Police Officer Using Intimidation at Questioning
Question: Can police officers use intimidation while questioning a suspect?
Answer: Well, they can use it and they do often use it. That is potentially going to cause a problem for them, because if they’re intimidating somebody and they’re getting them to what we call “acquiesce to authority” that’s going to cause a problem if a good criminal lawyer files a motion to suppress to try and throw out the confession, let’s say, because the officer was using tactics that were intimidating. So that’s going to be a problem. So, if they can’t use it as a matter of law, if they do use it, then the evidence that they uncover or obtain would be suppressible based upon the totality of the circumstances and the way in which they actually intimidated the person.
