http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-trainum24-2008oct24,0,79185...

From the Los Angeles Times
Opinion

The case for videotaping interrogations
A suspect's false confession to a murder opened an officer's eyes.
By Jim Trainum

October 24, 2008

I've been a police officer for 25 years, and I never understood why someone would admit to a crime he or she didn't commit. Until I secured a false confession in a murder case.

I stepped into the interrogation room believing that we had evidence linking the suspect to the murder of a 34-year-old federal employee in Washington. I used standard, approved interrogation techniques -- no screaming or threats, no physical abuse, no 12-hour sessions without food or water. Many hours later, I left with a solid confession.

At first, the suspect couldn't tell us anything about the murder, and she professed her innocence. As the interrogation progressed, she became more cooperative, and her confession included many details of the crime. The suspect said she had beaten the man to death and dumped his body by a river. She said she made purchases with the victim's credit card and tried to withdraw cash using his ATM card. Surveillance video from the ATM showed a woman who resembled the suspect, and an expert said the signature on the credit card receipts was consistent with the suspect's handwriting.

Even the suspect's attorney later told me that she believed her client was guilty, based on the confession. Confident in our evidence and the confession, we charged her with first-degree murder.

Then we discovered that the suspect had an ironclad alibi. We subpoenaed sign-in/sign-out logs from the homeless shelter where she lived, and the records proved that she could not have committed the crime. The case was dismissed, but all of us still believed she was involved in the murder. After all, she had confessed.

Even though it wasn't our standard operating procedure in the mid-1990s, when the crime occurred, we had videotaped the interrogation in its entirety. Reviewing the tapes years later, I saw that we had fallen into a classic trap. We ignored evidence that our suspect might not have been guilty, and during the interrogation we inadvertently fed her details of the crime that she repeated back to us in her confession.

If we hadn't discovered and verified the suspect's alibi -- or if we hadn't recorded the interrogation -- she probably would have been convicted of first-degree murder and would be in prison today. The true perpetrator of the crime was never identified, partly because the investigation was derailed when we focused on an innocent person.

The case was a turning point for me, personally and professionally. I still work as a police officer in Washington, but I also teach a class on interrogations and false confessions, and I work with law enforcement agencies nationwide to help them prevent false confessions.

I've learned that this is a nationwide problem. Of the 220 wrongful convictions in the U.S. that have been overturned based on DNA evidence, nearly 25% involved a false confession or false incriminating statements, according to the Innocence Project. In each of those cases, DNA proved that the confession was false.

Threats and coercion sometimes lead innocent people to confess, but even the calmest, most standardized interrogations can lead to a false confession or admission. Those who are mentally ill or mentally disabled may be particularly vulnerable, but anyone can be dazed when confronted by police officers who claim to hold unshakable evidence of one's guilt. Some confess to crimes because they want to please authority figures or to protect another person. Some actually come to believe they are guilty, or confess to do penance for some unrelated bad behavior. Innocent people come to believe that they will receive a harsher sentence -- even the death penalty -- if they don't confess.

Videotaping interrogations is proved to decrease wrongful convictions based on false confessions. When the entire interrogation is recorded, attorneys, judges and juries can see exactly what led to a confession. Police officers become better interviewers over time, as they review tapes of their interrogations, and confessions are easier to defend in court. The only police officers I've met who don't embrace recording interrogations are those who have never done it. Too many police officers still wrongly believe that recording interrogations will be logistically difficult and expensive, and that guilty suspects won't confess if they know they are being recorded.

More than 500 jurisdictions nationwide record interrogations, but only 10 states, plus the District of Columbia, mandate the practice. California's Legislature passed bills in 2006 and 2007 that would have required interrogations to be recorded. Both were vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A third bill died in committee this year. California legislators should not give up. They must make this issue a priority and pass legislation to make our criminal justice system stronger and more accurate.

It may be impossible to fully understand why innocent people confess to crimes they didn't commit. What is undeniable is that some do -- and that we need to enact reforms to prevent more wrongful convictions and ensure that the right people pay for these crimes.

Jim Trainum is a detective in Washington's Metropolitan Police Department.

Lethe,

1)  Policy established by the management, not examiners.

2)  The agency doesn't want to run the risk of interview tactics being publicized.

3)  the agency doesn't want to publicize it's test questions.

4) Storage problems ($$)

There is four off the top of my head.

Sackett

Quote:


Not a reason.  Policies can be changed.

Not a reason to you.  You obviously have never tried to change management opinion about something so engrained.  I never said I agreed, just giving the answers Lethe asked for.  Interesting Cullen, and of course I know this, nothing I answer will satisfy you, so I will stop trying to make sense with you since sense is not what you are about.  I will no longer acknowledge your postings since it has nothing to do with opposing discourse, but sarcasm and attacks.


Quote:


Or run the risk of having the "shenanigans" that go on during examinations made public.  Examiners would be forced to clean up their act.  

Your opinion.  See above.

Quote:


Why?  Is the test is incapable of scientifically detecting deception if the questions are known beforehand?   Besides, questions are already pretty much known.  Example, with preemployment at the intel agencies (foreign contact question, disclosure of classified info...etc.)

Once again.  Lethe asked me for an answer to something I said.  I responded and you attack with examples of limited knowledge of bureaucratic processes.  See above.

Quote:


No such thing as a free lunch!  Cost of doing business.

Once again.  Ignorance of reality keeps you running.  See above.  That is it! Have a nice life...

TC

1)  Policy established by the management, not examiners.

2)  The agency doesn't want to run the risk of interview tactics being publicized.

3)  the agency doesn't want to publicize it's test questions.

4) Storage problems ($$)

sackett wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 4:10pm:


Okay.  That's fair.

But give us just one or two valid reasons for not recording exams.  That's fair, isn't it?  You claim that at least one such reason exists; it does not seem too much to require some evidence of that claim.

Lethe wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2008 at 4:15am:


No, I do not have to "pick one", nor do I 'have to "condemn" an agency that doesn't record.  Yes. I think polygraph examinations should be recorded and have stated so before, on this board.   

I have heard many differing reasons why agencies do not record.  Some I understand and agree with, others I do not.  And even with that said, it is not my, albeit a humble one, position to correct it.  I am just a practioner/examiner, NOT an officer of any association or administrator of any organization.

Sackett

Sackett, would you say that all polygraphs--private, law enforcement, and government--should be audio and video recorded?  (The records need not be kept for all time, just for a reasonable amount of time so that the exam can be reviewed if issues come up)

If not, then you think the APA recommendation is too much?  If yes, then you think that the agencies that don't record the exams are wrong, right?  Either way, you've got to condemn someone who is using the polygraph.  Pick one.

sackett wrote on Apr 9^th, 2008 at 2:49am:


The APA recommends that all polygraph exams be audio recorded.  Many polygraphers use that fact to argue that the organization supports very rigorous standards and claim the same for themselves when they record their own exams.  Well, if it is good to record exams, it follows that it is not good to not record exams.  It's hard to argue against recording exams since without such a record it's hard to figure out when the polygrapher wasn't following proper procedures or was conducting an exam that was shoddy by even official standards.

As for which government agencies don't record exams, the one HQed at the Hoover Building, for one.  I also am given to understand that several others also don't record their exams.  Why not?

To possibly save some time let me point out the following.  If someone asks "Why did party A do action X?" you usually can't answer that with "Well, Party B did action Z!"  Or with "I like pretzels", for that matter.  (Note: This isn't a criticism of Sackett's last post; it's to head off what appears to be a common discussion technique often employed by polygraphers who are--for our own good, I'm sure--trying to manipulate others.  Another technique is to try and make this discussion about me and to parse my own statements instead of simply answering the question: Why do many gov't agencies not record their poly sessions when no less a body than the august APA says they should?)

It seems to me you are someone who really didn't want the job they were willing to discuss.

You stated, "Polygraphers lie all the time.  Did your polygrapher lie at all?"

I could care less if they used polygraph to interrogate people...but it should be criminal to use it in a hiring process of a public service job.  It is basically a legalized way to discriminate against people.

My polygrapher was extremely abrasive, deceiving, almost abusive, etc...and I just laughed at him until he finally told me that everything turned out ok and "they'd let me know..."

Lethe wrote on Apr 6^th, 2008 at 1:39am:


Many do!  What government agencies are you talking about?

Sackett

If recording exams is so great, why don't government agencies do it?  Just curious.

[quote]
The results of polygraph testing, if subjected to the rigors of the industries "statement analysis" algorithms, are highly accurate.  Accuracy is even higher, when the results are then run through statistical screens which are corelational to the standard deviation of a cow's rectum.

Polygraph Accuracy,
Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy. The physiological responses measured by the polygraph are not uniquely related to deception. That is, the responses measured by the polygraph do not all reflect a single underlying process: a variety of psychological and physiological processes, including some that can be consciously controlled, can affect polygraph measures and test