Legal Updates Summer 2014

Written By: Reid
Sep 30, 2014
Legal Updates Summer 2014 The Legal Updates Summer 2014 column contains cases which address the following issues:
  • Investigator's statement that felony murder would receive a lesser sentence than premeditated murder did not render confession involuntary
  • Video of interrogation demonstrates that juvenile did not make a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights
  • Confession rendered involuntary when defendant told he could not get a fair trial because of his race
  • Value of recording: Video of interrogation contradicts defendant's claims
  • US Supreme Court finds Florida test to determine intellectual disability as factor for eligibility for execution unconstitutional
  • Investigators operated at the "outer bounds of permissible conduct"
  • Confession was coerced when investigators threatened to have Child Protective Services take defendant's child away
  • Defendant claims statements were involuntary because he had been given morphine, hydrocodone and promethazine
  • Colorado Supreme Court examines 13 factors that should be considered in evaluating whether a confession was coerced
  • "the law permits the police to pressure and cajole, conceal material facts, and actively mislead"
  • PA Supreme Court rules that expert testimony of false confessions invades the province of the jury
  • Does interrogating a suspect in a police car create a custodial environment?
  • Confession voluntariness - lying about the evidence
  • Georgia Supreme Court rejects the idea that a suggestion that the shooting was an accident constitutes a hope of leniency
  • Court offers scathing rejection of false confession expert Dr. Allison Redlich
  • Electronic recording of the confession is not required
  • Bible in the interrogation room is not coercive
Continue Reading