Plus it's not like children are the only vulnerable group.
Still, at least this is a step in the right direction. So we should be thankful for that.
You must admit that it's a tricky issue, differentiating between a cop purposely lying vs making an incorrect assertion. Should a defendant walk if it they can prove at trial that the cop said something that wasn't true?
That said, it's sad how often people incriminate themselves with drug possession because of the "gentle" lie that things will be a lot worse for them if the cop is the one to find the drugs.
Should a defendant be found guilty if they were lied to by the cops? Explicit lied that are used to extract and manipulate confessions.
Remember, people are innocent until proven guilty. We don’t presume someone on trial is guilty. If they weren’t properly prosecuted, we shouldn’t assume the guilt is proper either.
If a police officer makes an honest mistake then that's fine. But if a police officer is repeatedly stating things during interrogations that they've misunderstood then they're grossly incompetent for whole different reasons than lack of honest character. Just like if a developer kept pushing broken code without any unit tests, you'd have a quiet word with them that they need to put more due diligence into their work.
It is deeply hostile and likely counter productive to the stated goals of police departments.
There is no way for normal people to distinguish a lawful order given by a police officer from a lie.
I think the current status quo, where cops can lie to citizens about anything and everything with no consequence, is pretty bad. Sure it might help with some specific convictions, but the immense lack of trust and goodwill that generates in the entire public must cause a huge amount of harm and lose a number of other solvable cases.
Even though I'm not engaged in any criminal enterprises I am still wary about saying anything to police. Even though most police are decent people, mistakes happen and they are often under pressure to hit certain metrics. Indictments of innocent people are hardly rare and you never know what a cop's angle is, given their freedom to lie at will.
Plenty of other countries manage it.
Absolutely yes. These lies cause real harm, and the cops need to face consequences or they have no reason to abstain.
A friend of some of my friends would be alive today if a cop had not lied to him about the consequences of a minor fender-bender, claiming he'd put someone in the hospital with critical injuries and it was uncertain they'd survive. (The cop was caught on tape telling his partner, "it's a lie, but it's fun"; nobody was actually hurt, at all.) Overwhelmed with remorse, feeling the world would be better off without him, he killed himself.
The cop got a week's unpaid vacation for this.