What is the third degree?
What is it?
 Using coercive tactics or torture to extract
confessions from suspects
 Also involved illegal detention and denying
suspect their right to counsel
What’s the inherent danger in using it?
 Innocent people might confess to stop the
coercion
3rd degree, along with corruption, was
widespread in U.S. law enforcement
Effects:
 Reactions helped move policing from “political”
era to the “professionalism” era
 courts began to pay attention to this and
exclude confessions elicited by the 3rd degree.
Brown v Mississippi (1936)
 1st time SC excluded a coerced confession, and
required all confessions to be “voluntary”

What impact did these changes have on the 3rd
degree?
 A “new 3rd degree” developed: one in which
psychological coercion and trickery was
employed to gain a confession
 Spano v New York
 Important lesson: Gatehouse vs Courthouse
trials (Escodedo case)
(1)
(2)


Can police engage in custodial interrogations
before a suspect is indicted?
Do suspects need a lawyer present to advise
them in deciding whether or not to waive
their right to remain silent?
Giddeon v Wainwright
Miranda v Arizona
Effects?
 Not much: most ppl still waive their rights
 Police have learned to do more interviewing
than interrogating
Question: can people voluntarily, knowingly, and
intelligently waive their rights?
 Brewer v Williams case
Irony: if suspects don’t waive their rights, nothing
they say to police can be used against them. If
they do waive their rights, then voluntariness
standard applies, and police can use deceptive
tactics (strange compromise)
Why is evidence based on deceptive police
techniques accepted by law?
 Protection of defendants’ rights isn’t the only
value—crime control must also be considered
 Sometimes good ends are seen as acceptable
over the bad means used to get them.
Should the good end of convicting criminals
outweigh the bad means of using deception
or coercion in interrogations?
 It depends: does one favor crime control or
due process more?
 Cayward case: doctoring evidence is a
slippery slope
 This same principle could be applied to police
lying and deception.
Brown v Mississippi (1936)
• All confession must be
voluntary
Clear case of police brutality
New 3rd Degree
Spano v New York (1959)
• “all the facts” standard for voluntary confessions
Massiah v U.S. (1964)
• Gov’t cannot elicit statements from defendants once right
to counsel is invoked.
Escobedo v Illinois (1964)
• Criminal suspects have right to counsel during police
interrogations
Miranda v Arizona (1966)
• Suspects must be informed of their rights
• Only if rights are waived can police then question
suspects (and use new 3rd degree)