Interrogation

Defining Interrogation

Interrogation is a special type of interview. It involves interaction between the interviewer and a suspect for the purpose of obtaining admissions, confessions, or information that can be used later to obtain a conviction. Some experts limit the definition to seeking admissions and confessions, but this is overly narrow. The sophisticated interviewer may strive to entrap the suspect in a damaging lie that may lead to a conviction when that suspect will not admit to a crime. The interrogation, unlike most interviews, involves questioning a hostile or uncooperative interviewee. Just when a conversation becomes an interrogation is not always easy to determine. In a Maryland burglary, the officers took the suspect to the police station for questioning and showed him the tire iron used to pry open the door and told him that they were sending it out for fingerprinting. The defendant's [Page 251]statements made subsequent to this were deemed to have been the products of the equivalent of police interrogation. However, courts have held that it is not interrogation to inform the suspect that three out of four witnesses had identified him in a lineup.

Setting

Generally, interrogation takes place with the suspect in custody and in a place where the police or other law enforcement authorities are clearly in control, such as a police station, in the police car, or in a holding cell. This is because the interrogator's success may hinge upon establishing psychological dominance over the suspect. Because this is easier to do away from cues that are comfortable or familiar to the suspect, most interrogations do not take place in the home or office of the suspect.

Method

Fostering the suspect's feelings of trust and dependency on the investigator are common techniques; however, investigators may approach the interrogation from a variety of stances. Most people are familiar with the “good cop–bad cop” method of interviewing, where two officers play the roles of a sympathetic and a hostile investigator. This is only one approach investigators might take. Among other approaches are (a) the direct approach, (b) the emotional approach, (c) the authoritarian approach, and (d) the deceptive approach. The direct approach is simply telling the suspect why the interrogator is there and asking directly for the details about what happened. The emotional approach tries to play upon the suspect's emotions (fear, guilt, sympathy, pride, jealousy, or fear). The authoritarian approach tries to use the power and authority of the interrogator to pressure the suspect into confessing.

Although the interrogator is interested in getting the suspect to tell the truth, many interrogators will use deception to achieve that end. Interrogators may claim to have latent fingerprints that they do not have or statements from co-defendants that they do not have, or they may use other lies in order to get the suspect to confess. One interrogator was able to extract a confession by telling a naive suspect that a copy machine in the corner of the interrogation room was really a voice-activated lie detector that showed the suspect to be lying. Because the courts use a “totality of the circumstances test” in evaluating whether the lies told to the suspect are coercive, the interrogator generally has fairly wide latitude in using deception.

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