The Lawyer in the Dutch Interrogation Room: Influence on Police and Suspect (pages 69–92)

摘要

In many European countries, providing a suspect in custody with legal aid before the firstnpolice interrogation is a heavily debated issue. In this paper, we report on an exploratorynstudy on the use of coercion by the police and the use of the right to silence by suspects inn70 Dutch homicide cases and their relation to prior consultation and presence of a lawyer.nAnalysis of the data indicates that there is a relation between the presence of a lawyer innthe interrogation room and the way in which police interrogators use coercion. To gainninsight into whether the police use coercion and how this is achieved, we looked at the extentnto which the interrogators make use of certain interrogation techniques and how theninterrogation techniques are used to exert coercion.We found that legal advice from a lawyernbefore and during the interrogation corresponds with suspects more often using their right tonsilence. It also appears that the police are inclined to use ‘hard coercion’ when confrontednwith a silent suspect. The research thus raises the question as to whether the presence of anlawyer is an adequate way to prevent false confessions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley &nSons, Ltd.