Opinion ID: 553880
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Tactics Used

Text: 33 Police deployment of strong arm tactics or deceptive stratagems during interrogation, number four in the list of indicia of custody enumerated above, is a practice widely condemned in American law. The litany of pressure-tactics available to law enforcement, and their proven effectiveness in extracting confessions, are vividly described in the Miranda opinion and were the impetus for the Miranda decision itself. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 466, 86 S.Ct. at 1624. Because such strong arm tactics are more generally associated with formal arrest than with an informal encounter with police, the use of such tactics is identified as an indicium of custody. Beraun-Panez, 812 F.2d at 580 (custodial interrogation where officers confronted suspect with false or misleading witness statements, employed Mutt and Jeff routine, and took advantage of suspect's insecurities about his alien status). It goes without saying that a strong presumption of impropriety attaches to any circumstances where this Court detects the use of coercive interrogation techniques to obtain confessions. Carter, 884 F.2d at 371 (no good faith exception to inadvertent use of coercive interrogation tactics because inquiry concerns the effect of the interrogation techniques on the suspect). An interrogation can still be custodial even though no strong-arm tactics are used, Longbehn, 850 F.2d at 451-53, but the absence of such tactics is a factor which can assist us in reaching an objective conclusion that the suspect could not have associated the questioning with formal arrest. Jones, 630 F.2d at 616; Dockery, 736 F.2d at 1234. 34