NYPD Will Videotape Interrogations
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says his department will start videotaping police interrogations in two precincts as a pilot project this year. Rebecca Brown with the Innocence Project, a public policy group that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, says a survey of 238 jurisdictions that videotape interrogations found law enforcement officers prefer it. “They find that these are airtight confessions that they can use in court,” she says. “Nobody will question them. It prevents disputes about how officers conducted themselves. It creates a record of statements made by the suspect. It permits officers to concentrate on the interview rather than being distracted by the note taking.”
Vidocq supports this project. It will prevent “confessions” such as were made in the Richard Lapointe case, see here.
But the President of the Detectives Endowment Association vehemently opposes videotaping interrogations. Mike Palladino says it would offer criminals insights into police interview techniques and could prejudice juries against the prosecution.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes says he’s for the videotaping pilot.
The article is here.
Categories: Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice
Tags: Actual Innocence, Capital Punishment, Evidence, Miscarriage of Justice, New York, Police, Police Interrogations, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions