# Legality of Columbo's trick with the cigar box

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\
**Created:** [January 23, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310 "2025-01-23T22:24:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-columbos-trick-with-the-cigar-box/1013310/1 "2025-01-22T04:04:52Z")

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> [@What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4630):
>
> He didn’t trick the suspect like Colombo would, by getting the suspect to accidentally reveal info that only the killer would know; instead, when Goren knew the suspect did it but didn’t have the evidence to get a conviction, he would browbeat and psychologically manipulate them into confessing. He’d basically bully confessions out of them.

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?_

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