NCJ Number
110497
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 78 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1988) Pages: 699-734
Date Published
1988
Length
36 pages
Annotation
A general reform of confessions law is proposed suggesting that if the Supreme Court removed the privilege against self-incrimination from the fourteenth amendment's due process clause, it would accomplish considerable reform at the level of constitutional law.
Abstract
Removing the privilege would permit the States to establish humane systems of in-court interrogation. If the privilege against self-incrimination is withdrawn, there should be a per se exclusionary rule for any statement obtained by the police from an arrested person. The Supreme Court could achieve this result by tightening the fourth, sixth, or fourteenth amendment limitations on police interrogation. Two 1987 Supreme Court cases related to confessions law, Colorado v. Connelly and Colorado v. Spring, indicate that the Court permits the extraction of confessions but forbids doing so with needless brutality. The Court should impose stricter constitutional limits on police interrogation and rule that statements obtained by the police from persons under arrest be made inadmissable for impeachment or other purposes at any subsequent trial. Three ways for the Court to arrive at this conclusion through constitutional means are suggested. 133 footnotes.