NCJ Number
201713
Date Published
2002
Length
93 pages
Annotation
This book is designed to assist practitioners and criminal justice students to understand criminal justice case law regarding the constitutional considerations surrounding interviews and interrogations, stop and frisk, consensual encounters with the police, and polygraph testing by the police for criminal investigations.
Abstract
Interviews and interrogations of suspects, witnesses, and victims are still the most important evidence available to police officers today. Crime scene evidence may be instrumental in making a case in court, but often physical evidence cannot be located with a properly conducted, thorough preliminary investigation which may include both interviews and interrogations. Statements made by witnesses, victims, and suspects may lead to physical evidence, or even confessions, and should be treated by police with the same reverence as other forms of evidence. This book was compiled to provide practitioners and criminal justice students with the resources necessary to fully understand Supreme Court interpretations of how the police can and must utilize case law in collecting testimonial evidence, evidence from stop and frisk encounters, and polygraph testing. The purpose of the book is to teach students and practitioners how to understand the intricate nature of working within the boundaries of case law when collecting testimonial evidence. The book is divided in six sections. The first section is the introduction and the second section describes the interview and the interrogation, and the difference between the two. Section 3 summarizes the landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases that affected the methodology by which the police conduct interviews and interrogations including the case of Miranda v. Arizona (1996). A summary of the Miranda Rules is included at the end of this section. Section 4 provides summaries of Supreme Court cases that have led to clarifications of the Miranda Rules. The fifth section of the book examines the legal authority and ability of law enforcement investigators to detain and question individuals suspected of involvement in criminal activity. It examines several cases concerning the issues of stop, detention, seizure, and arrest. The last section of the book describes polygraph testing and summarizes two cases that affected the use of such testing. Appendix A provides the constitutional amendments that most commonly affect law enforcement. Those amendments are the 4th amendment, the 5th amendment, the 6th amendment, and the 14th amendment. Appendix B describes the Garrity Rule. 8 references and a glossary