By Gina Holland, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Both police and defense lawyers sometimes find that a video camera in the interrogation room or the patrol car can help their case. Police may show a suspect wasn’t roughed up, for example, or a defendant can use the tape to back up allegations that detectives were heavy-handed.
As the cameras become more common, however, police and attorneys are divided over whether they should be a mandatory part of any questioning session between a suspect and an officer.
The nation’s largest lawyers group is considering an endorsement of mandatory taping in all states. The plan will be debated by the American Bar Association, which begins its winter meeting in San Antonio on Thursday.
Critics complain that recording devices will chill talkative defendants, or that cases will be ruined by taping lapses.
One state, Illinois, already has a law requiring police to tape interrogations of murder suspects.
Miami lawyer Neal Sonnett said prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys share concerns about problems at trial reconstructing what happened in interrogations.
Jurors often have to rely on an officer’s notes or recollections, he said, and “it becomes the defendant’s word against the officer’s word.”
Interrogations have captured the interest of the Supreme Court, which is reviewing four cases this term involving claims of improper interrogations. Justices have ruled in one appeal so far, in a decision last month that reaffirmed that police must tell criminal suspects facing formal charges they have a right to see a lawyer before starting questioning.
The ABA proposal says that state lawmakers or courts should approve rules for videotaping suspects in custody. Audio taping could be done when videotaping is impractical, the recommendation says. Drafters said it was prompted by coerced false confessions in Illinois and other states.
Some legislatures have already been studying the issue. Maine lawmakers this month are debating a taping proposal, which is opposed by police worried that mandatory tapings of defendants in murder and sex cases would lead to failed prosecutions.
“I don’t want to see the victims of violent crimes lose their day in court because we screwed up their video,” Portland deputy police chief Bill Ridge said this week.
He said the department tapes most interrogations, including informal interviews in the back seats of patrol cars. The department built an addition to their building to accommodate all the videotapes, he said.
In addition to police recordings, the ABA had other issues on its meeting agenda:
If the governing body of the 400,000-member ABA approves the proposals, the organization can lobby on the subjects.
Besides Illinois which passed a taping law last year, Alaska and Minnesota also require taping, ordered by courts. New Jersey’s attorney general is working on a policy for electronically recording interrogations.
Ronald Rychlak, a law professor at the University of Mississippi, said videotaping is seen as a way to protect defendants from improper coercion or brutality.
“Ultimately,” he said, “it’s going to end up working for law enforcement. It will probably lead to more convictions, not more acquittals.”