Lib, I can’t answer either question, sorry. I’m not sure what Daniel is asking. If it is whether a police officer can tell somebody out on the street that they can be taken to the station until they can make a positive identification, it’s possiblly true. If it’s during a custodial interrogation that the officer tells the suspect that he’ll be charged with Aggravated Elbow Picking if he doesn’t confess, that could render the confession involuntary.
There are too many variables in your question too. Who the judge, police officer, and defendant are, what the other evidence is, and all the other circumstances. It would be pure speculation without additional facts.
But this was my problem with lying to gain a confession. If an officer went outside the “legal lie” bounds, how am I supposed to demonstrate that to render my confession involuntary?
It doesn’t even help, really, to say that officers must write down any lies they tell the suspect unless all questioning must be recorded—in which case writing it down would be superfluous—as they may simply not write down the “cincher” lie. That is, they can lie about lying.
[Of course it is impossible to create a perfect justice system, but that is not my attempt here so please don’t misinterpret]
Both Lib’s and eris’ concerns seem to be with proving facts as opposed to the propriety of using deception in questioning a suspect. Whether or not deception in that situation is ethical has no relevance when your real question is how can a suspect prove what was said to him during questioning. Two completely different issues.
Regardless, the burden of proving the confession was voluntary is on the State. If the judge feels that he doesn’t know who to believe, then, it would appear the State has failed to meet its burden of proof and the confession would be inadmissible.
So confessions are automatically assumed involuntary much like one is automatically assumed innocent? You know, I’ll have to rethink things here. If people have repeatedly made this point then I apologize at the density I have shown. Won’t be the first time.
Even giving for the sake of argument that such presumptions in the courtroom are manifestly genuine (and I am dubious), my concern about the ethics remains. The issue of whether you can prove an officer lied is pertinent ethically to the matter of being in custody since you are robbed of your rights and liberty while you wait to make your claim. In other words, while you are in custody.
Oh, my concern for the ethics remains, but it is possible that, given certain practical conditions, the unethical nature of the actions vanish or at least are reasonably minimized. But I am still not decided on whether government itself is inherently unethical if you want to pick nits.
OK, I’ve got a technical solution that would render most of these philosophical noodlings moot. Simply videotape all police interrogations. ALL. That way the judge and jury can witness the conduct of the police. If it is simply a matter of “Yeah, I understand she was coming on to you. Tell me more about it, buddy…” then I think almost anyone would accept that level of deception. If it’s “Confess or we’ll shoot your mother”, the confession obviously was coerced. And we can trust the jury to tell the difference.
I imagine that videotaped confessions would benefit the cops 99% of the time, and benefit the suspect 1% of the time. Both ways would be a benefit to society. Ubiquitous videocameras are going to change the criminal justice system. I imagine in a few years, shoulder mounted video cameras are going to be standard issue for all cops, video cameras in all cop cars, in every jail cell, in every interrogation room, in every courtroom.
Well, my specifics were that the cops told me I’d be charged with violation of paragraph 142, subsection 8 of the California Penal Code if I refused to give my name, address, and other identifying information to them. I was already in custody. The police were lying: when you’re in custody, you have a right to remain silent, and this means you don’t have to tell the cops anything at all, even your name.
My question is whether this type of lie is legal for a cop. I think that this specific one is at least unethical and possibly illegal. In general, can cops tell a suspect that (for example) failing to cooperate with them on an investigation is illegal, when it actually isn’t illegal?
Oh, and thanks for this thread, all, and Badge, thanks for your other thread: it’s very interesting!
Daniel, I don’t know California law, but I can’t think of anything illegal about a police officer misstating the law to somebody in custody. There may be civil penalties, such as a 1983 suit, if it somehow violates your civil rights, but I can’t imagine any criminal statute that would apply.
Lemur I agree that videotaping confessions is a great way of handling the issue and I recommend it to all law enforcement bodies that can afford it. I do have a problem making it a legal requirement that confessions must be videotaped before they are admissible.
Well, even if videotaping isn’t a legal requirement, it can become a societal expectation. If you’re on a jury, the cops produce a confession and the defendent claims it was coerced, lack of a videotape might be considered reasonable doubt as to whether it was coerced or not. After all, what incentive do the cops have for NOT videotaping a non-coerced confession?
As for the expense, I guess the main expense wouldn’t be the video system itself…only a few hundred bucks. The main expense would be storing, archiving, and maintaining the evidence. I don’t know how much that might cost…
Hamlet, thanks for the answer. Honestly, it wasn’t that big of a deal – it’s not like I was beaten or anything, and I was more upset by their refusal to give me a book to read than by their fakey threats. But it did seem a little weird, and it does sound like they were telling me I didn’t have the right to remain silent, which IMO the police shouldn’t be allowed to suggest. Lying about evidence in a case is one thing; lying to a suspect about their rights is very different, I think.
One thing that occurs to me is that an authority could use what you just said to weasel his way into a coercion that otherwise might throw out the confession in accordance with your prior list.
Consider this:
The authority tells the suspect, “Okay, the law says that we can hold you for up to ten years before your hearing, but if you’ll sign the confession, we won’t invoke that law.”
He is making no direct threat. In fact, he is saying that he won’t invoke the alleged law. He isn’t making any deal because the law doesn’t exist. He is “merely” misrepresenting the law.
Sorry, but one more question: can the defendant tell the jury at trial that he was lied to about the law, and can the jury hold that against the prosecution?
IANAL, but in most cases the defense has a wider latitude about what they may bring up as a possible defense. All they have to do is show reasonable doubt, not to disprove the prosecution’s case. And a jury can take whatever they like into account.
Here’s where I’m at for the moment. Leaving aside the question of legalities, do the safeguards Hamlet described in this post have any bearing on the ethical behaviour of police pfficers during questioning? In other words, does admissabiilty of a confession retroactively make a lie ethical? I can’t convince myself that it does.
On a practical note, the safeguards, particularly the idea that confessions are presumed involuntary and are, nominally at least, subjected to rigorous examination before they are admitted as evidence, do provide some degree of comfort. Thanks, Hamlet, for the patient reiteration of your views.
And yes, being able to go to the videotape of interrogations would be wonderful.
I can’t imagine a court would admit such a confession. Well, I can, because I’ve seen courts do goofy stuff, but I really doubt it. It certainly is a promise of a deal, even if there is no real way of consumating the “deal.” The courts tend to look at the state of mind of the suspect, and in your example, it seems relatively clear that the confession was involuntary.
Sure the jury should hear it, and consider it in their determination of the reliability of the confession. It would probably have been heard by the judge at a pre-trial hearing regarding the admissibility of the confession, but the jury would also hear about it, and can use it in determining the facts of the case. However, the jury shouldn’t (and I’m not opening that can of worms here) be able to say “We think the defendant was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, but we don’t like the fact that the officer lied to the defendant so we’re finding him not guilty.”
The safeguards are the legal standards courts use to determine the admissibility of the confession. I have adopted the same reasoning in my determination of the ethicalness…ethicalicity…ethicalopoly… you know what I mean. The analysis, for me, is generally the same, and it’s not done retroactively.
While this is all true it has no basis in fairness. Why it has no basis in fairness is Police are allowed to lie to a suspect during questioning, however if the suspect lies in return they can be charged with a crime. As proof of this please refer to the current case of Casey Anthony where part of her charges are four counts of lying to law enforcement. While I am sure Police lied to her during questioning. Another example I can give is Brevard County Sheriffs routinly ask a stopped driver “do you mind if I search your car?” Most people do not know this is illegal! By Florida law (as explained to me by a former Melbourne Beach Officer) any ticket MUST be issued and the driver FREE TO GO prior to this question being asked. I was stopped for not stopping at a stop sign not long ago, the deputy asked the question prior to giving me a ticket, I flatly refused to allow the search (as a side note nothing illegal was in my car) He then gave me a ticket, I took it to court using the law above and won hands down and the Judge actually admonished the deputy (who wasn’t there) on the record. So people know your rights and the laws of the land
DonIn Florida, I’m going to recommend that you start a new thread about this topic. This thread hasn’t been active since December 2002 and it’s a little late to revive that discussion.
-Marley23
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