24/07/2019

POLICE INTERROGATION
2 ASPECTS
1. Process of Interrogation- Understood as any psychological interview or questioning
session with the perspective of eliciting a confession from a suspect. Interrogation is to
obtain a valuable information which can lead to a conviction (not always of the person
concerned but of someone else). Interrogation and confession are related notions.
Confessions are the most damaging piece of evidence that can be entered in a criminal
trial or a court of law against the person and thus confessions becomes an important area
of psycho legal study.
(The false confessions given by individuals might actually be at times believed to
be true by the person itself. So the person who has not committed the crime at times may
confess to committing that particular crime and at the time of giving the confession the
person might be believing that he has actually committed the crime when he has not
actually committed it.)
As far as interrogation or the process of interrogation is concerned there are multi-
faceted issues. Issues to do with specific procedures which are followed during the
interrogation like the conditions which are created at the time of interrogation to facilitate
a confession in an individual, the validity of the waiver to the rights which are given by
the suspects, the warnings given to the suspects (this has to do with the rights of the
suspects- right to remain silent, right to an attorney), the validity of the confession itself.
An underlying aspect, for which all of these conditions can be used and have implications
for is to do with the notion of Psychological Coercion (is abroad term and any technique
used in order to build a pressure on a suspect or in order to influence the responses of the
suspect specifically facilitating a confession on the part of suspect which are non-physical
in nature is qualified to be a part of psychological tactic and if it is extreme then it is
psychological coercion).
The notion of Physical Notion is widely accepted in the field of law. There are many
cases where courts have rejected evidence from an interrogation which have been
physically coercive. Confession through prolonged physical violence, through beatings or
the use of any physically coercive technique is considered to be an absolute no in the
field of law. Even western cases (prior to the 1950s) there are trend where the courts have
consistently rejected invalidated confessions which have been elicited by the use of
physical coercion. But the Psychological Coercion is a concept which has found
acknowledgement post the 1950s. Looking at the evolution of the acceptance of
psychological coercion, gradually there was an increased acceptance and then there was a
decline. So there is still acceptance but over a period of time the specific techniques
which the courts have used to limit the use of psychological coercion has declined over
time.

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 *The courts have now recognized the psychological tactics are inherent in the process
of interrogation but the extent to which they are used needs to be restricted in order to
ensure that they do not have manipulative impact on the responses of the suspect.
To what extent the psychological pressure building tactics are ok and when do
they qualify to be psychological coercion and they need to be stopped. Although
there is no single defining line but it’s still very fluid.

SAUL KASSIN (American Forensic Psychologist) in 1997 gave a list of 6 specific

categories, which according to him were qualified to be coerced confessions.
1. Use of Physical Abuse- specifically the use of grouped force and confession resulting
from it would essentially be a coerced confession.
The other 5 do have a physical element to it because a person is involved and there is
some amount of physical discomfort and have an underlying physical element to it but do not
qualify to the use of physical violence/abuse/force.
2. Any confession elicited out of prolonged isolation- Individual isolated for a very
long time and the response or confession given by the individual post that.
3. Prolonged deprivation of sleep and food- Individual who has not been allowed to
sleep for a long time and hasn’t been given food for a long time. It can be argued that
not giving food to an individual is a physiological aspect and not allowing a person to
sleep is again physical in nature to a certain extent but only so much and beyond that
sleep deprivation can have a psychological impact on the decision making of the
person as well.
4. Use of promises of leniency or immunity- Here there is manipulation through
promising leniency and thus the person ends up confessing falsely with the
expectation that he might be left and thus chooses to end up the interrogative process
by confessing falsely and is involuntary.
5. Use of threat of punishment or harm- Is clearly a psychological technique with no
underlying physical aspect and the interrogator is trying to obtain a certain kind of
response by using threats of harm.
These responses may or may not be true but either which ways these are involuntarily (individual
is promised something in response to a confession then it is involuntary because a manipulative
factor was used here) given. Had the confessions been made voluntarily then are admissible in
the court of law.
6. Barring exceptional circumstances without giving the warnings with regards to
the rights of the suspect- *Miranda Warnings. Miranda v Arizona- Miranda rights
speak of a few specific rights and is to do with informing the suspect of his rights
(highlighted in the case)- right to remain silent, telling the person that anything said
by him could be used against him, right to an attorney and if the person cannot
arrange for an attorney then the State would do it for the person.

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These verdicts specifically were put forth in context of recognition of psychological coercion and
the logic behind them was that an individual who is aware of certain basic rights and that he has
the right to remain silent and if cannot afford an attorney, shall be given legal assistance; the
knowledge of these rights will form a psychological protective measure where the person feels
relatively secured and safe.
In the 6 categories given by Kassin, the physical force dwindles towards the end. He said that
these are broad categories and are indicative rather than an exhaustive list. Also, psychological
coercion can go beyond these categories and thus only indicative.
From a legal standpoint, what is the acceptability of the notion of psychological coercion in
the legal set up and how have courts accepted and acknowledged the existence of
psychological coercion?
Prior to the 1950s in most cases where confessions have been involved there is an
acknowledgement of violence if excessive violence was used in those cases.
 BROWN V MISSISSIPPI (1936)
This case talks only of the use of physical abuse. The suspect was whipped for a prolonged
period of time and eventually resulted in the person confessing to a murder. The court rejected
the confession and stated that such a confession would be inadmissible in a court of law because
it has resulted from the use of physical coercion.
*Toward 1950s, there was a shift towards acknowledging psychological coercion as more
important than physical coercion.
 ASHCRAFT V TENNESSE (1944)
A landmark case from the perspective of psychology because it was the first time that a court
acknowledged the existence of psychological coercion and this term came into existence. Here in
this case there was a murder confession. The suspect was not allowed to sleep for 3 days and
thus sleep deprivation for 36 hours straight and the court acknowledged that any interrogative
technique which uses such kinds of psychologically coercive methods would not result in a
voluntary confession and would be an involuntary one which then would be inadmissible in a
court of law.
Both the cases resulted in convictions but the confessions were not the basis of conviction. There
is no particular law that prohibits the usage of psychological coercion but the courts do have
recognized this aspect.
 ESCABEDO V ILLINOIS (1964)
Important from the perspective- to get a more nuanced understanding of what the psychological
coercion is. Here a confession was obtained through the use of certain interrogative techniques.
Specifically two aspects that were highlighted in the case

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FIRST, the confession was obtained after the individual had repeatedly asked for a
lawyer/attorney, but was denied the request. (At this time the notion of Miranda Rights or the
notion that an individual must be appointed an attorney if he hasn’t waived the right, was not
acknowledged much).
SECOND, when an individual is emotionally upset it is likely to lead to inhibition of the
rationale appraisal/judgment/decision making of the person.
The court rejected the confession as inadmissible stating that the confession is involuntarily
obtained specifically because the person repeatedly asked for an attorney but was not provided
one. Also, the techniques of interrogation that were used were so psychologically coercive that
they resulted in emotionally upsetting the individual which in turn resulted in adversely affecting
the rationale judgment or decision making of the individual. The court particularly said that in
order to do away with injustice of such sort it shall be ensured that the individual is allowed the
presence of attorney at the time of interrogation. Such a presence is likely to give a sense of
psychological security to the individual and also psychological coercion can be avoided.
Any technique which has the potential of emotionally upsetting the individual will then be
qualified as a technique which uses psychological coercion because emotionality is likely to have
a negative impact on the reasonability of the person.
While studying ethics it was said that the presence of third party during interview is likely to
have an adverse effect on the process of interviewing. So is this right of an attorney in
contradiction to that? So, in the Estelle v Smith case the courts clearly mentioned that the
presence of an attorney is not required and if the person hasn’t waived the right to an attorney
then the attorney must be intimated about the interviewing but the presence is not mandatory in
this case.
Differentiating between Interviewing V Interrogation
THE REID METHOD OF INTERROGATION- This method is followed in the US and is also
critiqued. Begins with a calm phase where purpose is information gathering and once enough
information is collected to accuse the person then the focus shifts from an investigative focus to
an accusatory focus. It differentiates between the 2 phases of the interrogation-
1st Stage- Investigative Interviewing- The focus of the stage is simply information gathering with
respect to the case. The interviewer in congenial towards the interviewee and a warm
environment is maintained. The aim is to persuade the interviewee to give relevant information
that could possibly lead to accusation. Focus here is information gathering.
2nd Stage- Interrogation- Accusatory in nature. Focus here is to accuse the individual. The
interrogator in this stage is more pitted against the suspect. A high stress environment is
maintained and the aim is to obtain a confession.
Essentially in this case the court highlighted the existence of 2 different kinds of interviewing
techniques- Investigative v Interrogative. And highlighted that it is okay to not allow the attorney
to be present physically when the interviewing is done with the focus of gathering information.

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But once the focus of the interviewing shifts from investigative to accusatory one then the
attorney should be allowed to be present physically and is essential from the perspective of
preventing any kind of psychological coercion or misuse of any psychological tactics. One of the
underlying reasons- the presence of an attorney will itself guarantee some kind of psychological
security to the suspect who is being interrogated and attorney oversees that psychological
pressure is not built.
 MIRANDA V ARIZONA (1966)
The court in this case specifically came up with rights of the suspect during the interrogation and
the warnings to be given to the suspect prior the interrogation. The court acknowledged that
psychological pressure tactics are used explicitly during interrogative processes and these tactics
can have a forceful impact on the responses of the suspect and resulting in manipulation. The
courts also stated that- psychological coercion is actually more widely used then physical
coercion. Physical coercion is used in order to ensure psychological coercion.
Courts stated-‘The blood of the suspect is not the hallmark of an unconstitutional inquisition’
meaning only if the individual is physically abused does not imply that it would result in an
unconstitutional confession. Even without blood/physical abuse the confession can be
unconstitutional if it is psychologically abused.
In this context the court said that there should be certain rights of the suspect and the person
before beginning with the interrogation the suspect shall be informed of the existence of these
rights and any confession taken without informing of such rights or without the person
voluntarily signing the waiver of these rights would be inadmissible in the court.
4 RIGHTS GIVEN IN THE CASE-
1. Right to remain silent
2. A warning which comes along with the right to remain silent that anything said by
the suspect can be used against him.
3. Right to an attorney
4. Right to get a state appointed attorney (if the person cannot afford an attorney).
These rights were brought in as a safeguard against psychological coercion and would give a
sense of security and would go on to alleviate to certain extent the psychological coercion which
would take place during the interrogative process.
Looking at the evolution of acceptance of psychological coercion in the field of law, initially
there was a strong position that was taken by courts when the acknowledged the existence of
psychological coercion but gradually it dwindled off and faded away. So initially not only in the
case of direct interrogation but also in a functional equivalent of interrogation (any process
which the court decided was a functional equivalent of an interrogative process) had to use the
Miranda rights prior to getting any information from the suspect.

 BREWER V WILLIAMS (1977)

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 In this case the suspect who was known to be a very religious person had murdered a 10
year old girl and he had hidden away the body. Murder happened close to Christmas. He
was arrested and while his way to the police facility the policemen who were travelling
with him started discussing the murder and went into the conversation with the man and
highlighted how if the case wasn’t solved until Christmas and if the body wasn’t
discovered until Christmas it would be extremely sad if the girl would not receive a
Christmas burial. For the religious ideology that the man had the Christmas burial was
very important. And in the process of the conversation the person in a way admitted to
have killed the girl and told the police where the body was hidden.
The court in this case rejected the confession given by the suspect and inadmissible in
the court and highlighted that the Miranda warnings were not given to the person prior to
gathering any information from him. Although it wasn’t exactly an interrogative set
up/process but it was a functional equivalent of interrogation. There was a direct
exchange of dialogue between the law enforcement personnel and the suspect. The
personnel knowing of the suspect’s religious convictions manipulated him into giving a
confession and disclosing where the body was. The court ruled that even though it
wasn’t typically an interrogation but it was a functional equivalent. INVALID
CONFESSION. There was conviction and the person was convicted of murder because
the body was discovered and there were a lot ancillary supportive evidences.
And court labelled the discovery of body as an ‘inevitable discovery exception’. So
although the confession itself does not lead to conviction but information obtained
without giving the Miranda warnings has in a way indirectly led to the conviction which
is in essence contradictory to Miranda verdict in itself but it was Inevitable that the
evidence was there. The exceptions associated with Miranda warnings have grown with
the period of time.

 RHODE ISLAND V INNIS (1988)

The person was arrested for robbing a taxi driver and the robbery happened very close to a
school and the weapon used by the robber went missing. And was suspected that the weapon was
lost somewhere closer to the school. Here in this case too, on his way to the police facility the
police officials were discussing amongst themselves how the robbery had happened close to a
school and the weapon was somewhere there and being close to school the children were at
threat. The suspect heard the conversation and ended up telling them where the weapon was and
they discovered the weapon based on his information.
In this case too the Miranda warnings were not given but this case was not considered to be a
functional equivalent of an interrogation because the conversation in this case was happening
amongst themselves rather that directed towards the suspect. And therefore in this case ‘totality
of circumstances clause’ was used, which essentially means that while deciding whether
Miranda warnings applies to a particular case or not it is important to consider all the facts of the
case rather than just the fact that Miranda warnings were not given and all the facts direct that
there was a conversation amongst the police officials and there was no active manipulation and
the police officials could not have predicted the impact of the conversation on the suspect.

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Miranda warning clause does not apply to this case. You look at all the facts of the case and the
circumstances rather than just one aspect that for instance in this case that Miranda warning was
not given and use this only to determine the case, No. All the facts need to be considered.

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25/07/2019
Initially the courts were very specific about the Miranda warnings but over a period of time the
importance of the Miranda rights and also the focus of the courts on the restriction of
psychological coercion has fizzled out and is visible in the multiple kinds of exceptions that are
used in order to allow in cases where the Miranda warnings are not given.
PUBLIC SAFETY EXCEPTION

This was formulated in the context of the 1984 case-

 NEW YORK V QUARLES
Wherein the individual was charged with the possession of an illegal weapon along with which
were other charges. The person was arrested in a super mart and it was suspected that he had
hidden the illegal weapon somewhere in the super mart. So immediately after the arrest the
police grilled him and questioned him and ultimately he disclosed the location of the weapon
which was located in a public arena. In this case even though the questioning happened
absolutely directed at the suspect and happened without giving the Miranda warnings, the court
allowed it. In the previous Brewer Case, direct questioning was considered to be functional
equivalent of interrogation and therefore had not allowed it.
But in this case the court admitted the confession, stating that this constituted public safety
exception wherein since the weapon was within public arena it could have been a threat to public
safety in general and thus it is sometimes ok to question the individual and to gain information
without giving the Miranda warnings. What is considered is the spontaneity of the situation
rather than sticking by the book.
Literature also mentions a number of other exceptions as well and public safety exception being
just one of them.
What is important is the language used to communicate the warnings is also considered to be
important and that the warnings have to be clear warnings and have to be understood by the
suspect. Eventually the courts have also accepted- ambiguous warnings as valid warnings.
 DUCKWORTH V EAGAN
The confession in this case was challenged on the basis that the warning given was an ambiguous
one and it was not clearly understood by the suspect and specifically in this case the interrogator
told the suspect (in the context of assigning an attorney/the right to an attorney) that there is no
way they can arrange an attorney for him but if he still demands an attorney, they’ll try and
arrange one when he goes for the trial. The right was informed to him in a complicated and an
ambiguous way. Unclear way of presenting the warning.
When challenged, the court admitted that the warnings presented were valid and the manner of
delivering was held to be valid by the court, highlighting the fact that during interrogation the

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language cannot always be monitored and supervised for every interrogator, it will be different
and thus valid to deliver the warnings in any language desired by the interrogator.
*A valid waiver is the one where the suspect who has to sign this waiver has the basic ability to
process of what is going on. The competency to stand trial is a psychological assessment with
regards to whether a person has basic competency which are important from the perspective of
going to the trial. (Like the basic ability to comprehend). If there is scope of restoring the
competency then the trial is delayed but if there is no scope of restoring the competency then the
guardian of the individual is called in. So along with the individual’s, it is also the signature of
the guardian’s signature that is important while signing the waiver.

FALSE CONFESSIONS
Why people confess to the crimes that they have not committed!
(*Forced Confessions)
Long and Extended Trials
There exists multiple reasons as to why a person confesses falsely.
One of them being, to save someone else, may be a beloved (child, partner, parent, etc.) and this
kind of confession is false and is a voluntary false confession.
All the research done by Saul Kassin in the 1990s and has been replicated a number of times.
False confession can be of two basic types-

VOLUNTARY FALSE CONFESSION-

Because all of these forces are internal, these confessions are considered to be voluntary in nature.
This can be perceived as an inner pressure that the person is exerting rather than external pressure.
And this can be psychological coercion coming from within.

1.(To save a beloved)

2(Need for fame or Social recognition)
Psychoanatyical viewpoint offered that a lot of people confess to crimes that they have not
committed only because that offers them some kind of recognition.
for an individual who is living a life of nothingness and has no fame, ambition, meaning and
purpose in life and one living in existential crisis (an inability to answer question like- what
is the larger meaning and purpose of life, what is the goal, why am I living) just about
anything that gets this person any amount of limelight/fame is something that this person
would grab onto, even if it takes the face of defame

famous case of – Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator and his son was kidnapped by
some people. When his son was kidnapped, over 200 people came forward to take

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 responsibility for that kidnapping which they had not done. And this triggered research into
why people confess to a crime that they haven’t committed.
Reasons- It was their claim to fame, some meaningfulness in their life. Similar to a very
young child who isn’t getting much attention from their parent, they thro a lot of tantrums
that is attention seeking even if it is bad attention.
In most crimes where people were voluntarily confessing to it and were later found to be false, it
was seen that these were the cases that were specifically grabbing a lot of limelight or at least
locally they were important cases. Getting some amount of basic social recognition is a basic
innate human motive which governs a lot of our lives and one who lives a life of nothingness,
this becomes a motivator.

3(Internalized Guilt/Need to punish oneself)- Idea of self punishment

supergo is responsible for a strong moral compass and well internalized idea of right and wrong. Also
inducts guilt

Excessive internalized guilt causing the need to punish oneself is another important factor
which psychological research highlights. This guilt resulting in punishing oneself further
results in the individual committing a crime because he would know that this might lead to
conviction and some kind of punishment.
 - ‘Coerced’ because it is assumed that if the person is confessing to something without
the willingness and forced into confessing a crime, then there is some level of coercion
that is involved and is not restricted to only physical but psychological coercion as well.

Coerced Compliant Confessions

When the individual is trying to comply externally with certain behaviors which are desired out
of the individual.
COMPLIANCE IN SOCIAL BEHAVIOR- Compliance explains the behavior when the
individual just changes the external behavior in response to certain demands that are placed on
the individual but does not necessarily change the internal behavior or beliefs. Changing or
altering one’s social behavior even though the internal beliefs are different from what is
expressed. 2 Types-
(Putting an end to the strenuous process of interrogation/ threatening by causing harm)
This might be the case where person might confess to put an end to all the abuse and coercion
that the person is going through.
(Promises of leniency or immunity offered) In an alternate situation if the person confesses due
to immunity or leniency that is promised to the person again the person confesses not because he
believes in that but because he feels that there will be certain benefits that he would get if he
would confess to the crimes that he hasn’t committed.

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Coerced Internalized False Confessions
An internalization means that the individual actually starts believing in something which might
not necessarily be true in the case. These are cases where the individual confesses to the
commission of a crime and at the same time also starts believing that he actually did commit the
crime when he actually did not.

Interrogative suggestibility
‘interrogative suggestibility’ (Gud Jonsson coined this term) - very suggestive interrogative
techniques which are constantly feeding in this information on the person that he committed the
crime. This results in a situation where the person starts actually believing that he indeed
committed the crime. For Gud Jonsson, a case of Internalized Coerced Confession is simply a
game of pressure tactics and confidence game (inducing cognitive confusion) look copy

Alt key experiment

In an experiment done by Kassin where he set up a lab and told his examinees that he is
performing an experiment which is to test the reaction time of the examinee.
Brains time to react to a stimulus. They were supposed to simply sit in front of the computer and
when a certain kind of stimuli flashed on the screen (stimuli were to do with alphabets), the
examinee was supposed to hit the related alphabet key on the keyboard. Along with this they
were told to not press the ‘alt’ key and if they pressed it the computer would crash. The computer
was programmed to crash after 10 seconds. So after the experiment started, irrespective of the
keys that the examinees pressed the computer would anyway crash after I min from its
commencement. This was followed by this freaked out examiner entering into the lab and
blaming the examinee for pressing the alt key. In all of the cases the examinee had not pressed
the ‘alt’ key.
Results indicated that initially all the examinees denied that they had pressed the ‘alt’ key but
once the experimenter explicitly manifested how freaked out and distressed he was, majority
69% of the examinees went onto agree that they had pressed the ‘alt’ key. This was coerced
compliant. Later they were given a questionnaire where they had to respond, 28% of the
examinee who agreed to press the ‘alt’ key, actually internalized the fact. The content analysis of
their responses showed that they were agreeing to it not because they were under pressure by the
examiner but because they actually started believing that they had pressed it.
In about 9% of these cases, people actually ‘confabulated’ (Confabulation- filling in the gaps.
While recalling an event if there are gaps in that event then as part of the cognitive processes
implied in memory, the person is likely to make up the information to fill in those gaps) which
meant that when they were asked to give a narrative of what had happened they actually made up
the stories and filled in the gaps and came up with their own explanations about how they went
on to hit the ‘alt’ key.
Also the experiment shows that when the high rate of presentation of stimulus (fast paced flash
on the screen) was passed, then the probability of agreeing to having pressed the ‘alt’ key was
high as compared to a slow stimulation presentation case where the stimuli was presented slowly

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and is a relatively less stress inducing situation. In a high paced situation stress was high and
therefore the suggestibility and possibility and probability of internalizing is way more.

Momentary and temporary

And also a lot of internalized confessions are momentary states of believing in something. Once
the process is done and over with and the person returns to a relatively normal situation and
starts reflecting back again, gains his ability to reason then the realization might dawn that he
never really committed the crime. So in a lot cases the internalization might be temporary and
might resolve at a later stage.
Research suggests that when you use these conclusions in an actual set up, it might be difficult to
differentiate between all of these types that is if it is compliant or internalized.So a lot of times it
is not possible to gauge the real motive behind a false confession and therefore a clear cut
classification is mostly not possible.

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