Another author needs help :)

[BadGolfer]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Illinois

Hi. I am writing a novel about a murder. In it the prime suspect is at first interviewed briefly at his apartment, and the police detective decides he does not have enough probable cause to arrest the suspect. The suspect then contacts a lawyer. Shortly thereafter, the police ask the suspect to come into the station for an interview. The suspect informs him he has an attorney.

So, the suspect goes into the police station with his attorney for the interview. This is where I need information. There is tons of information out there about how a detective would interview a suspect. But I have found virtually nothing about how a detective would interview a suspect with a criminal defense attorney present.

So that is what I would like. Perhaps even a link to a transcript of an actual interview. I would like to know the questions asked by the detective, the things the attorney would allow his client to answer and the things he would tell him not to. I would like to know how deeply the detective would probe and how vigorously the attorney would defend. And when the attorney would end the interview. Basically the ebb and flow of the process.

Could the interview be contentious? Might the police request additional interviews? Could the attorney refuse to let his client attend them or would he have to let him?

And any specific things that would be said would very helpful. And things like, would the attorney worry that an arrest was looking imminent? Would the detective suggest an arrest was imminent if further compliance with the questioning was denied. Just how it would play out.

 

[quincy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Illinois

Hi. I am writing a novel about a murder. In it the prime suspect is at first interviewed briefly at his apartment, and the police detective decides he does not have enough probable cause to arrest the suspect. The suspect then contacts a lawyer. Shortly thereafter, the police ask the suspect to come into the station for an interview. The suspect informs him he has an attorney.

So, the suspect goes into the police station with his attorney for the interview. This is where I need information. There is tons of information out there about how a detective would interview a suspect. But I have found virtually nothing about how a detective would interview a suspect with a criminal defense attorney present.

So that is what I would like. Perhaps even a link to a transcript of an actual interview. I would like to know the questions asked by the detective, the things the attorney would allow his client to answer and the things he would tell him not to. I would like to know how deeply the detective would probe and how vigorously the attorney would defend. And when the attorney would end the interview. Basically the ebb and flow of the process.

Could the interview be contentious? Might the police request additional interviews? Could the attorney refuse to let his client attend them or would he have to let him?

And any specific things that would be said would very helpful. And things like, would the attorney worry that an arrest was looking imminent? Would the detective suggest an arrest was imminent if further compliance with the questioning was denied. Just how it would play out.

The attorney would never let his client go in to speak to the police.

 

[Silverplum]

Everyone frowns.

 

[cbg]

What are you looking to have happen? For the purpose of the story, how would it ideally go?

(Fellow author here)

 

[quincy]

See the book Police Procedural, A Writer's Guide to the Police and How they Work, by Russell Bintliff, F&W Publications. The book includes a section on interviews and interrogations.

Bintliff worked in investigations for the Arkansas State Police, the Criminal Investigation Division of the Army, and the CIA. He was also technical advisor for the film Nighthawks.

We seem to be getting authors posting to this site with some frequency ...

 

[cbg]

I know a lot of people here don't like responding to hypotheticals or homework, and have included author research in that. That's okay. I am probably one of the loudest nay-sayers when it comes to answering homework questions, and if it were up to me I'd block anyone else from doing so either. I am slightly less bitchy about hypotheticals, though I will not often spend my limited time doing so.

However, I don't mind answering author questions as long as the author has made the effort to research himself. I've needed a helping hand from the boards from time to time.

 

[justalayman]

We seem to be getting authors posting to this site with some frequency ...

apparently they know where to get good and dependable answers


I think cbg has directed them here. I suspect she belongs to a wild and lawless assemblage of authors (that is the proper term for a group of authors isn't it, an assemblage?). You know that if there is an actual name for a group of them, there is a problem. I mean, think about it; a lepe of leopards, a pride of lions, a murder of crows, a superfluity of nuns. Think about the fear large groups of any one of them instill into the public at large. Leopards and lions will eat you. Crows, well, they "tap tap tap" until you go insane and don't even get me started with nuns. Unless you can disarm them (take their rulers away), you are guaranteed damn sore knuckles. I tremble in fear every time I walk past a convent constantly looking over my shoulder as I go by to ensure they are not sneaking up from behind, rulers in hand, just looking for a bare knuckle to assault.

 

[cbg]

My Catholic-School-from-kindergarten-to-high-school-graduation husband would agree with you!

 

[Zigner]

I was taken out of Catholic school fairly early. The nuns didn't like me questioning the logic in first grade.

 

[BadGolfer]

The attorney would never let his client go in to speak to the police.

Thanks quincy. Unfortunately, this, while undoubtedly being factually accurate, would not help me out in terms of writing compelling fiction. But I was thinking I may have a way around it--if perhaps the suspect (or perhaps he's only a "person of interest" at this point) enlists the help of an attorney who is a family friend and only a real estate attorney. And say the suspect, feeling himself to be innocent and wanting to aid law enforcement to find the "real" killer, insists on going to the interview, and the real estate attorney, however ill-advisedly, agrees and goes along to the interview.

Then how might that interview play out?

 

[Silverplum]

Thanks quincy. Unfortunately, this, while undoubtedly being factually accurate, would not help me out in terms of writing compelling fiction. But I was thinking I may have a way around it--if perhaps the suspect (or perhaps he's only a "person of interest" at this point) enlists the help of an attorney who is a family friend and only a real estate attorney. And say the suspect, feeling himself to be innocent and wanting to aid law enforcement to find the "real" killer, insists on going to the interview, and the real estate attorney, however ill-advisedly, agrees and goes along to the interview.

Then how might that interview play out?

What about Q's post #5?

 

[quincy]

Thanks quincy. Unfortunately, this, while undoubtedly being factually accurate, would not help me out in terms of writing compelling fiction. But I was thinking I may have a way around it--if perhaps the suspect (or perhaps he's only a "person of interest" at this point) enlists the help of an attorney who is a family friend and only a real estate attorney. And say the suspect, feeling himself to be innocent and wanting to aid law enforcement to find the "real" killer, insists on going to the interview, and the real estate attorney, however ill-advisedly, agrees and goes along to the interview.

Then how might that interview play out?

How might it play out? Well ... the fellow who feels himself innocent says the wrong thing to the police, implicating himself in the murder, this because his real-estate-attorney friend is way out of his depth in a criminal investigation interrogation and fails to silence his friend.

 

[cbg]

I hate to say this, because I know from first hand experience it is to know what needs to happen for the story and not be able to find a way to make it happen. Going through that right now, as a matter of fact - got a great idea for a story and it's totally unworkable with my characters. But even a lay person would know not to let the suspect meet with the police; surely someone who went to law school, even in another specialty would know. I will grant you that many times lawyers in one specialty will not know anything more about laws in another area than a lay person; you would not believe some of the mistakes I've heard lawyers from other areas make about employment law (my day job is HR). But I cannot conceive of a set of circumstances where a 1L would let that interview take place, let alone a fully licensed attorney, no matter what the specialty.

 

[BadGolfer]

What are you looking to have happen? For the purpose of the story, how would it ideally go?

(Fellow author here)

Thanks cbg. First off, the novel is not a police procedural, so I'm not obsessively interested in exactly reproducing what would happen (from a legalistic point of view). The genre will be suspense/thriller, but I don't really see myself as a genre writer. So what I'm looking for is to have suspense happen.

This is how I see it going ideally.

My protagonist is a suspect or perhaps only a person of interest in his ex-wife's murder. I think at this point, because of quincy's advice, I'm going to have him contact an attorney who is a friend of the family and not an criminal attorney. Let's say he's a real estate attorney. And so my protagonist feels he's not the killer but at the same time he knows how a friend of his got nailed by the police (for only driving a car in which a crime was committed--and he had no knowledge a crime was going to be committed.) and so he's leery, and although the real estate attorney says going to talk to the police is a terrible idea, he insists they go and the real estate attorney accompanies him to the interview.

The protagonist will already have gone through a nerve-wracking initial interview with a detective who knocked on his door, and the purpose of this new interview would be to ratchet up the pressure on him even more. And perhaps with the real estate attorney accompanying him, the attorney might make a mistake and let him answer a question he shouldn't. Something like that anyway.

Already, my protagonist is drawing more attention because he's invoked his right to have an attorney present during questioning. So the pressure is mounting on him even before the interview.

And, not being privy to such a world, if I could get some specific things either the attorney or detective might say, or how the ebb and flow might play out, that would really help.

 

[BadGolfer]

See the book Police Procedural, A Writer's Guide to the Police and How they Work, by Russell Bintliff, F&W Publications. The book includes a section on interviews and interrogations.

Bintliff worked in investigations for the Arkansas State Police, the Criminal Investigation Division of the Army, and the CIA. He was also technical advisor for the film Nighthawks.

We seem to be getting authors posting to this site with some frequency ...

I just ordered the book from Amazon. Thanks.