Liar Liar: The Fine Line between Deception and Coercion

We have all seen scenes like this one play out on TV shows like Law and Order: a suspect is taken into an interrogation room and a police officer or two tries to elicit a confession from the suspect.  The suspect is uncooperative, so the officers begin to rely on deceptions, lies, and other trickery.  Maybe something like: we found some fingerprints, and we are running them right now, and we know they are going to match, so you might as well confess before that happens and pray that gets you some leniency.  Courts have generally held that confessions obtained because of deception can be used as evidence.  However, on February 20, 2014, the New York Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the deception can only go so far, drawing a line between police tactics that are tolerable and the ones that move into coercive territory.

"Scenes of a Crime": A Documentary Surrounding the Adrian Thomas Case and a Look at False Confession Experts

Scenes of a Crime is a fascinating documentary examining the case and confession of Adrian Thomas.  On September 21, 2008, one of Adrian Thomas’s four-month-old twin sons, Matthew, was taken to the hospital for difficulty breathing.  The admitting doctor identified signs of Sepsis (caused by infection) and started to treat Matthew with antibiotics and ordered testing.  Matthew was transferred to another hospital where Dr. Walter Edge, who was working in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, was concerned with fluid around Matthew’s brain.  Dr. Edge suspected the fluid was the result of intentional abuse and notified the police; Child Protective Services removed Thomas’s six other children from the home.  Later at the hospital, Dr. Edge told the detectives “somebody murdered this child, this child [is] going to die.”