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Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that law enforcement in the United States must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements cannot be used as evidence at their trial. Specifically, the Court held that under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the government cannot use a person's statements made in response to an interrogation while in police custody as evidence at the person's criminal trial unless they can show that the person was informed of the right to consult with a lawyer before and during questioning, and of the right against self-incrimination before police questioning, and that the defendant not only understood these rights but also voluntarily waived them before answering questions.
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a congenial rapport with the subject to torture.
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers. In common parlance, the word "interview" refers to a one-on-one conversation between an interviewer and an interviewee. The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually providing information. That information may be used or provided to other audiences immediately or later. This feature is common to many types of interviews – a job interview or interview with a witness to an event may have no other audience present at the time, but the answers will be later provided to others in the employment or investigative process. An interview may also transfer information in both directions.
The Reid technique is a method of interrogation. The system was developed in the United States by John E. Reid in the 1950s. Reid was a polygraph expert and former Chicago police officer. The technique is known for creating a high pressure environment for the interviewee, followed by sympathy and offers of understanding and help, but only if a confession is forthcoming. Since its spread in the 1970s, it has been widely utilized by police departments in the United States.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with highly sophisticated intelligence or manipulated by their so-called "friends" are more likely to make such confessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commit—but years later, have been exonerated. It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emerge—and how often false confessions played a role in these.
The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale (GSS) is a psychological test that measures suggestibility of a subject. It was created in 1983 in England by psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson, who had been a detective in Iceland. It involves reading a short story to the subject and testing recall. This test has been used in court cases in several jurisdictions but has been the subject of various criticisms.
Richard Jason Ofshe is an American sociologist and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and interrogations.
Statement analysis is a technique used to determine whether a suspect is telling the truth or being deceptive based on linguistic indicators. The basic principles of statement analysis are straightforward: a suspect always reveals much more than they realize. Language moves so quickly that no one has complete control over what they say and try to conceal.
The cognitive interview (CI) is a method of interviewing eyewitnesses and victims about what they remember from a crime scene. Using four retrievals, the primary focus of the cognitive interview is to make witnesses and victims of a situation aware of all the events that transpired. The interview aids in minimizing both misinterpretation and the uncertainty that is otherwise seen in the questioning process of traditional police interviews. Cognitive interviews reliably enhance the process of memory retrieval and have been found to elicit memories without generating inaccurate accounts or confabulations. Cognitive interviews are increasingly used in police investigations, and training programs and manuals have been created.
Saul Kassin is an American academic, who serves as a professor of psychology at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Massachusetts Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however, this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions can be unreliable, manipulated, and biased. As a result of this, many countries, and states within the United States, are now attempting to make changes in how eyewitness testimony is presented in court. Eyewitness testimony is a specialized focus within cognitive psychology.
Michael Gelles is an American forensic psychologist. He is notable for the role he played in uncovering the unauthorized use of abusive techniques during the interrogation of captives held in extrajudicial detention, apprehended during the "war on terror".
Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731 (1969), was a United States Supreme Court case that affirmed the legality of deceptive interrogation tactics by the police.
Eyewitness memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other witnessed dramatic event. Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face, where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator, for example. However, the accuracy of eyewitness memories is sometimes questioned because there are many factors that can act during encoding and retrieval of the witnessed event which may adversely affect the creation and maintenance of the memory for the event. Experts have found evidence to suggest that eyewitness memory is fallible.
The misinformation effect occurs when a person's recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information. The misinformation effect has been studied since the mid-1970s. Elizabeth Loftus is one of the most influential researchers in the field. One theory is that original information and the misleading information that was presented after the fact become blended together. Another theory is that the misleading information overwrites the original information. Scientists suggest that because the misleading information is the most recent, it is more easily retrieved.
Imagination inflation is a type of memory distortion that occurs when imagining an event that never happened increases confidence in the memory of the event.
Scenes of a Crime is a documentary film that focuses on the case of Adrian P. Thomas who was the subject of nearly 10 hours of interrogation by Troy, New York police, culminating in a controversial confession and high profile murder trial. The film won multiple festival awards, a Gotham Award for "Best Film Not Playing At Theater Near You," played theatrically and was broadcast nationally. Reviews of the film were highly favorable.
Richard Patrick Zuley is a former homicide detective in the United States who had a 37-year career in the Chicago Police Department. He is most known for obtaining confessions from suspects by torture. Since the early 2000s, some of these convictions have been investigated and overturned as wrongful, following allegations that he had tortured and/or framed suspects. Since 2013 he has been the subject of several civil suits from inmates claiming abuse and frame-ups to gain convictions.
The PEACE method of investigative interviewing is a five stage process in which investigators try to build rapport and allow a criminal suspect to provide their account of events uninterrupted, before presenting the suspect with any evidence of inconsistencies or contradictions. It is used to obtain a full account of events from a suspect rather than just seeking a confession - which is the goal of the Reid technique, in which interrogators are more aggressive, accusatory, and threatening in terms of proposing consequences for the suspect's failure to confess to the crime.
References
- ↑ Milne, Rebecca and Rull, Ray (1999). Investigative Interviewing. Psychology and Practice. Chichester UK: Wiley.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "Centre for Investigative Interviewing". This definition has been used by the Centre for Investigative Interviewing, Australia. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
- ↑ Rachlew, Asbjørn (14 March 2017). "From interrogating to interviewing suspects of terror: Towards a new mindset". Penal Reform International.
- ↑ Gudjonsson, Gisli H. (2007). Investigative interviewing. Handbook of criminal investigation. Routledge. pp. 466–492. ISBN 9781843921882.
- ↑ Griffiths, Andy, and Asbjørn Rachlew (2018). From interrogation to investigative interviewing: The application of psychology. In The Psychology of Criminal Investigation. Routledge. pp. 154–178.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Powell, Martine B., Ron P. Fisher, and Rebecca Wright (2005). Investigative Interviewing in Psychology and Law: An Empirical Perspective. The Guilford Press. pp. 11–42.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Méndez, Juan E. (5 August 2016). "Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Interim report to the UN General Assembly. 5 August 2016". digitallibrary.un.org. UN. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
- ↑ Fahsing, I. A., & Rachlew, A. (2013). Investigative interviewing in the Nordic region. In International developments in investigative interviewing. Willan. pp. 65–91.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Schollum, Mary (2005). "Investigative interviewing: The literature. Wellington, New Zealand" (PDF). Office of the Commissioner of Police. Retrieved 15 January 2020.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ↑ Westera, Nina J., Rachel Zajac, Deirdre A. Brown (2017). Witness interviewing practices in New Zealand. In International Developments and Practices in Investigative Interviewing and Interrogation. Volume 1: Victims and witnesses. London: Routledge. pp. 123–134.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)