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From: charlie
Date: 1/1/01
Time: 8:27:31 AM
Jasper, Last night on a Fox News Program that was about cops threatening, and lying to suspects about the crimes they are accused of, lying to suspects about the evidence they have, threatening long sentences for a whole other list of crimes that they claim they have evidence about, etc. Over and over cops and other experts told how wrong this was and that you got false confessions out of it. You know the routine. Confess to one of the minor crimes to keep the bigger and more severe crimes off their backs. They didn't do those either.
It was the the groundwork of the Rampart corruption in many cases. Vastly overcharged by the prosecutors and upheld by the cops, people falsely confessed to crimes to keep a "third strike" off themselves and just to get out of deeper trouble.
Then right in the middle of this half hour program, they interview Mark Fuhrman who (as it turns out) is the ONLY cop and/or expert (wonder if he knew it when he did it) who comes on like gang busters about what a wonder "tool" this is for cops And how he'd lie and do all those things in a heartbeat. Absolutely! he says.
When challenged about getting false confessions after "breaking them" (his words), he says that doesn't happen. That nobody is going to confess to something they didn't do. He says this on the heels of the program pointing out that in these sessions, the suspect's family is usually mentioned in such a way to get the suspect "worried" about their family. And how they may confess to a crime that carries one year to get from being charged with something they tell the man they can put him away for life for.
Fuhrman stuck out like a sore thumb. He was the ONLY one who advocated this method (I have heard Marcia Clark claim this is ok to do as well in the past). Some cop leaders denied it happened in their department but they didn't advocate it.
They told of a case where a woman was first accused to being part of her husband"s "hit style" death. She denied it and they claimed to believe her but said they did have the shooters so they needed her help. After refusing once, she agreed to make a "fake" tape talking about hiring the guys and the cops were going to play it for the shooters in an attempt to rattle them and get them to talk. Well, no sooner was the "fake" tape made, than they charged her with conspiracy to committ murder using this tape as a confession. Thankfully, the jury acquitted her and even the judge spoke on the topic saying she could she how repeatedly challenges and repeated threats, etc. could in fact get a false confession or a tape such as this.
The program spoke of how MOst PD refuse to tape record the interviews with the claim that it is expensive but said if the entire interview was taped, such tricks and such could not take place without a record of them.
(Remember the FBI refuses to taperecord under any circumstances and refuses to allow the suspect's lawyer to tape record either.)
I wanted to tell everybody how interesting it was to see such a program on Fox and how in this 1/2 hr program what a "jarring" presence Fuhrman was with his statement. He didn't calmly say these things either. He said them in a zealous and passionate way--along with his usual arrogant way.
charlie