Many people do not realize it, but police routinely interrogate a suspect and lie about the possibility that leniency can be traded for cooperation or even about the evidence they have. Richard Leo, a renowned expert on interrogation techniques, calls deception the most defining and salient feature of interrogations in this country.
And it is perfectly legal. In fact, the courts are aware of and sanction the practice. Furthermore, deceptive techniques are a part of police training across the country. Of note, while lying is widely used to get confessions and information from people law enforcement has in custody, it is a custom that is either totally prohibited or heavily restricted in the majority of peer nations, including Japan, Germany, France, and England. It makes one wonder why other developed nations are so resistant to law enforcement deception.
Issues
Arguably, the objective of lying is not necessarily to get to the truth. It is to get information or a confession. By falsely influencing a suspect’s perception of their situation, the suspect can be overwhelmed into thinking they have no option other than to confess to the crime and hope they will be treated with leniency.
Of course, police frequently get a confession out of a suspect who has been lied to. Unfortunately, those confessions are often not legit. Nonetheless, they weigh heavily on the scale of evidence and can lead to a wrongful conviction. When the Innocence Project successfully fought to overturn 375 wrongful convictions, they discovered that almost one-third involved false confessions that police had induced. And when it came to murder convictions that were overturned, more than 60% involved false confessions. While a critical problem, this is not the only concern with the police practice of lying to suspects:
- To be clear, any suspect is innocent until proven guilty. The ethics of lying to a suspect is dubious at best. Teaching officers to use techniques to deceive citizens seems likely to promote a permissive stance toward deception and diminish the public’s view of law enforcement.
- Research demonstrates that lying in this context often leads officers to lie in other, more troubling areas. Officers who engage in this behavior are more prone to involvement in perjury and/or the falsification of police reports. They may manufacture consent to search, probable cause, or otherwise twist the truth to suit their purposes. Those things are illegal, though they are difficult to identify and punish.
- Since police so often get away with lying, and because it carries over into other areas of their duties, constitutional protections get abused, leaving civil liberties, justice, and public trust at a loss.
Did You Confess Under Police Pressure?
If you are one of the thousands of individuals who have offered a false confession under questioning by police, you need experienced and dedicated attorneys at Boertje & Associates on your side more than ever. Contact our San Diego office to discuss.