or simply "pissing around and pissing us off", according to a certain individual.

Δευτέρα, Ιουνίου 18, 2007

Να παραιτηθεί ο Πολύδωρας (πνιχτά γέλια)

Crowe: Like I said, the only way I even know I did this is that she's dead and that the evidence says I did it. You could find that someone else did it, and I pray to God someone else did. I think it's too late for that. I think I did it.

Miranda was designed to prevent the kind of interrogation that produced Crowe's confession. And indeed, 36 years ago, when the decision was handed down, those on the front lines of law enforcement had vigorously argued that the ruling would handcuff them and result in far fewer confessions and thus convictions. Today, those who once complained have come to embrace Miranda. Why the change of heart?

The answer lies behind the long-locked doors of the interrogation room. What the Warren Court did not foresee was how its decision would lead to new, questionable interrogation methods. Most people know the "good cop-bad cop" routine popular with police drama writers (and less so with police themselves).

Less familiar are a number of more refined approaches that are amply evident in law enforcement training manuals. None is more revealing nor more influential than the latest edition of a book Earl Warren drew on for his conclusions — Criminal Interrogation and Confessions by Fred Inbau and John Reid. And thanks to social psychologist Richard Ofshe of the University of California, Berkeley, and criminologist Leo, studies of actual police practice — including the eponymous Reid technique — also now exist. By analyzing hundreds of interrogations, videotape recordings, and transcripts, Ofshe and Leo have drawn aside the curtain that customarily obscures the interrogation room, exposing the often mesmerizing, sometimes disturbing theater that unfolds therein.

False Confessions
Scaring Suspects to Death