cid Tag Archives — Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog

Judge Richardson please come back

July 4, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

I was going through a couple of old cases looking for some information to use in a current case. Here’s a interesting curative instruction. Coming across this lead me to muse about how strange and how frequently seasoned law enforcement witnesses “forget” that there are certain words or issues they are not supposed to testify about. It’s gotten so bad that I have a standard motion in-limine on HLD. Here’s how one judge dealt with a forgetful law enforcement witness (after he’d agreed with my motion in-limine that the law enforcement witnesses should be instructed on HLD stuff prior to testifying).

The “error” came out in the witness’s first sentence.

MJ: Please be seated. The court will come to order.

Fort Gillem shooting update 2

June 18, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that:

The victim of Thursday’s U.S. Army Reserve post shooting and his alleged killer both apparently worked together, Army officials said Friday. Both men were full-time Army Guard reserve soldiers assigned to the Army Medical Professional Management Command, spokeswoman Maj. Lenora Hutchinson told the AJC.

It’s unclear whether they both were on-duty and working in the office building near the southeast corner of Fort Gillem when the shooting took place, but the alleged shooter was said to be in military uniform when he later turned himself in to police in Lake City, just south of the base.

Interrogations

May 6, 2010 | The Law Office of Philip D. Cave

Here is a new article on interrogation tactics.

Davis & Leo on the "Sympathetic Detective" Interrogation Strategy

Deborah Davis and Richard A. Leo (University of Nevada, Reno and University of San Francisco – School of Law) have posted Selling Confession: Setting the Stage with the ‘Sympathetic Detective with a Time-Limited Offer’ (Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The effectiveness of an interrogation tactic dubbed the “sympathetic detective with a time limited offer” was tested. Participants read two versions of an interrogation transcript, with and without the tactic. Those who read the sympathetic detective version believed the detective had greater authority to determine whether and with what to charge the suspect, more beneficent intentions toward the suspect, and viewed confession as more wise. However, regression analyses indicated that for innocent suspects, only perceptions of the strength of evidence against the suspect and the detective’s beneficence and authority predicted the perceived wisdom of false confession. Interrogation tactics were generally effective, as indicated by participant recommendations of confession (versus invoking Miranda, denial, or continuing to talk without admitting guilt) for both innocent (16.7%) and guilty (74.4%) suspects; and reasons offered for participants’ recommendations for confession versus other choices generally conformed to those reported by real-life confessors and interrogation scholars.