What can the police lie about while conducting an interrogation?
I’ve noticed while watching The First 48 that the detectives occasionally lie to a witness or suspect to get information. But what I haven’t ever seen them do is lie about having witnesses who saw the person being interrogated committing the crime. Every time they told the suspect that they had a witness against him, they really did have one. So it got me thinking: can the police lie about having witnesses against you to procure information? —diggleblop Gfactor replies: Yes, the police are allowed to tell you they’ve got a witness who saw you do it even when they don’t. But although that sort of lie is unlikely to invalidate a confession, some experts say it’s all too likely to ruin the interrogation. Let me explain. The leading case on police trickery and deceit is Frazier v. Cupp. Here the defendant was convicted of murder based on his confession, which he’d provided after receiving a “somewhat abbreviated description of his constitutional rights” (the interrogation predated Miranda)
