Legal Updates Winter 2014

Written By: Reid
Mar 13, 2014
In the Legal Updates Winter 2014 contains cases which address the following issues:
  • Expert testimony on witness credibility excluded
  • Confession suppressed because suspect was advised that no matter how many robberies she committed all the sentences would run concurrent
  • Court finds that the suspect's physical condition during the interrogation rendered his confession inadmissible
  • Threat to arrest defendant's mother and aunt rendered incriminating statement inadmissible
  • Statement to the effect that the defendant had a "chance to reduce the potential charges or sentencing" if he showed remorse and confessed did not render the confession inadmissible
  • Threatening deportation was coercive
  • Court bars Dr. Richard Leo from testifying: proposed area of expert testimony has not reached the "level of scientific reliability"
  • The statement to the suspect that "It would be worse for you" if you did not talk to law enforcement was coercive
  • Repeatedly threatening a seventeen-year-old with the death penalty is "objectively coercive"
  • Video recording protects the confession
  • Lying about DNA evidence did not make the confession inadmissible
  • Telling a suspect he failed a polygraph test does not render the confession inadmissible
  • "Small" interrogation room (10 x 10) was not coercive; suggesting the juvenile victim initiated the sexual contact was not coercive
  • Lengthy and persistent questioning does not render a confession inadmissible; accident versus intentional act was a "red herring" but not coercive
Continue Reading