...this is one of those news articles you read and have to do a double-take. Like, this wasn't already a law????
That’s what Terrill Swift, who spent nearly 15 years in prison after falsely confessing to a 1994 rape and murder, says happened to him. DNA evidence later tied the crime to a previously convicted murderer and sex offender.
Jesus Christ.
I've seen a study before that found something like 4% of death row prisoners are actually innocent and falsely convicted, and if I recall correctly that was a lowball. Listening to some true crime podcasts where an obviously innocent person was convicted, I was shocked to find out the absolutely psychopathic lengths cops will sometimes go to destroy the life of a clearly innocent person at the cost of letting the actual perpetrator go free.
They'll tell any lie they can if they think they can get a confession out of you for it. They'll make up some bullshit about how they have infrared satellites watching your every move through buildings and computer software that can tell them if you're lying. Needless to say this often pressures people into giving false confessions. It should be illegal for them to lie to adults too, never mind children.
Anyway, just imagine what that statistic is like for non-death penalty cases where there isn't as much of a threshold for "beyond a reasonable doubt." Now imagine what that number is like for non-violent crimes where that threshold is even lower. And on top of that all the people in for bullshit crimes like drug possession that should absolutely not be crimes.
The United States prison system is an atrocity on an unbelievable scale and is the epitome of what liberals should be thinking of instead when they talk about gulags in the Soviet Union. I'm not going to defend China's propensity for so liberally applying the death penalty, but regardless it's laughable that somehow they have the reputation as being the most authoritarian country on Earth while the United States exist.
In non-death penalty cases, especially for minor offenses, there are all sorts of inducements for an innocent person to plead guilty. The choice is often:
- Sit in jail until trial because you can't make bail, then face all the charges they can think up; or
- Get out now and take a plea deal for reduced charges.
If you have a job, or a family that depends on you, or bills to pay, which option are you choosing?
However the law failed to address instances of lying while having one's fingers crossed
Obviously, this is a good thing.
However, what is to stop them from lying? Even if the interrogation was being recorded, the officer could just say that they thought they were being truthful or something.
You're absolutely correct that cops will work around this, and it's also ripe for being hollowed out by the courts (a cop saying he thought he was being truthful could easily turn into an expansive good-faith exception).
But it's something, and it'll help some people, and enough little improvements might collectively make a big improvement. It's nothing to rest on, but it's a decent step.
It sets the groundwork for later movements to increase curtailing fo the police. Yeah, revolution or disbanding the police would be faster and more effective, and we should do it, but this isn't a bad thing.
Important fact: make sure to invoke your right to an attorney and then your right to remain silent when being interrogated. They can actually use a lack of testimony against you in court unless you do the latter.
