Are you allowed to lie to the police?

 You can try, but as the saying goes, it will be seized upon and used against you in court. Not to mention, you can be charged with the crime of perjury. And it isn't just the lie - anything you say can be used against you. A misstatement, delayed memory, telling the truth, anything.  But are the police allowed to lie to you in order to get you to admit to something? Yes. And they are trained to do it.  Our rights of due process reflect the foundational importance of being treated fairly by the criminal justice/punishment system. While police officers and prosecutors may violate those rights, there are also many instances where the system is structured in a way that such violations are not only legal but encouraged through training and culture.

In most criminal justice courses and training, the stated purpose of interviews and interrogations are to "find out the truth." Yet in the video below, John Oliver discusses the unreliability and predatory nature of police interrogations, which are often aimed at extracting a confession rather than determining truth. 

Getting a confession from a suspect is critical, he explains, because confessions are “viewed as the gold standard when it comes to an indicator of guilt, as they can apparently be more persuasive than even DNA evidence."  Yet how those confessions are obtained is often very troubling, and leads (in a surprising number of cases) to an innocent person being convicted.

Although it may be hard to believe, people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit. The way a person is questioned during interrogation, as well as the personality, age, ability, etc. of the person involved, may contribute to a false confession.

Watch the video below, and then answer the following questions:

https://youtu.be/obCNQ0xksZ4 (Links to an external site.) 

1. We learned about Miranda rights in the Bill of Rights chapter this week. According to the video, what are some reasons over 80% of suspects waive their Miranda rights - meaning, still talk to the police even though they don't have to? 2. What do you think was the reasoning behind making it legal for police to lie when questioning a potential criminal? What do you think police should and should not be allowed to do during an interrogation? 3. Oliver suggests some reforms that might help cut down on false confessions and police abusing their power during interviews and interrogations. What are the factors that would make such reforms difficult to pass?