hawaii beach

Mahalo

Thank you, Dan Reisberg and Laura Graser, for reposting this uplifting email to Oregon’s criminal defense lawyer list-serv
Begin forwarded message:

https://law.justia.com/cases/hawaii/supreme-court/2019/scwc-14-0000933.html

We’ve all seen false confessions that are induced by police deception regarding the infallibility of polygraphs coupled with deception about the results.   But these confessions are routinely admitted into evidence under Frazier v. Cupp and its progeny where courts have said that such deception is but one factor in the totality of evidence test.  No more.  At least not in Hawaii.  The Hawaii Supreme Court has held that providing falsified polygraph results to a suspect poses an unacceptable risk of influencing a suspect to confess regardless of guilt AND IS DEEMED PER SE COERCIVE.  Courts must now allow defendants, at least in Hawaii, to be able to describe all of the circumstances which led them to confess, including the use of the polygraph.

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