According to Snopes, that’s just urban legend.

There is at least one other such group, known as “doctors.”

Defense Counsel: Detective Pace (names not changed), in your training to become a detective, they taught you several methods in which to take a statement from a suspect, correct?

Det. Pace: Yes

DC: You can video record the interview?

Pace: Yes

DC: You can audio record the interview?

Pace: Yes

DC: You can have the suspect write down a statement and sign it?

Pace: Yes

DC: You can take notes yourself and have the suspect sign those notes?

Pace: Yes

DC: You didn’t use any of those techniques in this case, did you?

Pace: No

DC: So, there is no way for us to verify here in court the accuracy of the notes you took, or the conclusions you make, is there?

Pace: No

DC: No further questions.

That trial was a total farce. I had to keep from laughing anytime the defense counsel questioned any of the witnesses.

Nancy, you want to stop any interrogation where the suspect is too confused or ingorant to make a good decision in choosing to answer questions? Of course some people might continue for other reasons: Perhaps someone thinks they can convince the police they are innocent by not “lawyering up” and seeming really straight forward and (seemingly) honest. Maybe someone knows that he is guilty and figures he’s caught and wants to get the best deal and come clean to the police, but may need a little prodding.

People’s problem here seems to be with the very idea that police are telling lies. That can’t be the point by itself, obviously. The problem is what the lies create or lead to. When cops lie in court it perverts justice and likely violates someone’s due process rights, when cops lie on affidavits for search warrants… you get the idea. When cops lie to suspects in an interrogation the risk or cost is incredibly small. Lies about lab results, snitches or eye-witnesses are not likely to elicit a false confession, even from confused or ingorant people. I think we can say that from human understanding AND from the fact that no serious reform groups on the topic have ever pointed to police deception tactics as a cause of false confessions, while meanwhile pointing to prolonged, inhumane detentions or beatings that do.

What would have interrogations be? This is a long-established tool for police to uncover evidence and solve crimes and you would have police sit there and say “come one, please confess.” The fact that a suspect can ask for a lawyer or simply refuse to speak should provide sufficient protections as well against false confessions assuming the suspect exercises those rights.

Nancy, as the great Thurgood Marshall (roughly) said from the Supreme Court bench, “we require people to *choose* to exercise their constitutional rights.” Yes some people will make poor decisions in that moment of how to best assert those rights. Nothing can or should be done to prevent that other than better education, and if people are frightened or intimidated then the law says that the confession is coerced.

For someone who claims to want just the facts, that is exactly what the gang in blue didn’t do here. They LIED in COURT and presented FALSE EVIDENCE in court. That is a crime. Why do you support criminals (even if they wear a uniform)?

To #23
Just a thought…

If the “good” guys are allowed to lie, cheat, and steal (etc) …and they then do…are they still able to be called “good” guys.

Yeah. I work for a weekly newspaper and I covered a murder trial recently where DVDs of the police’s interviews of the defendant were played. It was right out of “Homicide” telling the suspect she should ‘help herself’ and tell the truth. Which she finally did and she helped herself into life in prison for getting someone to commit first-degree murder for her.

Under the hours of interrogations, her story was constantly changing, with multiple, nonsensical explanations for things, so I tended to not take seriously the defense’s claim that she’d been badgered into confessing. She really appeared to be trying to weasel her way out of it, by admitting just enough and then digging her hole deeper.

If she’d just asked for a lawyer, they’d probably have gotten her, at the most, as an accessory after the fact, or been faced with the choice of letting the actual killer plea to second-degree murder in exchange for testimony against her.

I don’t see a problem here.

Oh..I get it…the ole’ double standard.
Well, shame on those bad, bad police
officers for not being truthful!

This is the same class of people that can commit felonies in order to bust you for committing the same felonies (see drug war).

I guess prosecutors are allowed to lie to get you to confess, but you’re not allowed to lie in any of your answers to them. Seems logical…

What a surprise.

Somehow I don’t think it occurs to them that there may be a reason juries wouldn’t find confessions produced by certain techniques credible.

I say: Horse shit!

This was not a mistake. And the selective memory loss of the detective is almost as believable as the “I don’t recall” tactic used by politicians and CEO’s at senate hearings. Using a fake lab report is really pushing it, in my opinion. Presenting it in court as factual is criminal. I believe exaggerating the evidence against a suspect during interrogation might be permissable (and useful) on occasion. Intelligent investigators know, however, that if the suspect calls their bluff, the investigation is probably fucked. But the fact that the detective testified to the legitimacy of the ruse in a court of law should end his police career.

I can’t find a link to the original, but I remember seeing it related first-hand from the cop who did it on tv one time.