Suspect is the person on whom suspicion, based on facts or circumstances, rests that he or she has committed a crime punishable under the law. (Milton, Suspect) Before prosecution starts this is called a “person of interest”; after it does the person is known as a defendant or the accused.
Police suspects, like all suspects, have the right to remain silent and the obligation to invoke their Miranda rights during custodial interrogation. They also have a variety of formal protections during interrogation including: no physical abuse or deprivation, time limitations on questioning, limiting the number of investigators, and ensuring they are not threatened with punitive action or given inducements to confess. In addition, LEOBORs grant dozens of additional affirmative protections. When compared with the weak and vague protections extended to most other suspects, these strong protections raise a number of issues about the fairness of the legal system and the legitimacy of criminal law.
This article focuses on two specific concerns: First, a significant body of literature has documented that the strongest motivations for suspects to coerce themselves into confessing are economic, and that prosecutors, in particular, may use monetary incentives, such as charging less for a crime, to entice suspects to confess. This compulsion makes the voluntariness requirement more difficult to comply with and for courts to apply in a consistent manner.
Second, a substantial body of research has demonstrated that the same forces that drive suspects to admit their guilt or innocence – economic duress and the perceived tradeoff between asserting one’s constitutional rights and being found guilty – are at work when police question their own officers. This is a significant problem that threatens the validity of the legal system and the incentives that ordinary citizens have to follow it.