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Connecticut considers a ban on deceptive police interrogations

Police vehicles are parked outside the headquarters of the Yonkers Police Department in Yonkers, N.Y. Since 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating the Yonkers Police Department and recommending areas for reform.
José A. Alvarado Jr.
/
NPR
State lawmakers will consider a bill that would make deceptive tactics when interrogating minors inadmissible in court.

Connecticut lawmakers will consider a bill that would make deceptive tactics when interrogating minors inadmissible in court.

Advocates at a public hearing told lawmakers the bill would make interrogations fairer.

“The reasons to end deceptive interrogations by police are many: an astounding lack of scientific evidence supporting its efficacy, opposition from leading experts, disparate harm to our most vulnerable residents, and Connecticut’s own painful legacy of wrongful conviction stemming from deception," said Jess Zaccagnino of the ACLU of Connecticut.

Advocates say these confessions are often false, and only given to stop the interrogation. If the bill passes, police interviews with children in which the officer knowingly used false facts would be unusable in court.

Davis Dunavin loves telling stories, whether on the radio or around the campfire. He started in Missouri and ended up in Connecticut, which, he'd like to point out, is the same geographic trajectory taken by Mark Twain.