By Susan Saulny, The New York Times
he American Bar Association unanimously accepted a resolution yesterday that urges law enforcement agencies around the country to videotape interrogations of criminal suspects, a measure that was pushed aggressively by a group of New York lawyers in the wake of the Central Park jogger case, in which five men were wrongfully convicted.
The association is one of the nation’s largest and most respected professional groups, and its endorsement of videotaping interrogations in their entirety, is expected to be influential at a time when an increasing number of jurisdictions are considering the issue of wrongful conviction.
Last year, Illinois became the third state, after Alaska and Minnesota, to require taping.
“This is an incredible, important endorsement of videotaping and should go a long way toward getting states to adopt legislation in this area,” said Steven A. Drizin , a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law.
The resolution was presented to the association at a delegates’ meeting in San Antonio.
Stephen Saltzburg, a professor of law at George Washington University and a delegate to the criminal justice section of the association, said: “We’re hoping that this will give the movement, which has already started throughout the U.S. and in other countries throughout the world, a real momentum""
The New York County Lawyers’ Association sponsored the resolution after conducting a report on taped interrogations and in response to the jogger case. In 2002, a State Supreme Court justice threw out the convictions of five men in the attack after a sixth man confessed to being the sole attacker. The sixth man’s claim was backed by DNA evidence when he came forward, but by that time the five others had already served their time in prison. Three of the men have filed a civil suit seeking $50 million in damages.
The jogger case was based largely on the five young men’s confessions; four of the five were videotaped only after long interrogations that were not recorded. Advocates for the young men insist that they were tricked or coerced into confessing.
Norman Reimer, the vice president of the New York County Lawyers Association, said the jogger case was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” in terms of pushing for the American Bar Association to adopt a national standard that it could support.
The New York Police Department stands against videotaped interrogations. Late last year, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “I don’t see a need, quite frankly.”
He cited problems of handling 220,000 to 250,000 arrests a year. “The logistics of it are mind-boggling for an agency this size,” Mr. Kelly said.