Illinois has become the first state to pass a bill that will ban police from lying to youth during interrogations
Illinois has become the first state to pass a bill that will ban police from lying to youth during interrogations
Springfield, Ill. (AP) — Illinois became the first state Sunday to pass a bill that will ban police from lying to youth during interrogations — a practice that adds significantly to the risk of false confessions and wrongful convictions. It is expected to be signed into law by the governor in coming weeks.
The original sponsors, state Senator Robert Peters and state Representative Justin Slaughter, garnered bipartisan support for the bill that culminated in a near-unanimous vote to pass it in both houses. House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, a Republican and former Chicago prosecutor, joined as a co-sponsor and helped propel the bill’s passage.
“I’ll never be accused of being soft on crime, but I’m more interested in seeking the truth than a conviction,” Durkin said. “I believe in fair play. We should never tolerate, under any circumstance, the use of deception to seek a statement or an admission by any defendant, let alone a juvenile.”
Though few Americans realize it, police regularly deceive suspects during questioning to try to secure confessions, from saying DNA placed them at the scene of a crime to claiming eyewitnesses identified them as being the perpetrator. Detectives also can lie about the consequences of confessing, saying, for instance, that admitting responsibility is a quick ticket home.
Minors — who have been found to be two to three times more likely to confess to crimes they didn’t commit — are especially vulnerable to such pressure tactics, said Laura Nirider, co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, who consulted on the bill together with the national Innocence Project and the Illinois Innocence Project.
Though it is currently legal for police in all 50 states to lie during interrogations, Oregon and New York are considering similar legislation, said Rebecca Brown, policy director at the national Innocence Project.
The Oregon bill, sponsored by a former law enforcement officer, passed the House this week and heads next to the Senate.
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