Confession might seem imprudent to a suspect who is sure of his own innocence. In many cases, the confessor would mourn in tears for the court and town’s
Fare v. Michael C. is a case from 1979 where the United States Supreme Court reviewed what would make a juvenile’s confession inadmissible in court (Elrod & Ryder, 2014). The case begins with the respondent, Michael C., a 16-year-old juvenile being taken into custody by Van Nuys police in California on the suspicion of murder. He was immediately taken to the police station for questioning. Prior to the beginning of questioning, police fully advised Michael of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona. At the beginning of the questioning, Michael, who was on probation in the Juvenile Court, asked for his probation officer to be present.
3. Do the officers’ fairness weigh in favor of a voluntary confession when they interrogated Ryker using threats and intimidating language? II. Brief Answers No.
If the accused refuses to answer questions or waives their right to counsel, the police can only interrogate the accused with the accused's legal counsel present as a result of Minnick v. Mississippi (Hall, 2015).Several variables are to be considered when law enforcement is conducting a custodial interrogation such as the age of the suspect, the intelligence level of the suspect, how familiar are they with the criminal justice system, and the mental and physical capacity of the suspect in terms of the crime they are suspected of committing as well as their voluntariness to waive their rights (Bethel, 2015). These variables are crucial for the prosecution as it details the suspect's characteristics and sometimes their motives for the crime they committed, and sometimes give further details than the officer anticipated, but the burden of proof lies on the prosecution's shoulders to prove the suspect waived their rights (Bethel, 2015). There are some instances where the suspect will "lawyer up" and the evidence is overwhelming, and the prosecution can elaborate the suspect refused to cooperate and refuse to reduce certain charges or offer a lesser charge for the suspect. The same applies to a suspect giving details of other details that are a violation of Miranda and cannot be used against the suspect but can be used in conjunction with other cases that are being investigated
“Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits.” said John Dickinson, a Delaware Delegate in 1787 (constitutionfacts.com). The United States has a government that, for the most part, flows smoothly. However, our governing documents have not always been so harmonious.
In the book “Picking Cotton”, the former Burlington Police Chief Mike Gauldin, who was the lead detective on Jennifer’s case, was certainly sure that Ronald Cotton was the guy he was looking for after Jennifer picked him twice (Jennifer, Ronald, Erin 80); also, on the McCallum’s case, the polices also chose to trust eyewitnesses when they did not have enough physical evidences. Furthermore, judges can be wrong sometime. Wise and Safer, who are authors of the report “ what US judges know and believe about eyewitness testimony”, surveyed 160 U.S. judges to determine how much they know about eyewitness testimony on a small test( Wise, Safer, 427-432). However, the survey responds the average judges in the U.S. only 55% correct within 14 questions (Wise, Safer, 431-432). Moreover, most of the judges who were surveyed did not know key facts about eyewitness testimony.
The police then determine if the suspect is guilty and continuously interrogate, accuse, and even threaten the suspect for hours until they confess, whether they are guilty or not. On many occasions the people who are coerced into false confessions are have severe mental impairments that prevent them from functioning as a normal person with out the impairments would.
Miranda was a pivotal case that helped to establish and protect the rights of individuals in the criminal justice system, and its legacy continues to be felt today. Undeniably, police officers’ main task is to assure everyone is safe and protected at all costs but we must always acknowledge that are our actions should always follow the fundamentals in which we are allowed to act upon. The police officers during the interrogation held Miranda in a room where they were able to get Miranda confess to incriminating crime, the overall span of the interrogation took approximately two hours, and after everything they still manage to get Miranda to sign the written confession. In the eyes of the police officer, they believed they did the right thing because they manage to get the bad person off the street, preventing from another individual being hurt by Miranda but yet their actions also broke some rules. During the whole time of the interrogation, both the officers were aware that they had not read Miranda his rights, not once within the two hours did they decide to stop and advise Miranda of his right or even hint at an individual’s rights to counseling being providing before the actual interrogation or against self-incrimination.
A few changes that can help improve the environment for reducing false confessions is to provide breaks in between the interrogations, or possibly allow interrogations to be four hours or less. By doing so, it will allow the suspect to have a mental break after being interrogated for a certain amount of time. Record the interrogations from the beginning to the end of it, making sure everything said and done in the interrogation room is captured. By recording the interrogation completely, the jury can see how the suspect acted while being interrogated, how the one conducting the interrogation acted, and how the confession came to be. Another change can be to have an adult that has a relation to the vulnerable suspect in question, whether
With the interesting topic of police interrogations and confessions, author Richard Leo executed the effort of informing an audience, gave great examples to give a visual of what’s being discussed, and kept the material interesting. Being that the article is so long, it important to write in a way to keep readers intrigued. The stories of Adrian Thomas and Ngo Truong were great examples to use to explain the effects of giving false confessions and what happens when police officers force people to confess with violating interrogation tactics. Leo also gave background information to give reader the facts on why interrogators use the tactics they use to get voluntary confessions. For instance, Leo stated that police detectives receive specialized
The “Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights” provide law enforcement officers many of the same rights and privileges of that of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The officers require more protection to prevent coercion from internal investigations that they could easily face during their career. The peace officers bill of rights stemmed from officers wanting a little greater safeguard that protects them from “perceived arbitrary infringement of their rights (Peak, Gaines, & Glenson, 2009, p. 246). According to our text, these statutes identify they type of material that must be afforded to the officer, as to their responsibility to cooperate during the investigation, the right to representation, and the rules and procedures concerning the gathering evidence, especially the interrogation of the officer” (Peak et al., 2009, p. 246).
Furthermore, there can be several factors at play when a wrongful conviction occurs and each case is unique. Three of the more common and detrimental factors that will be explored in this essay are eyewitness error, the use of jailhouse informants and professional and institutional misconduct. Firstly, eyewitness testimony can be a major contributor to a conviction and is an important factor in wrongful conviction (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p. 227). Witness recall and, frankly, the human emory are not as reliable as previously thought. In fact there has been much research showing the problems with eyewitness testimony such as suggestive police interviewing, unconscious transference, and malleability of confidence (Campbell & Denov, 2016, p.227).
There are ethical issues that need to be recognized in interrogation which are, the use of false evidence, the use of torture, and deceptive promises. Starting off an interrogation, police will usually comfort a suspect by giving evidence that is not true, with the intention to make the suspect end up voluntarily confessing. Giving false evidence has a number of planning’s. One with the officer telling the suspect that he or
In the interview with Officer Richard Bucklin, I asked him questions regarding his experiences as a police officer, the highs and lows of being a police officer, his opinions about recent controversial police topics and the challenges he faces everyday. All of his answers were very interesting and informational. I learned a lot when interviewing Officer Bucklin. I started off by asking Officer Bucklin how he got started in his field of work? Officer Bucklin responded saying that he needed a steady job that had a weekly pay.
Police officers have used informants for several different reasons over the years. This tactic has been in practice for many years now with mixed results. Informants can either be an asset or hindrance depending on the situations that unfold during the investigation. Over time we have seen that for the most part using informants can be useful and can help make a case, but we have also seen the down-side where it has made the case fall completely apart in a vicious turn that the officers did not want to happen. In this paper I plan to cover the topics of: the use of informants, the down-side of using informants, how officers can misuse informants, and the benefits of informants.
