Legal Updates Fall 2013

Written By: Reid
Jan 21, 2014
The Legal Updates Fall 2013 contain cases which address the following issues:
  • Statement the defendant would be taken home if he was honest did not require exclusion of the statement
  • Court expresses concerns interrogation was not recorded
  • Value of recording - defendant claimed interrogator's hostile and aggressive tone of voice led to a coerced confessionValue of video recording interrogation
  • Detective's statements during the interrogation telling defendant that he thought she was lying were admissible
  • Expert testimony allowed on the impact of opiate addiction on confession reliability
  • 12-year-old should have been advised of his Miranda rights
  • Value of video in protecting a confession
  • Referring to Miranda rights as a formality does not jeopardize the waiver
  • What level of intoxication renders a confession inadmissible?
  • Invocation of defendant's children as a method to get a confession ruled not coercive
  • Interrogator's statements that defendant's ability to "speak plainly," "face-to-face" with his "case agent" would be of limited duration and, critically, would evaporate when "the lawyers [got] involved" should be avoided, but do not create a coercive environment
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