About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1968 Wis. L. Rev. 173 (1968)
Criminal Interrogations and Confessions: The Ethical Imperative

handle is hein.journals/wlr1968 and id is 189 raw text is: CRIMINAL INTERROGATIONS AND CONFESSIONS: THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVEt ED CRAY* Each fall of the year, good old Charlie Brown assures himself that sweetly smiling Lucy will not jerk the football away this time. Then, teeth gritted, he hurtles down upon the waiting foot- ball. And each year, Lucy pulls the teed-up ball away just as Charlie is about to give it a ride. Charlie's body arcs high into the autumn air as a smug Lucy says, Some people never learn. Some people don't, Fred Inbau among them. Comes now Mr. Inbau, professor of law at Northwestern Uni- versity, with a second edition of his Criminal Interrogation and Confessions follies. The new edition, Inbau notes in his preface, has been made necessary by the June, 1966, decision of the Su- preme Court of the United States in Miranda v. Arizona.' Inbau is modest. He might have said with equal truth that his earlier efforts with coauthor John Reid were responsible for Miranda.2 The 1962 edition is cited eight times, its forerunner once in the majority opinion written by the Chief Justice. None of the quota- tions could be considered endorsements. Inbau would probably not admit this. He steadfastly insists, The Court's critical com- ments about the procedures we advocated were, we believe, for the purpose of establishing the necessity for the warnings rather than as a condemnation of the procedures themselves.'3 True, the five man majority did not specifically condemn the practices and sug- gestions outlined by Inbau and Reid. The particular horrors cited in the majority opinion are but exemplars that the very fact of custodial interrogation exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty and trades on the weakness of individuals.4 t This Commentary is based on CRIMINAL INTERROGATION AND CONFES- SIONS. By Fred E. Inbau and John E. Reid. Baltimore, Md.: The Williams and Wilkins Company. 1967. Pp. xiii, 223. $8.00. Hereinafter cited as INBAU & REID. * Director of Publications, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. 1 Actually, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, first published in 1962, is a paste-pot redaction of an earlier text: F. INBAU & J. REID, LiE DETECTION AND CRIMINAL INTERROGATION (3d ed. 1953). Further, large sec- tions of Criminal Interrogation and Confessions are lifted bodily from the much cited Inbau, The Confession Dilemma in the United States Supreme Court, 43 ILL. L. REV. 442 (1948). 2 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). 3 INBAU & REID vii. 4 384 U.S. at 455.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most