But my whole point is: AFAICT, Columbo in fact intended to make the guy think oh, shit; he’s just started the countdown timer on a bomb that’s right next to me and is about to go off. Columbo — regardless of whether anyone can prove it in court — reasonably, and correctly, expected the guy to think exactly that.
Which — dragging this all the way back on-topic for a moment — strikes me as the sort of thing I wasn’t aware of cops outside of fiction doing. Maybe I’m wrong about that, and police interrogators have been known to convince a suspect that, hey, a bomb is in front of you, and it’s about to explode, but I think Columbo’s approach is unusual.
And — coming back around — you say it’d be hard to prosecute, but: doesn’t Columbo, on the witness stand at the murder trial, have to truthfully explain why he opened the box in front of the defendant? In order to testify against the guy, wouldn’t he need to spell out that, uh, yes, I did it because I intended for him to believe a bomb was about to go off in front of him — at which point he can be asked oh, not because you thought he had an extreme phobia about cigar boxes? — and Columbo’s whole point would be, no, because I believed that he believed there was a bomb in that box, which I figured would be a reasonable conclusion for him to reach. And I fully intended for him to believe that said bomb was about to go off, and for him to react accordingly: being in fear for his life.
If, under oath, Columbo obligingly testifies to all of that, is he confessing to having committed a crime?
And yet at no point did Columbo demand that the suspect give a confession or else. Maybe Columbo could honestly say that he wasn’t completely sure if the suspect was guilty or not and simply wanted to see the suspect’s reaction.
And the perp says “I got tired of Columbo harassing me, and I saw a cheap way to get a small quantum of revenge by throwing his cigars overboard.”
Or
“I don’t know what he is talking about. I didn’t thrown any box overboard.” (For the youngsters here, these were the days when cameras weren’t everywhere.)
Speaking of confession and Criminal Intent’s Goren, I loved the episode with Jay O. Sanders as the OCD hitman. When Goren tried to intimidate him in the interrogation room, Sanders just sat there staring, didn’t make a reaction, didn’t say a thing. My hero!
Absolutely not. And yes it would be a crime. But maybe not if it is a cigar box. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.
Oh it was great watching him do that- the first few times. Then it got progressively more ridiculou.
Also- you do not have to “come in for questioning” without a warrant or subpoena. if they invite you “down to the station”- just say “talk to my lawyer”.
Two technical points (but don’t trial outcomes frequently hinge on those?):
First, there’s a difference between “kill me” and “get me killed”. McDowall’s character thought Columbo was about to get them all killed out of ignorance; Columbo didn’t threaten him per se. Second, McDowall’s character never actually utters a confession; Columbo and the other guy can simply testify as to what they witnessed.
But we don’t allow that in other contexts, right? If a cop without a warrant commits a crime by breaking into a guy’s house, does he get to simply testify that, hey, the homeowner didn’t actually utter a confession, but how about I tell you what I saw while I was there? If a cop says I know you buried that body somewhere, and I’ll break your fingers until you come clean, and then starts breaking the guy’s fingers until — with no confession being uttered — the guy tearfully leads him to the spot in the forest where the corpse promptly gets unearthed, can said cop admissibly testify as to what he witnessed?
Maybe you’re using illegal search and torture as examples to take your point to the limit, but it still sounds to me like you’re mixing apples and oranges. In the first case entry without a warrant explicitly makes the results of searches inadmissible. In the second the officer has communicated to the suspect the behavior they want, which Columbo did not. I’ll have to research Ladner and get back to you.
ETA: as far as I can tell, Ladner was solely about whether a single action– firing a shotgun once– could constitute two separate incidences of assault if it hit two targets. I don’t see where apprehension of harm comes into it.
ETA2: the case cited specifically rejects the contention that if a suspect managed to put a large group of police in fear of immediate harm, that each officer’s fear constituted a separate offense. Also, I’m not sure if the phrase “apprehension of harm” has a specific technical legal meaning in this context.
As far as I can tell, apprehension of harm comes into it when the Ladner decision for some reason included the following: “For an assault is ordinarily held to be committed merely by putting another in apprehension of harm, whether or not the actor actually intends to inflict or is capable of inflicting that harm.” But I’m not sure the case needed to mention that; as far as I can tell, it can already be found in an on-the-books wording of the offense of assault.
As to whether ‘apprehension of harm’ has some term-of-art meaning that excludes these specifics, I honestly don’t know. But as to breaking the guy’s fingers with or without explicitly communicating what the officer wants — man, that’s one weird hair to split. Like, is there a far-out hypothetical fact pattern where a cop rolls up on a guy, and starts wordlessly beating him until the tearful pleading starts? Maybe the injured party sputters out a confession to some other crime entirely before eventually confessing to the one the cop is interested in, because the cop ain’t talking? Maybe the guy empties his pockets along the way, incorrectly figuring that that’s what the cop is after? This is like the weirdest game of Twenty Questions ever.
But I guess my real question, in two parts, comes to this: regardless of specifics, can a cop gain admissible evidence by openly breaking the law? And: did Columbo’s actions involve so breaking the law? (Which, as you say, may well turn on what constitutes ‘apprehension’ — but while I’m open to the possibility that it’s not what I think it is, I’m coming up empty on finding such a thing.)
I dunno, a cop can lie to you as much as he wants during his investigation. As far as I can tell, Columbo was really only lying to the suspect, not threatening him with a weapon. As a private citizen, I think he’d be held to a lower level of scrutiny than a cop would be.
But did the suspect think that Columbo was threatening him with a weapon? At that: did Columbo think the suspect thought Columbo was threatening him with a weapon? I can see the argument that, on the one hand, it’s just a harmless box and a lie — but I can also see the argument that this particular lie, unlike many others, was specifically intended to place someone person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury.
Certainly not, he thought Columbo had inadvertently placed all three of them in grave danger. He thought Columbo didn’t know about the existence of the weapon.
But that’s the hair to split: saying he thought “Columbo didn’t know about the existence of the weapon” looks to me like you’re saying he thought it was a weapon. And you add that he thought Columbo didn’t know that — but, I’d add, he thought Columbo was about to kill him with it.
Do I have that right? He thought that it was a weapon, and that Columbo was about to kill him with it?
Did the episode show how much explosive was in there? If Roddy was trying to cause a subsequently fatal accident, you don’t use two pounds of C4. Even in the wreckage that would be obvious.
PS moderators: why do I keep getting notices whenever anyone posts, like this is my thread?
Mods don’t read posts. Or at least not many of them. If you want to communicate with a mod, reporting your own post and explaining your issue in the “something else” box is an easy way to start.
Good bet the answer to your question is you have set this thread’s status to Watching. Which is easy to do inadvertently with an errant click or keystroke.
Down at the bottom below the last post near the big Reply button is the tracking status dropdown. Note what status it says, then click the dropdown to see your choices. Change it to whatever status gives you the results you want. Viola!
