Daily Archives: December 25, 2008

When does police coercion make a confession involuntary?

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interrogation

We're gonna get what we want, see?

Here’s the quick answer: almost never. If you’re still interested, read the rest of the post. Be warned, though. It is long.

I realize this is a slightly heavy topic for Christmas Day, but such are the conversations I have over lunch. What precipitated this line of thought is this Kansas Supreme Court decision, up for cert. before SCOTUS in the coming weeks.

In Morton, the Kansas Supreme Court held that the [police officer]‘s deliberate misleading of the defendant led to her confession being involuntary. The officer lied to Morton about her need for an attorney during the interrogation and lead her to believe that all he had were clarifying questions. The KS Supreme Court held thusly (more on Morton and CT law after the jump): Continue reading →

Another Beatty Christmas

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It’s been nearly 14 years now since H. Beatty Chadwick was first acquainted with the inside of a prison cell. Chadwick, a rich lawyer in PA, was jailed back in the ’90s for that most serious of crimes: contempt of court.

This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill contempt either, where he told a judge to stuff it. No, Chadwick is in jail for violating a civil court’s order of alimony. So what happened? From this 2005 ABC Primetime piece: Continue reading →