Civil Law Assignment: Memorandum From The Chief Of Police
Question
Task:
Civil Law Assignment Description:
For the Phase 4 IP, you wrote a proposal of 1000-1250 words of a general order for the chief of police on interview and interrogation strategies. For this task, you will revisit the general order from the Phase 4 IP, and do the following:
• First, make any edits necessary based on the feedback from your instructor.
• Amend the general order to include caution, techniques and skills authorised for use in obtaining statements from special populations.
- What special training, demeanor and other conditions should be considered by the police department interviews
- Do not forget about proposing possible themes on how to approach certain populations when seeking their information.
- Read the literature and do some scholarly research to develop your addendum to the earlier general order.
Your assignment should be submitted as a memorandum from the chief of police to the entire department as a supplement to the original general order. Your memorandum should include sections for the following special populations (at a minimum):
• Children
• The elderly
• The mentally challenged
Answer
To: The Department of Detectives
From: Chief of Police
Case Summary of Civil Law Assignment
In recent times, it has been regarded that the process of interrogation by the police officials in the police department is evolving to be gruesome and are affecting the accused severable. For the past few cases, it has been observed by the police department that laws and rules have to be followed to regard the interrogation process as legal and justified.
Edits based on Feedback:
None
Amend the general order to include caution, techniques, and skills authorized for use in obtaining statements from special populations
Caution
It was observed by the police department that some of the laws usually favor the accused and provide them with a fundamental right to remain silent. These rights are widely known as Miranda rights. They are therefore widely used by the people who are accused of grievous offenses until any of the lawyers appoints them to defend them or till the point of time that they know which facts are to be stated and which facts are not to be stated to the police officials in custody during the interrogation process (Dudley, 2015).
It is why the police officials tend to use various mechanisms to fetch the facts from the accused before they utilize their Miranda right to remain silent and mislead the police officials in the investigation times. This order report will justify the need for police officials to examine the accused (the elderly) of the revelation of different facts to apply various mechanisms to fetch the proper chain of points. This order report will also enunciate the various legal and ethical considerations that are consistently involved with the interrogation process of the police officials. This order report will mainly highlight the essential part, which is the ethical considerations of the police officials and how they are differently applied to the people accused of serious crimes. Further, this order report also highlights the controversy in maintaining ethical considerations by the police officials during the interrogation of the accused.
Caution needs to be applied by police while using dolls in interviews with extremely young children who possess weak cognitive or verbal abilities. They can be affected at risk of recognition-based prompts (ACF, 2014).
For elderly adults, trauma-informed interviewing methods need to be used as a precaution. Police officers need to use the cognitive interviewing method to enable older adults to retrieve memory and reduce misinformation impacts.
Techniques and skills
The primary order states that the main idea behind maintaining legal and ethical considerations by the police officials is to reduce the amount of trauma faced by the accused that undergoes various traumatic and gruesome experiences during interrogation by the police officials (Ainsworth, 2020). The order states that the main objective is to fetch the correct chain of incidents and the facts from the accused by several mechanisms. These mechanisms will undoubtedly help them carry out the investigation better and follow the rules and regulations. However, the order mainly states that police officials allow the accused to relinquish their rights orally or by writing. It will protect the rights of the accused persons and help the police officials to carry on a fair and just system of investigation that will benefit the accused who are involved in the labeling of some serious crime.
A police officer needs to use crayons and paper while interrogating young children.
Older adults need to be made aware before progressing with the actual interview. Also, while dealing with older people, they should priorly be made aware and go in a patient manner with a pre-interview step (Fisher et al., 2016).
However, one of the most serious issues is that of awareness. Most of the time, it has been observed that these people are not aware of their rights, and that is why the police officials get the opportunity to follow the other means to fetch their facts correctly. It is why this present report has made it mandatory for the police officials to mandatorily state the availability of Miranda rights to the accused before beginning the interrogation process. This interrogation process will help build mutual trust and understanding among the police officials and the accused people. The lack of awareness is a serious issue. Therefore, this has to be regarded as one of the most important rights to be mentioned before the accused person before the police officials begin their interrogation process.
Moreover, this order has been passed with the main intention of safeguarding the rights of the accused persons from the police officials and protecting them from irrational actions that are to be used against them (Dean, 2020). Moreover, another important fact observed in this report from the order is the focus upon the assistance of lawyers during the interrogation procedure. Most of the time, it is seen that the police officials ask irrational questions to the accused and force them to answer such questions for the sake of their free trial. This particular order has made it mandatory for the accused to know the available rights that the police officials are supposed to inform the accused person.
Moreover, it was also made mandatory for the police officials to fetch the video or audio recordings of the accused with the assistance of the accused. It will help seek some of the most crucial evidence regarding the actual event that has taken place at a particular time (Feingold, 2020). It will help state the significant facts of the accused that the accused's major audio and video accounts are with due diligence handed over to the police officials and deliberately managed to the admission of such evidence in the court of law (Reid, 2018). It will enunciate the major fact that such evidence cannot be tampered with easily and therefore be of great help for the suspect to present their case or for the police officials to present their case to the court of law by the guidance of law and order (Taylor & Mulford, 2015). It will usually help in ensuring another essential fact that the police officials will ensure that the mental and physical state of the suspect is equally and duly presented to the court of law.
The police department interviewers should consider special training, demeanor, and other conditions.
Regarding the above discussion, it is evident that the present order has to be duly and deliberately followed by thepolice officials to reduce the significant traumas the accused faced during the interrogation process. It will ascertain that the police officials have to provide the foremost opportunity of choice to the accused person who has to decide whether they can avail their rights. It will ensure a fair and just system during the interrogation procedure of the police officials. Moreover, this will also ensure that the police officials build mutual trust and understanding among the people accused of serious crimes. Furthermore, it was also made mandatory for the police officials to fetch the video or audio recordings of the accused with the assistance of the accused (Hall etal., 2016). It will help seek some of the most crucial evidence regarding the actual event that has taken part at a particular time. It will help state the significant facts of the accused that the accused's major audio and video accounts are with due diligence handed over to the police officials and deliberately managed to the admission of such evidence in the court of law.
The forensic interview process needs to be adopted for interviewing and can be challenging to process. However, there is no single model of forensic interviewing in children, and it should be taking time and follow a difficult procedure. The purpose of an interview will be complex, and young children can easily get distracted and become reluctant to disclose any form of abuse. In case of being attached to the abuser, there might be fear of consequences, including what might happen as a result. Hence, the interview needs not to show disapproval or approval at whatever the child says.
Most of the time, it has been observed that these people are not aware of their rights, and that is why the police officials get the opportunity to follow the other means to fetch their facts correctly. It is why this present report has made it mandatory for police officials to mandatorily state the availability of Miranda rights to the accused before beginning the interrogation process (DeLiema etal., 2016). This interrogation process will help build mutual trust and understanding among the police officials and the accused people. Moreover, this order also states that the police officials are to follow the instructions as per law and order during their interview process. It is necessary so that the police officials are not criticized for using any undue mechanisms that may affect the functioning of the entire justice system. It is why the instructions must be duly followed, such as stating the rights of the people in the custodial period
References
ACF. (2014). Child and Family Services reviews case-related interview guides and instructions. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Brubacher, S. P., Poole, D. A., & Dickinson, J. J. (2015). The use of ground rules in investigative interviews with children: A synthesis and call for research. Developmental Review, 36, 15–33.
Ainsworth, J. (2020). Miranda Rights: Curtailing coercion in police interrogation: the failed promise of Miranda v. Arizona. In The Routledge handbook of forensic linguistics (pp. 95-111). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429030581-10/miranda-rights-Janet-Ainsworth
Cranwell, P. J. (2021). When Only a Lawyer Will Do–Lawyers as a Necessity, Not a Luxury, for Juveniles Before Waiving Miranda Rights in New Jersey. https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi article=2120&context=student_scholarshi
Dean, B. M. (2020). Effectiveness of the Miranda acquiescence questionnaire for investigating impaired Miranda reasoning. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 48(2). https://web.archive.org/web/20200709205004id_/http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/early/2020/02/12/JAAPL.003912-20.full.pdf
DeLiema, M., Navarro, A., Moss, M., & Wilber, K. (2016). Prosecutors’ perspectives on elder justice using an Elder Abuse Forensic Center. Civil law assignment American Journal of Criminal Justice, 41(4). Dudley, R. (2015). Childhood trauma and its effects: Implications for police. (NCJ 248686). Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice.
Feingold, K. D. (2020). Can a Video-Based Education Program Help Youth Understand Their Miranda Rights Findings from a Randomized Trial (Doctoral dissertation, George Mason University). https://search.proquest.com/openview/5438b86ce2f53d2b1b1f29c21bf7e0fe/1pq-investigating impaired Miranda reasoning. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law, 48(2). https://scholar.archive.org/work/fo2bgn5fq5brtlqq6w32mrjztq/access/wayback/http://jaap l.org/content/jaapl/early/2020/02/12/JAAPL.003912-20.full.pdf
Fisher, J. M., Rudd, M. P., Walker, R. W., & Stewart, J. (2016). Training tomorrow’s doctors to safeguard the patients of today: Using medical student simulation training to explore barriers to recognition of elder abuse. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 64(1), 168–173.
Hall, J., Karch, D., & Crosby, A. (2016). Elder abuse surveillance: Uniform definitions and recommended core data elements. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
John E. Reid (2018). Interview and Interrogation Tips and Case Studies. Retrieved from https://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/1697350- Note-taking-during-an-interview/origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=yp
Taylor, T., & Mulford, C. (2015). Evaluating the Los Angeles County Elder Abuse Forensic Center. NIJ Journal, 276, 32–37.