Cops can falsify documents to obtain confessions

Friday, April 5, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, has ruled that police can lie and use false documents in order to obtain a confession from a criminal suspect.

The majority decision, written by Justice Miriam Shearing, said these techniques may be used as long as they don't produce "inherently unreliable statements" or a false confession.

But Justice Bob Rose, who wrote the dissent, said this gives police a weapon that has "great potential for intentional abuse and inadvertent harm and havoc."

Rose and Justice Cliff Young suggested police don't need the techniques.

The case involved Kevin Bessey, called in for questioning for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Washoe County. He denied the allegations. Detectives then told him an analysis of the couch on which the assault took place showed his semen.

The actual analysis was negative, but an officer presented Bessey with a false crime lab report, which the officer had prepared, that said his semen had been discovered on the couch. Bessey then made a number of admissions.

But District Judge James Stone ruled the detective had improperly fabricated evidence and the confession by Bessey should be tossed out. He then dismissed the charges.

The Washoe County sheriff's office appealed and the Supreme Court reinstated the charges.

Shearing wrote that if lying were prohibited, many common police tactics would be barred, including "sting operations, and interrogation techniques such as offering false sympathy, blaming the victim, minimizing the seriousness of the charge, using a good-cop/bad-cop routine, and suggesting that there is sufficient evidence when there is not."

"As long as the techniques do not tend to produce inherently unreliable statements or revolt our sense of justice, they should not be declared violative of the United States or Nevada constitutions," Shearing said.

Shearing, Chief Justice Thomas Steffen and Justice Charles Springer said they disagreed with a Florida Supreme Court ruling which allowed the police to verbally lie but not to use written false documents in obtaining a confession.

The issue, Shearing said, is whether the deception would have produced a false confession. "If it would not, then the defendant's rights were not violated, and suppression of the defendant's subsequent statements is unwarranted."

Shearing also said this practice would not lead to fabrication of court documents.

The Rose-Young dissent complained the majority decision did not set any limits on police who can use "all manner of falsehoods and deception in attempting to secure a confession."

They said police should be allowed to lie but not to use false written documents such as bogus lab tests, witness statements or doctored photographs to secure a confession.

Rose and Young said this would strike "an appropriate balance" for the "police to use some deception in developing evidence, while prohibiting the carrying of such deception or falsehoods to a truly unfair advantage over the accused."

* SUPREME COURT rules drug testing with hair samples is reliable.Page 3B