Legal Updates Summer 2014 The Legal Updates Summer 2014 column contains cases which address the following issues:

• Investigator's statement that felony murder would receive a lesser sentence than premeditated murder did not render confession involuntary
• Video of interrogation demonstrates that juvenile did not make a knowing and intelligent waiver of his rights
• Confession rendered involuntary when defendant told he could not get a fair trial because of his race
• Value of recording: Video of interrogation contradicts defendant's claims
• US Supreme Court finds Florida test to determine intellectual disability as factor for eligibility for execution unconstitutional
• Investigators operated at the "outer bounds of permissible conduct"
• Confession was coerced when investigators threatened to have Child Protective Services take defendant's child away
• Defendant claims statements were involuntary because he had been given morphine, hydrocodone and promethazine
• Colorado Supreme Court examines 13 factors that should be considered in evaluating whether a confession was coerced
• "the law permits the police to pressure and cajole, conceal material facts, and actively mislead"
• PA Supreme Court rules that expert testimony of false confessions invades the province of the jury
• Does interrogating a suspect in a police car create a custodial environment?
• Confession voluntariness - lying about the evidence
• Georgia Supreme Court rejects the idea that a suggestion that the shooting was an accident constitutes a hope of leniency
• Court offers scathing rejection of false confession expert Dr. Allison Redlich
• Electronic recording of the confession is not required
• Bible in the interrogation room is not coercive