Brenton Butler Interrogation Case Study

Interrogation Assignment This documentary showcases a number of police interrogations that are problematic. The one that I believe is the most egregious is the interrogation of twelve year old Thomas Cogdell in the murder of his little sister, Kaylee. His entire interrogation was one big violation of his constitutional rights, not to mention it verged on psychological torture. The first of Cogdell’s constitutional rights to be violated was his 6th Amendment right to counsel. Although he was not yet placed under arrest, he was being interrogated in a police station and being asked incriminating questions.

In early interrogations it was common for police officers to use physically abusive interrogation techniques such as the rubber hose to convince suspects to confess to a crime, whether they are innocent of guilty. Fred Inbau came up with a different technique that relied on presenting a large amount of fabricated or true evidence to get the suspect to confess. This technique was very effective in getting confessions, it has an 80% confession rate. Unfortunately, some of the confessions are false confessions, we do not know how many exactly. The first step of the Reid Technique, a similar coercive technique to the one Inbau devised, was to watch the suspect and determine whether or not he or she is lying during the interrogation based on behavioral analysis; which is severely flawed and does not actually help us determine if someone is lying.

James Gilliam, Jr., was placed in Elmore's cell two prior days the trial and afterward sent a letter to the prosecutor in the case, showing that Elmore had conceded to the homicide in discussions with him. As every so often occurs with jailhouse informants, Gilliam later abnegated his statement. He testified to this in a post-conviction hearing, despite the fact that the judge made it clear to Gilliam that he may be liable to perjury charges

While it is clear that Montresor was not insane, it is possible that he was in an emotional turmoil. This emotional disorder propelled the urge for revenge. In fact, the entire story is proof of his troubled conscience. He confesses to an individual how he committed the murder even when he was not caught for over 50 years. At the end of the story, he says, “for the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them (Poe 10).” It is the emotional torture that influences him to commit the inhuman act.

For example intimidation, bribery, denial of rights and mental exhaustion are against the guidelines of the Reid Technique, however, they are often used in order to gain a suspect’s cooperation (https://www.cga.ct.gov/2014/rpt/2014-R-0071.htm). In an investigation where a father was accused of murdering his infant son, the interrogators repeatedly used techniques to mentally exhaust the suspect in an effort to break him. Throughout the interrogation, the father repeatedly denied that he was at fault, however, the interrogator insisted that he was, describing different scenarios that could have played out and suggesting different motives the father could have had in killing the infant. At one point the interrogator claimed he had “received detailed information about the infant’s injuries from the medical examiner that disproved what the father said”, even though the coroner’s report couldn’t prove anything (Brainerd,

Juror 10 allows his prejudice to blind him of the truth. That is until he is called out by his fellow jurors. Throughout the whole play, Juror Ten remains stubborn in his decision that the defendant is guilty. Yet, at the end the finally sees that there is reasonable doubt (62). Interestingly enough, on the previous page Juror Ten is called out by Juror Four (60).

If you confess your sin with an interrogator you have to pay what you have done, but if you go with a Priest he is going to keep the secret. If you go with a Priest you don’t go to jail. But if you go with an interrogator you are going to go to jail. “He didn’t think he’d ever hit anybody again but he had proved himself capable of doing it.” It became a weapon later for Trent because Jason hit Bobo leaving him with a bloody nose. Trent knew that Jason can be violent

Author of “Juvenile Justice Information Exchange”, Jennifer Jenkins states, “He reported to a friend, who testified at his trial, about his ‘thrill kill’ that he just wanted to ‘see what it would feel like to shoot someone’”. This killer was aware of his crime and was aware of who his victims were due to planning the murders months before. Brain chemistry or brain growth did not

In The movie 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose he uses interesting techniques to show what the behind the scenes view of a juror room looks like. The 12 jurors are determining whether or not an accused inner-city teen is guilty or not-guilty for the death of his father. The reader can figure out the true meaning of the character’s by using shapes to analyze them and at the same time the reader may be able to dig deeper then text to figure out who these characters really are. The characters #5,#7, and #8 are the same, but different in many ways. While watching the movie Juror #5 had many strong moments.

Jenkins explicitly states that “America has to own this problem”. She then lists reasons for juvenile criminals to be a problem particular to America. Readers can easily counter Jenkins original argument by employing logical reasoning: if America is responsible for juvenile criminals, it is immoral to sentence juveniles to life without parole because these “criminals” are only followers of a greater cultural phenomenon. Furthermore, this is evident in the case of Lionel Tate. Tate was only twelve years old when he allegedly murdered six year old Tiffany Eunick while mimicking a wrestling move portrayed in popular media.