The Legal Updates Spring 2014 column contains cases which address the following issues:

• Defendant is entitled to discovery of evidence relating to officer's alleged propensity to obtain confessions through coercive conduct
• Standard questions that solicit from the custodial suspect basic identifying information do not require an advisement of rights
• Video identifies improper interrogation - confession suppressed
• Video contradicts defendant's claim he was too intoxicated to waive his rights
• Court confirms that The Reid Technique consists of proper interrogation procedures
• The criteria to be considered in determining custody for a juvenile suspect
• Testimony of Dr. Deborah Davis on false confessions excluded by the court
• Testimony of Dr. Allison Redlich on false confessions excluded by the court
• Undercover agents do not have to advise a suspect of their Miranda rights
• The value of recording an interrogation to demonstrate voluntariness
• Value of recording to demonstrate the totality of circumstances and voluntary nature of incriminating statements
• Investigator should not be allowed to testify about the defendant's credibility
• Denial of juvenile suspect's request to see mother during interrogation did not render the confession inadmissible
• Anatomy of a false confession case
• Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale found not to meet Fry test - there is not acceptance of the GSS in the forensic psychology community
• Combination of assertion the defendant's daughter would suffer without an admission and an implied promise of leniency yield involuntary confession
• Equivocal invocation of rights: "[t]he context of the recorded statement clearly indicates that [Piatnitsky] was willing to speak with the detectives, just not on tape."
• Court should have allowed Dr. Richard Ofshe to testify in general about false confessions
• Investigators did not follow suggested guidelines when interrogating mentally deficient individual as detailed in Reid training manual and text, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions