The practices of the Memphis (TN) Police Department surrounding the recording of confessions have come into the spotlight recently with the case of Jessie Dotson. Dotson was convicted and sentenced to death in October for the 2008 murder of six people, including his brother and two nephews. His confession was featured on the A&E program The First 48, a documentary series that chronicles homicide investigations in several cities across the country.
The trial judge, however, did not allow Dotson”s confession to be admitted in court because the recording was edited by A&E for the television program, and the original version was erased. As a result, the testimony of Deputy Chief Toney Armstrong, the police officer who took the confession, was solely based on his memory. The only documentation of the confession that existed was a single paragraph from an interrogation that lasted more than five hours.
Dotson took the stand at his trial and testified that his confession was coerced by the Memphis Police, who held him for hours in the interrogation room. Although 18 states have passed laws requiring the recording of interrogations, Tennessee is not among them. In Memphis, according to a FOX13 report, the interrogation policy encourages the investigator always to obtain a written statement and to “paraphrase the defendant”s version of the crime if they agree to talk but refuse to sign a statement.”
For more information on his case, see the video below.