Court Support of Police Deception: Rewarding Good Police Work or Eroding Constitutional Protections?

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Law Enforcement: Duties, Performance, and Tactics

Abstract

• Courts, led by the United States Supreme Court following the Warren Era, have held constitutional much police deception that leads subjects (1) to waive their constitutional rights to refuse or limit a search and instead consent to a search or (2) to waive their constitutional rights to counsel or silence in interrogation contexts. When subjects' free will and freedom of choice are subverted by police deception, (A) subjects’ Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights are diminished toward the vanishing point, (B) police deception is rewarded and courts become complicit in it, and (C) our criminal justice system delivers a lesser quantum of justice. As Justice Thurgood Marshall noted: “In my view, good police work is something far different from catching the criminal at any price. It is equally important that the police, as guardians of the law, fulfill their responsibility to obey its commands scrupulously” (Brewer v. Williams, 1977, Marshall, J., dissenting). It is past time for ending police deception that deceives suspects into waiving their constitutional rights (1) when police deceive subjects into consenting to searches and (2) when police deceive subjects into waiving their constitutional rights to refuse to offer admissions, confessions, and other statements against penal interests.

Author

• Chuck Maclean, Metropolitan State University