Court Opinion

ID: 9857274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 14:25:54.011114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:23.386064
License: Public Domain

Justice LONG,
dissenting.
Although recognizing our supervisory power over courts, as well as our overarching interest in the integrity of the criminal interrogation process, the majority opinion falls short of what I view as necessary definitive action. I would take the lead of the Minnesota Supreme Court and declare today, pursuant to our supervisory authority, that all criminal interrogations must be recorded electronically, where feasible, when the interrogation occurs at police headquarters or at another place of detention. State v. Scales, 518 N.W.2d 587 (Minn.1994).
In the final analysis, a determination of the admissibility of a defendant’s statement in a criminal proceeding is a purely judicial function. Why we should suffer, for one more day, the funneling of the reality of an interrogation through the lenses of partisans, with the concomitant frailty of language and recollection, when a true recording could be made, is simply beyond me.
The recording requirement would provide courts with the best evidence against which to evaluate a defendant’s challenge to the admission of an inculpatory statement. At the same time, it would enhance public confidence in law enforcement and insulate police officers from wrongful assaults on their integrity. That electronic recording would place courts in the very best position to properly assess the admissibility of a confession simply cannot be doubted. Moreover, as the majority has acknowledged, the “sky is falling” arguments advanced by the State are belied by the reality that *570police agencies throughout the nation have undertaken electronic recording with no dire consequences.
I have no difficulty with the majority’s notion of establishing a committee to study the issue further. However, it is my opinion that that committee should be charged with recommending the details and specifics of electronic recording and filling in the interstices of a procedure that we, in the first instance, should have mandated.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices VERNIERO, LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI and WALLACE — 5.
For reversal — Justice LONG — 1.