Police Deception during Interrogation - Term Paper Example

? Police Deception During Interrogation Police Deception During Interrogation Deception is a technique frequently used and accepted in police interrogations. Deception techniques are always employed with the aim of getting evidence from suspects. The U.S. does not have any regulation or law that forbids the police and investigators from making misleading statements, deceiving the suspects on the strength of their case, or lying that they have a witness who saw the suspect committing the crime. This paper aims at analyzing the use of deception by police officers and investigators during interrogation. History In the past, there were no common laws that limited the use of deceptive interrogation techniques. However, in the 18th and 19th century, there was an increase in judicial concern over the use of abusive means in obtaining confessions from suspects as evidence in court. In the year 1783, a court in England made the first ever decision to exclude a confession obtained through torture. In the 19th century, an American court followed in the footsteps of the English. Soon, the use of a confession obtained through physical or psychological torture was not allowed (Magid, 2000). Police deception was first discussed in the Supreme Court in the year 1959. The court realized that some false confessions were obtained as a result of fatigue, official pressure, and aroused sympathy resulting from police deception during interrogation (Leo, 2008). In 1966, the court insisted on the application of the 5th amendment’s protection from compulsory self-incrimination during interrogation by the police. The introduction of Miranda rights further complicated the applicability of deception during interrogation. Despite these rulings, there is no law prohibiting the use of deception during interrogation. Ethical Concern Deception techniques used in police interrogations vary widely. The main aim of interrogating or interviewing a suspect is always to get factual information relating to a crime, or getting the suspect to confess to a crime he/she committed. The various deception techniques used during police interrogation include distorting the meaning or denying Miranda rules that are always guaranteed to all suspects, distorting the seriousness of the implications of the crime, threats, promises about less jail sentence in the case of collaboration, and claims of the existence of a valid witness (Leo, 2008). All of these forms of deception are considered to be legal. According to Magid (2000), there arebfour assumptions made when using deception in police interrogations. The first is the assumption of guilt. Police officers work with the assumption that the suspect is guilty until proven otherwise. Secondly, the officer assumes that the suspect is dangerously guilty. The officer should be ready for danger and know that the one who has much to hide will be the hardest to get information from. Police officers deal frequently with the worst of people, situations, and places and must handle them in a context of assuming they are dangerous. In this ‘great guilty place’ the police officer understands that people have committed many crimes for which they were not arrested, obligating the police officer to feel guilty. There are various reasons for which testimonial deception might be undertaken during suspect interrogations. Some of them are signs of corruption, such as the criminal conduct of the investigator to cover up for their investigative incompetence. It can also be motivated by the wish to make sure that those who are either morally or factually guilty face justice. Police officers only have the task to deal with factual guilt and not legal culpability (Leo, 2008). This way the final say on the eligibility of evidence collected during interrogation lies with the jury. When the systems work correctly, it means criminals get what they deserve, society gets protection from probable lairs and predators and thus liberty is secured. There are various reasons for which testimonial deception might be undertaken during suspect interrogation. The police have the obligation of enforcing law and order in the community. Making sure that each and every member of the society is given a fair and safe environment is one way of enforcing law and order. This means that keeping criminals away from the society is one of their highest priorities. When they ethically make use of deception during integrations they can get information that can be useful in keeping away criminals from the society. However, when deception is used for the aim of just taking people to jail or earning more money, it will be considered highly unethical. This is because the main purpose of an interrogation is to serve justice and not to incriminate suspects. Deception can erode confidence of the public and may give the impression of police officers being just like the criminals they are supposed to protect the public from. Deception can only be effective if the person being lied to believes in the lie and the credibility of the deceiver remains intact (Inbau, 2005). Types of Police Deception There are a number of different types of deception the police use. Two will be briefly described. Police placebos refer to the lies that are for the good of the people who are being lied to. For example, imagine a case where the police want to inflict a false sense of insecurity in a suspect by lying to the suspect that the superior accomplices in the crime have placed a bounty on his/her head. This way, they might get some information from the suspect while at the same time making him/her aware of the possibility of that kind of reaction from the other accomplices who might be afraid of being incriminated by the suspect. The police tell “blue-lies” when they intend to manipulate people. The legitimacy of this deceitful practice is derived from a right to take control over interrogation processes. Blue-lies are always risky both situationally and legally. Through this form of deception, police officers are able to influence the actions of a suspect. The outcomes of the lies do not necessarily benefit the suspect, but are of importance to getting information that helps in determining whether a suspect is guilty or not. Conditions According to Gordon and Fleisher (2011), there are several conditions that a police officer should meet before using deception during an interrogation. They must be able to prove that there is a possible morally right intention of applying deception. Another condition is an epistemological or an empirical connection between deception and a positive result of the interrogation. It must be clear that the deception will yield a positive result. Due to the fact that absolute certainty is impossible, an interviewer or police officer should always consider the possibilities of there being non-deceitful means of getting valuable information from the suspect before resorted to deception. A police officer should be able to recognize that application of deception outside the outlined rules and regulations are of the same class of lies told by criminals. However, the possibilities of punishing a police officer for deception is unlikely; and faced with the prospect of jury condemnation, an officer can rely on sub cultural assertions that common citizens can not appreciate the same technical and moral distinctions they face (Gordon & Fleisher, 2011). There is no obligation of police officers to give information to everyone about everything. Criminal suspects have no exemption from this. Failing to disclose information cannot be considered as deception. Perspectives Support Various court decisions have found the use of trickery, deception, artifice, or fraud to be acceptable during police interrogation. However, the Miranda provision can limit the use of deception by police during interrogation. During the process of explaining Miranda rights to suspects there are several provisions that might limit the use of deception. Nevertheless, if the police manage to obtain a waiver, and exclude certain invocations such as the right to counsel and to silence, they will be able to use almost all of the same deceptive tactics during the interrogation (Yeschke, 2004). Attaining psychological control over a suspect is critical during police interrogations. Through deception, police are sometimes able to get criminals to confess to their crimes. This is because confessions obtained through deception are valid as evidence in court as long as the means used was not aimed at getting false statements. The police often get the confession of a criminal by making them believe that they have all the clues, evidence, witnesses, and means of proving that the suspect is guilty. Through these means, the police are able to obtain voluntary confessions from criminals. The police can also use deceptive techniques to lead the suspects into believing that they empathize with their situation and that they are willing to be of help to them. This is done so that the suspect opens up to the investigator. Therefore, the suspect has to believe that the police can only help him/her if they are aware of the truth (Skerker, 2010). The suspect could also be led to believe that they could have lenient treatment for their crime by being given a brief chance to cooperate and confess, or the possibilities of being treated leniently will be lowered. Some suspects might think that they can talk their way out of punishment. In such a situation, the use of deception might prove to be highly instrumental in obtaining certain information from the suspects. A police officer that deceitfully acts as a friend might get this information. The suspect may be trying to evade being sentenced or reducing the nature of the sentence, not knowing that they are only helping the police in proving that they are guilty. Use of deception in interrogation can also lead the suspect into giving information that might lead the police to knowing the real criminal. In some cases, suspects might refuse to disclose information about the real criminals for fear of being victimized as well. With deception, police might make the suspect believe that the real criminal would face justice and that the suspect’s security would be assured if they tell their information. The suspect could also be promised exclusion from the case. In such a case, deception enables the police to get information that they might not have gotten by being honest. Criticism Despite the fact that using deception might be a positive value to the interrogation process, it can also yield negative outcomes. Deception can lead to false confessions. False confessions can be categorized into two types. Coerced-complaint confessions refer to the false confession that a suspect can give voluntarily with the aim of obtaining a certain goal of evading a stressful situation (Magid, 2000). For instance, a suspect may give a false confession with the hopes of being given a lighter penalty. Coerced-internalized false confessions take place when deception is used to interfere with a suspect’s mental condition to an extent that an innocent suspect believes in his/her own guilt. In such scenarios, deception during the interrogation process results in injustice to the innocent suspects. False confessions that result from police deception can lead to persecution, arrest, incarceration, and conviction of innocent citizens. The use of deception by police officers and investigators can result in the exclusion of any resulting confession, regardless of whether it is true or not. Confessions obtained through deception are less valid as compared to those obtained without the use of deception. This means that a police officer or interviewer risks losing confession evidence against the suspect. The use of deception might also lead to the loss of other important information as a result of loss of confidence in the police by the suspect. This might result to refusal of cooperation by the suspect. The use of deception in a case where the suspect is innocent might lead to a complete lack of cooperation from the suspect. This is because the suspect will lose trust in the police force, thus deciding not to cooperate. If done repeatedly, the police will lose the trust and cooperation of the community. This might jeopardize the possibility of obtaining any evidence from such suspects. The deception might also prove to be fruitless in a situation where the suspect detects some inaccuracy in the deception (Inbau, 2005). For instance, a case where the information given in the lie is highly contradictive to the truth that the suspect is aware of might make the suspect realize that the interrogator is lying to him/her. This will kill all the possibilities of ever getting any meaningful information from the suspect. The use of deception during interrogation can lead to an overreliance on deception. This might highly interfere with the accuracy of information collected during the interrogation process. Allowing deception during interrogation might also lead to dishonesty in other sectors. This is likely to negatively affect the effectiveness of the police force at large. Police officers might find themselves using deception during field investigations, arrests and many other law enforcement activities. Analysis Deception of police officers during interrogation cannot be legally said to be wrong. It remains acceptable as long as it is not accompanied by objectionable unethical behaviors. This is especially the case when the additional actions might lead to the suspects giving false confessions (Yeschke, 2004). If this happens the deception would not have enhanced justice but only helped in the punishment of an innocent citizen. This is the reason why police officers and interrogators should avoid using lies that might lead to false confessions by suspects. Deception should also be treated as the last option during interrogation. This way, the police will be able to avoid getting unnecessary false confessions from interrogations. Another reason would be that information obtained through honest means holds more weight in court as compared to those resulting from deception (Magid, 2000). This means that they have a stronger case with the honestly obtained information as compared to when they present information obtained through deceitful means. Another problem would be the risk of the suspect knowing that the interrogators are lying to him/her or to generate mistrust in the public. Interrogators should also use proper judgment of the appropriateness of deception in a situation before deciding to deceive a suspect. This is mainly because the work of an interrogator is to convince the suspect to tell the truth and not to convince them to confess. For instance, deception should not be used during the interrogation of a suspect who admits the possibility of having committed the crime but does not clearly remember what took place. In such cases deception would just lead to an involuntary confession instead of letting the suspect give the true information as it is. Conclusion For the use of deception during interrogation to be ethical and successful, police officers should be trained in psychologically understanding different people. This will turn them into good communicators and be able to determine when and when not to use deception. They should also learn to effectively use non-verbal cues to make the use of deception more effective. The government should also make it a requirement to video tape interrogation sessions. This will help in making sure that the interrogators do not violate ethical standards during interrogation. These video tapes will also be able to prove the eligibility of defendant claims that their confessions were involuntary. In such cases, the videotapes would be critically reviewed to determine whether there is some truth in these claims or not. How my Opinion Changed Based on the Subject This assignment gives information on the applicability of the usage of deception during interrogation by the police. It shows that deception is only applicable if they follow certain rules and regulations. For instance, police officers are advised to use deception as the last option during interrogation. However, there are certain circumstances when the use of deception might prove to be logically viable as compared to being honest. A good example of such a case is one in which the suspect has been accused of the same crime previously but there has never been enough evidence to prove their guilt, and honesty has never been fruitful in getting them to confess. Using honesty in such a case might deny the interrogator the chance of successfully using deception in the later stages of the interrogation. The use of deception during interrogation infrequently leads to the acquisition of false confession. However, given that the acquisition of false confession is possible, defendants can abuse the possibility in courts. If a police officer gets to interrogate a suspect in the absence of their counsel, they have a greater chance of getting the true information as compared to when the lawyer is present. This explains the reason why a suspect might confess but later claim that the confession was involuntary after consulting with their lawyer. The lawyer’s duty in most cases is to prove the innocence of their clients and will strive to do that at all cost. Since there might be no evidence to prove the eligibility of such claims, it is most likely that a suspect would deny confessing voluntarily after seeking advice from a lawyer. References Gordon, N. J., & Fleisher, W. L. (2011).Effective interviewing and interrogation techniques. Burlington, MA: Academic Press. Inbau, F. E. (2005). Essentials of the Reid technique: Criminal interrogation and confessions. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Leo, R. A. (2008). Police interrogation and American justice. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Magid, L. (2000). Deceptive police interrogation practices: How far is too far. Mich. L. Rev., 99, 1168. Skerker, M. (2010).An ethics of interrogation. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press. Yeschke, C. L. (2004). Interrogation: Achieving confessions using permissible persuasion. Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas. Read More