The Legal Update for Summer 2010 features 32 cases which address such issues as:

• Court upholds confession in which investigators lied about the strength of their evidence during interrogation
• Court limits testimony of Professor Saul Kassin on false confession issues
• Court rejects expert testimony of E. Clay Jorgensen, Ph.D.
• How much corroboration is needed in a confession?
• How long is too long for an interrogation?
• Can a 12 year old make an intelligent and knowing waiver of their rights?
• Can a "mildly mentally retarded" individual make a knowing and intelligent waiver of their rights?
• Confession voluntariness - "If you don't tell the truth you will go to jail and lose your family
• Court finds test on suggestibility was "not a valid and reliable test to determine a person's suggestibility to admit to a crime"
• Confession voluntariness - "We are here to help you, we are the only ones who can help you."
• Juvenile interrogation - the importance of discussing the Miranda warnings with the juvenile suspect
• Confession voluntariness - suggesting defendant would receive counseling and lenient treatment if he admitted to the sex offenses did not invalidate the confession
• Confession voluntariness - court rejects the concept of pragmatic implication
• Confession ruled inadmissible when investigators ignored custodial suspect's request to stop
• Juvenile confession found inadmissible
• Police statement that they were not going to pursue any charges against the suspect, after advising him of his Miranda rights, renders the confession involuntary
• Court denies expert psychiatric testimony that, based on defendant's background and the circumstances surrounding the interrogation, he confessed to a crime he did not commit
• Can a person diagnosed as "schizoid paranoid affective schizophrenia" make a knowing and intelligent waiver of their Miranda rights?
• Court listens to but rejects Dr. Richard Leo's testimony that the interrogation was "psychologically coercive and the detectives "went over the line." Also, "suggesting possible justifications for a homicide (such as self-defense) is not coercive."
• Statements like "try to get something going"; I want to help you put your "best foot forward" do not constitute promises of leniency.
• Statements like "being the guy that's not being completely honest" and being the "odd-man out" and "left out in the cold," do not imply a threat or dire consequences.
• Can an interrogator's repeated invocations of offers to help the suspect render a confession inadmissible? Yes.
• Court rejects suppression hearing testimony of Dr. Richard Ofshe
• Court does not allow expert testimony by Dr. Jeffrey Vanderwater-Piercy concerning false or coerced confessions
• Court rejects the claim that a coercive environment was created when the investigators mentioned the gravity of the offense and the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence and then told the suspect that if he cooperated he might benefit
• Court excludes the testimony of Dr. Richard Ofshe
• A statement to the defendant that "if his girlfriend was charged, and if she stayed in jail, there was a possibility that social services could take her children away" was not coercive
• Value of electronically recording interrogations - "I'm going to hang your ass if you don't start telling the truth."
• Court expresses concerns when the entire interrogation is not electronically recorded
• After a Daubert hearing a trial court rules that Dr. Richard Ofshe's testimony was inadmissible

• Click here for part I
• Click here for part II