Document Category: Custodial Interrogation

This suppression motion argues that client’s statement—“I think it’d probably be a good idea for me to get an attorney”—should be understood as a clear invocation of the Fifth Amendment right to counsel. Relying on a recent empirical study, the motion argues that the invocation standard should be synonymous with a reasonable listener standard. Because ordinary American listeners overwhelmingly interpret conditional statements, questions, and hedges, like the one used by client, as clear invocations of the right to counsel, the motion argues a reasonable officer should have understood client’s statement to be a clear invocation of the right to counsel. In the alternative, the motion argues that the Court should follow the lead of other states and impose upon police a duty to clarify. Finally, the motion argues that because officers ignored client’s stated desire to speak with an attorney, the resulting statement was also involuntarily given.

This draft motion should be used to exclude a confession when police officers contaminate the confession by feeding nonpublic facts about the offense to the questioned suspect. Relying on social science research and police interrogation manuals, the motion argues that: (a) police-contaminated confessions are impermissibly coercive and result in involuntary statements (pg. 1-3); and (b) police-contaminated confessions should be excluded under Rule of Evidence 403 because their probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice (pg. 3-8).

This draft section of a motion to suppress details how judges’ and jurors’ assessments of the voluntariness of consent are likely to be impaired by a systematic psychosocial bias that makes them underappreciate the degree to which suspects feel pressure to comply with police search requests and overestimate the likelihood of freely-given consent. These tendencies persist even if police inform individuals that they have the right to refuse consent [p. 8]. This motion ultimately encourages courts to require reasonable suspicion before permitting requests for consent as NJ, RI, and CT already do [p. 8-10] or – at the very least – to take into account these psychosocial realities when analyzing the totality of the circumstances to determine whether consent was voluntarily given.  The research in this motion and the arguments raised could also be used to address the voluntariness of a decision to waive Miranda rights and give a statement to police.

This draft section of a motion to suppress involuntary statements should be used when the government argues an offensive police interrogation tactic did not “cause” a Black male client’s confession because the client either did not appear outwardly affected/emotional when the tactic was used or responded with aggressive or callous behavior. To support the argument that such causation analyses are improper, it cites social science explaining that Black men are socialized to present as indifferent or even overly-aggressive when they are afraid and also explains that non-Black system actors are typically unable to correctly interpret Black people’s reactions.

This is a draft motion defenders can use to seek exclusion under Rule 403 of a co-defendant’s redacted confession that directly or indirectly incriminates your client. This motion can be used even when exclusion under the Confrontation Clause fails post-Samia (the Supreme Court’s 2023 Confrontation Clause). This motion distinguishes between the Confrontation Clause and the Federal Rules of Evidence and explains why a separate Rule 403 analysis is necessary even if the court finds no Confrontation problem (pages 8-11). It describes social science research demonstrating that (a) juries are unlikely to follow the limiting instruction to consider the co-defendant’s statement only against the co-defendant (pages 4-7) and (b) secondary confessions by a co-defendant will be weighed heavily by juries even when the co-defendant has a motive to lie or downplay their role (pages 7-8). Taken together, this research shows that the likelihood of unfair prejudice is extremely high and outweighs any interest the system may have in a joint trial, requiring either severance of the trials or exclusion of the co-defendant’s redacted confession under Rule 403.

This draft motion section relies on psychological and neuroscientific research to argue that young people who have been exposed to trauma behave differently when interrogated and are more likely to give false, unreliable, and involuntary confessions such that past exposure to trauma should be an important factor in the voluntariness analysis.

Pages 2-3:  Youth with trauma histories are quicker to perceive subtle threats from interrogators.

Pages 3-4: They are more sensitive to environmental stressors

Pages 4-5:  They are more distressed when they perceive threats leading to over- and under-reactions

Pages 5-6:  They often give in to authority figures and confess to avoid additional trauma

Pages 6-7:  They are more susceptible to police interrogation tactics like maximization and minimization.

Pages 7-11:  These pages discuss other potential uses of this emerging research, including (a) a request for funding to retain an expert to explain how a client’s trauma symptomatology may have manifested during an interrogation; (b) arguments that prior trauma exposure should be considered when determining whether an adolescent was in custody and being interrogated; and (c) arguments that prior trauma may affect the voluntariness of a Miranda waiver.

Pg. 13 – noting that there is no reliable scientific study validating the hypothesis that shaking alone can cause bleeding in the brain and eyes and neurological impairment; accidents can cause these symptoms

Pg. 14 – discussing thirty documented exonerations of innocent people wrongfully convicted based on shaken baby syndrome (and in 13% of those cases, the innocent person falsely confessed)

Pg. 19 – discussing a survey that reveals fewer than half of forensic pathologists think SBS is a valid diagnosis

Pgs. 20-28 – discussing why experts in biomechanical engineering are relevant to and regularly testify in SBS/AHT cases and how biomechanical studies show that shaking alone cannot produce the medical findings associated with SBS/AHT

Pgs. 28-31 – discussing the many non-abusive causes/circumstances that can present the same diagnostic signs relied upon to support SBS/AHT

Pgs. 38- 39 – collecting research that discusses the biasing impact of false confessions, how they corrode evidence collection and create a false appearance of corroboration, and how likely they are to lead to erroneous convictions

Pgs. 39-40 – documenting the problem of contaminated confessions

Pgs. 41-42 – discussing research showing that (a) individuals who have experienced trauma as well as (b) individuals who are depressed are more susceptible to police coercion and more likely to falsely confess

Pgs. 42-44 – discussing research about the dangers of police reliance on false evidence ploys to induce confessions

Pgs. 48-50 – surveying recent social science evidence on false confessions

Pgs. 50-53 – discussing social science research on confirmation biases in forensics

Filed by the American Psychological Association, this brief overviews specific interrogation techniques (maximization, minimization, and sleep deprivation) that contribute to false confessions, as well as research showing that young people are particularly likely to falsely confess.

Pgs. 7-8 – summarize scientific research describing how people create entirely false memories, a study of false memory creation, and a list of false memory risk factors, particularly for children.

Pgs. 9-10 – explain how interview techniques can create false memories in children, even false memories that do not seem to directly relate to the questions asked by the interviewer, and why expert testimony is needed to educate the jury on the counterintuitive nature of memory creation (i.e., the more detailed a memory, the higher the likelihood of error).

Pgs. 12-14 argue that, because the science behind false memories is similar to that of mistaken eyewitness identifications and both require jury education to evaluate witness credibility, expert testimony on false memories should be admitted at the discretion of the trial judge under the same logic.

p. 18 – 23 incorporate research about the high susceptibility of adolescents to persuasion, especially by police. Amici argues that this makes adolescents more likely than adults to give false information to authority figures. Includes research on how adolescents respond to authority under stress.

p. 14 to 21 cites research on false confession risk factors and police techniques that increase risk

Details risk factors for false confessions, benefits of a defense expert on false confessions, and why expert testimony on false confessions satisfies Daubert

Report overviews existing research on false confessions and specific risk factors for false confessions.