maybe doesn’t even need to take the stand; but if Columbo does explain that, before the defendant takes the stand, then, what?

I didn’t think a cop is allowed to say ‘yeah, I committed a crime, but the only reason I thereby got evidence is because the guy was guilty rather than innocent.’ Otherwise they’d just break into a guy’s home without a warrant, and then point out that they were only able to find evidence of a crime because the guy was guilty. Or they’d break a guy’s fingers until he told them where he buried the body, and point out that he couldn’t have told them that unless he was, y’know, guilty. Or any one of a hundred other things that, AFAIK, real-life cops don’t use to get admissible evidence, because — even before the defendant says a word in court — the cop would first have to preface the story with a quick ‘so there I was, committing a crime in hopes of establishing whodunit…’

18

You keep saying what Columbo did in that situation was a crime. I don’t see how it could be construed as a crime.

It is just a TV show, however. IRL a decent defense lawyer could probably have a good chance to beat the charge- “your honor, my client had such an extreme reaction not because he thought there was a bomb in the cigar box, but because he has a deadly tobacco allergy. Also a Freudian aversion to cigars in general”.

19

I genuinely thought that intentionally placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury was a crime.

20

Placing another person in a situation that a reasonable person would consider in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury is a crime.

Placing another person in a situation than only a person with an extreme phobia about cigar boxes would consider dangerous would be much harder to prosecute.