Delaware’s Department of Justice and the Delaware Police Chiefs Council have developed model policies for custodial interrogation and eyewitness identification.
Officials call the policies an effort to ensure fairness and accuracy in the criminal justice system.
Attorney General Matt Denn says the model policies were distributed to police agencies earlier this year and he encourages all First State law enforcement agencies to adopt them.
“This is very important to us cause these are two areas, eyewitness identification and custodial interrogation, where research has shown us that use of the best practices is very important to getting accurate results in the entire criminal justice system, which is what we all want,” Denn said.
Denn notes that the state’s model custodial interrogation policy includes requirements that all custodial interviews be recorded and both questioner and suspect be videotaped, if the department has sufficient equipment to do so.
“A primary part of it, is a requirement that all custodial interviews be recorded. But then beyond that, one fairly new best practice around the country, is that there be video recordings of both the person asking the questions and the person answering the questions if the department has sufficient equipment for that to occur,” said Denn.
The state’s model eyewitness identification model policy includes a requirement that photo array identifications be videotaped whenever possible, and an explanation be provided for any that are not.
You can read more about the model policies here.
