Law and Police Practice: Restrictions in the Law of Interrogation and Confessions

Abstract

When the police handcuff a suspected criminal, they, as well as the arrested person himself, have a very definite understanding as to where he is going. The purpose of the handcuffing is also quite apparent. But when the courts handcuff the policeand it is suggested that some of them do-it is doubtful if they have a clear-cut notion as to where they are headed. It is also questionable whether such courts have given adequate consideration to other and perhaps better methods for coping with the police problems about which they are concerned. Artificial restrictions which the courts have imposed upon law enforcement agencies and officers are the result of two basic misconceptions regarding police misconduct. The first misconception concerns the role to be played by the courts with respect to the control or supervision of police activities. The theory has been developed by some judges that the judiciary is privileged to exert disciplinary control and supervision over the police. For this position constitutional authority seems to be completely lacking. Courts have the power, of course, to reject evidence illegally obtained, and particularly so where the trustworthiness or validity of the evidence may be affected by the methods used to secure it. But that is a distinctly different matter from the control or supervision of police activities themselves. Even within the federal system, there seems to be no constitutional authority for the exercise of any supervisory power by the Supreme Court over the activities of federal officers, although there is no doubt about the Supreme Court's supervisory power with respect to the lower federal courts and the evidence that may be admitted in the trial of federal cases. The fundamental concept of a threefold division