Ethics in Law Enforcement \"Sometimes [Police Officers]

Ethics in Law Enforcement

"Sometimes [police officers] may, and sometimes may not, lie when conducting custodial interrogations. Investigative and interrogatory lying are each justified on utilitarian crime control grounds. Police are never supposed to lie as witnesses in the courtroom, although they may lie for utilitarian reasons similar to those permitting deception & #8230;" (Skolnick, et al., 1992)

Is it ethical for law enforcement officers to use deception during the interrogation process? It appears that when officers are attempting to extract a confession from a suspect, deception is, in many cases, commonly applied strategy. Does a code of ethics conflict with the way in which law enforcement conducts its interviews and interrogations? What do the courts say about deceptive interrogation tactics? These issues will be reviewed in this paper.

Deception in the Interrogation Room

Is it ethical to lie to obtain the truth? No. Do the ends justify the means? No. Regardless of the justification -- such as those found in the literature and reported in this narrative -- it is unethical to deceive suspects with phony evidence or assertions that are patently untrue. That said, law professor Richard A. Leo, who specializes in researching police tactics during interrogations and interviews, points out that most appellate courts allow law enforcement to be deceptive in their interrogations "…so long as their misrepresentations have not deceived suspects about their Miranda rights" (Leo, 2009, p. 190). Appellate courts also tolerate deception during the interrogation providing the police refrain from using "threats or promises," Leo explains (190). Most American courts allow deceptive interrogation for two reasons: a) deceptive interrogation is "…not apt to lead an innocent suspect to confess"; and b) it "does not render a confession involuntary" (Leo, 190).

There are exceptions regarding what is acceptable to the courts; confronting a suspect with a "fabricated written documentation" (such as a false scientific report on stationery from the law enforcement offices) is off-limits; and promising mental health treatment in return for a confession is also unacceptable in a court of law (Leo, 190). That said, Leo reports that courts "have displayed deep ambivalence toward police lying" and courts have "repeatedly" affirmed convictions that were based (at least in part) on suspects confessing based on police deception (Leo, 190).

Criminology professor Michael Braswell writes that the Supreme Court (along with other courts) usually rule that using lies and deception to get a suspect to confess is constitutional (Braswell, 2011, p. 79). In Ward v. State (1980) police played two accomplices against each other; in State v. Jackson (1983) police fabricated scientific evidence "…about nonexistent bloodstains and testimonial evidence from nonexistent eyewitnesses," Braswell recounted. In both of these cases the Supreme Court indicated the deceptive tactics were constitutional (Braswell, 79). However, in Leyra v. Denno (1954) a police psychiatrist pretended that he was a doctor, and assured the defendant that he (the suspect) would be let off, and the High Court held that those strategies were not admissible. Certain promises of leniency are viewed by the Supreme Court as "inherently coercive" and hence, unconstitutional (Braswell, 81).

Not only to courts generally allow certain deceptive practices in interviews and interrogations -- such as "lying to suspects about the evidence and case against them" -- these tactics are spelled out "…in step-by-step guides" in police training manuals (McMullen, 2005, p. 973). Why do courts allow these deceptive practices to continue? McMullen, an attorney, explains that courts allow these practices based on the assumption that "an innocent person of normal intelligence" wouldn't admit to breaking the law if he or she was innocent (974). Clearly McMullen finds these tactics unconscionable: "The specter of police browbeating confessions out of suspects does not meet basic expectations of fairness and justice" (974).

"The actual practices of coercive interrogation bear a family resemblance to forms of torture that are used to intimidate, terrorize, or oppress" (Michigan Law Review, 2006).

Is there a conflict between police codes of ethics and how law enforcement is really conducted? Yes, there is a substantial gap between police interview and interrogation tactics that courts approve of, and the code of ethics that many police and sheriff's departments follow.

The "Law Enforcement Code of Ethics" was created by the Peace Officers' Association of the State of California in 1956, and has generally be adopted and used by a number of law enforcement agencies.

In the first paragraph, the officer is sworn to "…protect the innocent against deception" and to protect the "weak against oppression or intimidation" (Riverside Sheriff, CA). Protecting the innocent "against deception" is ironic because police use deception as a commonly, court-approved strategy, and "intimidation" is part of the everyday process of interviewing and interrogating. In the second paragraph, the officer is pledging to be "honest in thought and deed in both my personal and official life," and obviously deceiving suspects is not honest. The third paragraph reminds officers to enforce the law "appropriately" -- but is blatant trickery and dishonesty an appropriate way to conduct law enforcement duties? No. In the fourth paragraph the ethical code asserts that an officer recognizes his badge as a "symbol of public faith" and the public trusts that he or she will be "…true to the ethics of police service"; but based on the police training manuals, ethics is out the window when it comes to interrogating suspects (Riverside Sheriff's Department).

What role do physical behavior and nonverbal communication play in detecting deception? (This question seems out of sync with the theme of the entire paper, to be asking if the suspect can tell whether an officer in an interrogation situation would nonverbally give away his deception. I assume the question relates to non-verbal communication from the suspect).

A peer-reviewed article in the journal Psychology, Crime, & Law reports on an experiment using thirty participants -- fifteen who pretended to have committed a crime and 15 who were "innocent" -- all of whom were interrogated by thirty experienced police officers. The task was to distinguish the truth-tellers from the liars. Both the truth-tellers and the liars were trained "to not make excess movements" and the liars were asked to "keep the story simple" while the truth-tellers were asked to "…keep the story real" (Stromwall, et al., 2006). The results revealed that overall the truth tellers and liars could not be "distinguished by their nonverbal behaviors" Stromwall reports (207).