Interrogations, on the other hand, are designed to extract confessions where police already have other concrete evidence connecting the suspect to the crime. Most officers are trained in specific interrogation techniques that are intended to be used against seasoned adult criminals.
In her editorial, McDannel includes portions of the interrogation transcript that illustrate the actual missteps that Detective Ring took when questioning Vent. Read the editorial in its entirety here. Help us advocate for the innocent by sharing the latest news from the Innocence Project. Thank you for visiting us. You can learn more about how we consider cases here. Please avoid sharing any personal information in the comments below and join us in making this a hate-speech free and safe space for everyone.
Join our mailing list. Little evidence pointed to Mr. He did not fit the description provided to the police. And he Despite a challenging year, 20 vital policy reforms were passed across the U. Philip and Nathan Barnett were wrongly convicted for a murder in West Virginia. After 14 years, they have been exonerated by DNA. Press Release. Special Features. If he had tried to leave, he could have been arrested for obstructing a police officer in the execution of duty.
The investigator at the scene of that incident would have questioned this suspect, and by his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms , the suspect would not be obliged to answer questions.
This right to not talk does not preclude the investigator from asking questions, and the investigator should continue to offer the suspect an opportunity to disclose information that may be exculpatory and enable the investigator to eliminate that person as a suspect in the crime being investigated. As an example of this, again, consider our young man who was detained when found standing under the tree near a break-in. If that man had answered the question what are you doing here by stating that he lived in the house just across the street, and when he heard the break-in alarm, he came outside to see what was happening, this would greatly reduce suspicion against the young man once this statement was confirmed.
Subsequent confirmation by a parent in the home that they had heard him leave when the alarm sounded could eliminate him as a suspect and result in his release. Interrogation is the most serious level of questioning a suspect, and interrogation is the process that occurs once reasonable grounds for belief have been established, and after the suspect has been placed under arrest for the offence being investigated. Reasonable grounds for belief to make such an arrest require some form of direct evidence or strong circumstantial evidence that links the suspect to the crime.
Of course, where an arrest is made, the suspect will be provided with their charter rights and the police caution, as per the following:. You may call any lawyer you want. There is a hour telephone service available which provides a legal aid duty lawyer who can give you legal advice in private.
This advice is given without charge and the lawyer can explain the Legal Aid Plan to you. If you wish to contact a legal aid duty lawyer, I can provide you with the telephone number. If the suspect has already had communication with the police in relation to the offence being investigated, they should be provided with the secondary caution.
This secondary caution serves to advise the accused person that, even if they have previously made a statement, they should not be influenced by that to make further statements. Once the accused has been afforded the opportunity to speak with a lawyer, the caution obligations of the police to the accused have been met, and the suspect may be questioned with respect to their involvement in the offence.
These cautions and warnings may sound like a great deal of effort aimed at discouraging a suspect from saying anything at all to the police, and, in many cases that is the result. However, if the cautions are properly administered, and the opportunities to speak with counsel are properly provided, a major obstacle to the admission of any future statements has been satisfied. Interrogation generally takes place in the formal environment of an interview room and is often tape-recorded or video-recorded to preserve the details of what was said.
A video recording is the preferred means because it accurately represents the environment of the interview room in which the interrogation was conducted.
In challenging the processes of an interrogation where a statement has been made by an accused, defence counsel will look for anything that can be pointed to as an oppressive environment or threatening conduct by the investigator.
Within the appropriate bounds of maintaining an environment of safety and security, the investigator should make every effort to demonstrate sensitivity to these issues. Seating in the room should be comfortable and balanced for face to face contact.
The investigator should not stand over the suspect or walk around the room behind the suspect while conducting the interview.
More than one investigator in the room with the suspect can be construed as being oppressive and should be avoided. The suspect should be offered a beverage or food if appropriate and should be told that a bathroom is available for their needs upon request.
The demeanour of the investigator should be non-aggressive and calm, demonstrating an objective professional tone as a seeker of the truth. Setting a non-aggressive tone and establishing an open rapport with the suspect is not only beneficial to demonstrate a positive environment to the court, it also helps to create a positive relationship of openness and even trust with the suspect.
This type of relationship can be far more conducive to gaining cooperation towards a statement or even a confession. Prior to beginning the actual interrogation, the investigator should prepare an interrogation plan by:. Preparing the interrogation plan can assist the investigator in developing a strategy to convince the suspect to answer questions or confess to the crime.
Those uninitiated to the process of interrogation might wonder why anyone would possibly choose to answer questions or confess when they have been provided with their Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the standard caution that they are not obliged to say anything, and anything they do say may be used as evidence.
There are several reasons that can motivate or persuade a suspect to answer questions or confess. Statements or confessions are often made despite the warnings that would seemingly deter anyone from saying anything. These reasons include:. Investigators who are familiar with these reasons and motivations can utilize them in assessing their suspect and developing a strategy for their interrogation plan.
After making an arrest, an objective investigator must always be prepared to hear an explanation that will challenge the direct evidence or the assumptions of the circumstantial evidence that led to the reasonable grounds for belief to make that arrest. The best reason an arrested suspect can be offered to answer questions is to be exonerated from the crime. It is possible, and it does occur, that persons are arrested for a crime they have not committed.
Sometimes, they are wrongly identified and accused by a victim. Other times, they are incriminated by a pattern of circumstantial evidence that they can ultimately explain.
The interrogation following the arrest is an opportunity for the suspect to put their version of events on the record, and to offer an alternate explanation of the evidence for investigators to consider. Exoneration is not just an interrogation strategy; it is the duty of an objective investigator to offer a suspected person the opportunity of make an explanation of the evidence that led to their arrest.
If there is an alternate explanation for this evidence, please tell me what that is. Conducting these investigations is also the duty of an objective investigator. Some experienced criminals or persons who have committed well-planned crimes believe that they can offer an alternate explanation for their involvement in the criminal event that will exonerate them as a suspect. An investigator may draw answers from this type of suspect by offering the same proposition that is offered for exoneration.
This is the opportunity for a suspect to offer an alibi or a denial of the crime and an alternate explanation or exonerating evidence. It can be very difficult for a suspect to properly explain away all the evidence.
Looking at the progression of the event, an interrogator can sometimes ask for additional details that the suspect cannot explain.
The truth is easier to tell because it happened, and the facts will line up. In contrast, a lie frequently requires additional lies to support the untrue statement. Examining a statement that is believed to be untrue, an interrogator can sometimes ask questions that expose the lies behind the original lie. This is particularly true of persons who are first-time offenders and particularly young offenders who have committed a crime against a person.
Observing the suspect during this progression, a suspect affected by guilt will sometimes exhibit body language or facial expressions of concern or remorse. Responses, such as shoulders slumping, head hung down, eyes tearing up, or avoiding eye contact, can indicate the suspect is ashamed and regretful of the crime.
Observing this type of response, an investigator may move to a theme of conversation that offers the suspect the opportunity to clear their conscience by taking responsibility for their actions and apologizing or by taking some other action to right the wrong that has been done. Suspects who have been arrested will sometimes be willing to provide an additional explanation of their involvement or the events to reduce their level of culpability or blame for the crime.
In cases where multiple suspects have been arrested for a crime, one of those suspects may wish to characterize their own involvement as peripheral, sometimes as being before the fact or after the fact involvement. Examples of this would be a person who left the door unlocked for a break-in to take place or merely driving the getaway car.
These less involved suspects hope to gain a reduced charge or even be reclassification as a witness against their co-accused. The arrested suspect in a criminal investigation waiting in custody for interrogation has plenty to think about.
Even the most experienced criminals will be concerned about how much evidence the police have for proving their connection to the crime. In the process of presenting a suspect with the opportunity to address the evidence that has been collected, an additional strategy can sometimes be engaged where there is a large volume of incriminating evidence or undeniable direct evidence, such as eyewitnesses or strong forensic evidence for circumstantial connections of the suspect to the crime.
In such cases, if the interrogator can reveal the evidence in detail to the suspect, this disclosure may result in the suspect losing hope and making a confession to the crime. Although this tendency to surrender to overwhelming evidence may seem illogical, it does happen. Sometimes, this surrender has more to do with conscience and shame of the crime, but other times, the offender has just lost the energy to resist what they perceive to be a hopeless fight.
More recent research has shown that the stronger the evidence, the more likely a suspect was to confess Gudjonsson, As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the goal of ethical interviewing, questioning, and interrogation is to elicit the truth, and the truth can include statements that are either inculpatory confessions of guilt or exculpatory denial of involvement in a crime. Whenever an investigator has interrogated a suspect, and a confession of guilt has been obtained, that investigator needs to take some additional steps to ensure that the confession can be verified as truthful before it goes to court.
These additional steps are required because, although the investigator has not used any illegal or unethical techniques, the court will still consider whether the accused, for some reason, has confessed to a crime they did not commit. A skilled defence lawyer will often present arguments alleging that psychological stresses of guilt or hopelessness from exposure to overwhelming evidence have been used to persuade a suspect to confess to a crime they did not commit.
In such cases, it is helpful for the court to hear any additional statements made by the accused, such as those that reveal that the suspect had direct knowledge of the criminal event that could only be known to the criminal responsible.
In police investigations, there are many details of the criminal event that will be known to the police through their examination of the crime scene or through the interview with witnesses or victims.
Confessing to the crime is one thing, but confessing to the crime and revealing intimate details is much more compelling to the court. Regardless of the effort and care that investigators take to not end up with a false confession, they still occur, and there are some more common scenarios where false confessions happen. It is important for an investigator to consider these possibilities when a confession is obtained.
These situations are:. Over the past century, with the Juvenile Delinquents Act , the Young Offenders Act , and the Youth Criminal Justice Act , there has been an increased recognition in Canada of the need to treat young offenders differently than their adult counterparts. Recognizing the special needs of youth, each of these acts moved to treat young offenders less punitively and with a greater attention to rehabilitation.
Further, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act YCJA , young offenders are regarded as a special category of suspect, and some very strict rules apply to the process of arresting, questioning, or interrogating a young offender. For instance, the YCJA requires the notification and inclusion of parents or guardians in situations where a youth is being subjected to action for an investigation or a charge for an offence.
As well, any young persons must have their Charter Rights explained by the investigator with language appropriate to their age and level of understanding. This means that the officer must talk with and assess an accused youth to determine their ability to understand their rights before taking their statement. During this examination, the court will determine from the evidence whether the youth fully understood the rights being explained to them.
Good evidence of understanding can be achieved by asking the youth to repeat, summarize, or paraphrase their understanding of the rights that were explained to them. In addition to the right to instruct counsel, as afforded to any adult under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms , a youth must also be afforded the additional right of being given a reasonable opportunity to consult with a parent or, in the absence of a parent, an adult relative or any other appropriate adult chosen by the young person, as long as that person is not a co-accused or under investigation for the same offence.
Further, in addition to this right, there is also an obligation on the police investigator to provide independent notice to the parent of a detained young person as soon as possible.
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