DECEPTION

Deception

Deception

Introduction

Interrogators commonly claim that they have witnesses, fingerprints, hair, blood, semen or other evidence when they have little or nothing. Whether revealing evidence or telling lies, the interrogator labours to convince the suspect that the case against him is so overwhelming that he has no choice but to face the fact that he has been caught, will shortly be arrested, successfully prosecuted, and severely punished. This sets the stage for eliciting an admission of guilt in exchange for the smallest of benefits.

In every criminal investigation, acquiring a confession is the top priority of police. A confession, if admitted into evidence at trial, virtually guarantees a conviction. Confessions are more powerful than any other type of evidence because they are an admission of guilt, accompanied by some account of the crime, seemingly volunteered by the suspect of his own free will. Like any other type of evidence, however, a confession can be inaccurate. In recent years, DNA testing has revealed dozens of cases where suspects confessed to violent crimes, only to be exonerated by evidence discrediting those confessions.

Is It Ethical To Lie To Obtain The Truth?

The question of why innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit has been thoroughly discussed in academic circles, and though no consensus has formed, it is clear that at least some suspects confess because they feel they have no other choice, either because the pressure of interrogations too intense to bear or because they face seemingly certain conviction, coupled with promises of leniency if they accept responsibility." This is in fact the desired result of police interrogations, and commonly-used interrogation manuals offer a step-by-step guide to obtaining convictions in this manner (Joseph, 1986). Police deception-lying to suspects about the evidence and case against them-is one critical element of such pressure tactics and is advocated by police training manuals and seminars. Despite the seeming unfairness of allowing police to misrepresent or fabricate evidence for the purposes of questioning people who are presumed innocent, courts have been generally unwilling to discourage this tactic, either by limiting its use or ruling that the resulting confessions are involuntary and thus inadmissible.

The reluctance to bar such confessions is often based on the assumption that an innocent person of normal intelligence will not admit to a crime she did not commit, even if faced with assertions of insurmountable evidence (Richard et al., 2002). Many commentators have disputed this conclusion as it applies to adult suspects, and this Comment will discuss, but not resolve, that debate. Instead, this work focuses on a largely ignored aspect of the problem: the distinct legal and practical issues rose by police deception in interrogations of suspects. I argue that, regardless of the acceptability of lying to adult suspects, suspects should be awarded greater protection against such practices because they are uniquely vulnerable to them. This special vulnerability raises the risk that suspects will be coerced into truthfully admitting their guilt or, far worse that they will confess to crimes they did not ...