George Costanza
A Friendly Liberal
There is a lot of talk now about police being forced to use body cameras. All to the good. I think they should.
There is another area of the criminal justice system that is related to the body camera issue, but which gets far less attention, and it should not. I refer to the critical problem of non-recorded confessions.
Almost all of the arrest reports I read on a daily basis, contain an alleged "confession" or "admission" by the defendant, which usually seals the case. Sometimes, the confession is recorded. When that happens, it usually DOES seal the case, because there can be no question as to what was said (unless, of course, the police used coercive tactics before turning the recorder on).
By far the majority of confessions are NOT recorded, however, setting up a "he said/she said" situation for juries to sort out. And guess how juries usually go with that one.
There are five states in the U.S. that have legislation to the effect that no claimed confession or admission can be introduced into evidence unless it has been recorded in some fashion - video, audio or written and signed by the defendant. The rest of the states have no such law.
Just as objective recording of encounters between police and citizens needs to be filmed, so also should objective recordings of confession be made before any such can be used against a criminal defendant. Of course, police departments and police unions are on record as vehemently opposing such a recording requirement. One has to wonder why. One would think that the police would welcome such a requirement as it would eliminate a suspect who confessed and then recanted his confession in court.
One can't help but think that the reason law enforcement is so opposed to recorded confessions is that it is so easy to claim a defendant confessed when he did not, knowing that, without an objective recording of the confession, the jury is almost always going to believe the cops, rather than a defendant.
There is another area of the criminal justice system that is related to the body camera issue, but which gets far less attention, and it should not. I refer to the critical problem of non-recorded confessions.
Almost all of the arrest reports I read on a daily basis, contain an alleged "confession" or "admission" by the defendant, which usually seals the case. Sometimes, the confession is recorded. When that happens, it usually DOES seal the case, because there can be no question as to what was said (unless, of course, the police used coercive tactics before turning the recorder on).
By far the majority of confessions are NOT recorded, however, setting up a "he said/she said" situation for juries to sort out. And guess how juries usually go with that one.
There are five states in the U.S. that have legislation to the effect that no claimed confession or admission can be introduced into evidence unless it has been recorded in some fashion - video, audio or written and signed by the defendant. The rest of the states have no such law.
Just as objective recording of encounters between police and citizens needs to be filmed, so also should objective recordings of confession be made before any such can be used against a criminal defendant. Of course, police departments and police unions are on record as vehemently opposing such a recording requirement. One has to wonder why. One would think that the police would welcome such a requirement as it would eliminate a suspect who confessed and then recanted his confession in court.
One can't help but think that the reason law enforcement is so opposed to recorded confessions is that it is so easy to claim a defendant confessed when he did not, knowing that, without an objective recording of the confession, the jury is almost always going to believe the cops, rather than a defendant.