Ruling Clears Recording, Use of Inmate Phone Calls
Interrogation room confessions aren’t the only way a crime suspect’s words can come back to haunt him at trial.
With jails across the country using automated recording systems to monitor inmate telephone calls, a suspect’s idle chitchat can become incriminating evidence. In Washington County AR, defendants charged in the April 2007 deaths of Kendall Rachell Rice and Kevin Barkley Jones incriminated themselves during telephone calls from the jail to relatives. Despite objections from defense attorneys, a judge ruled the calls don’t violate a defendant’s right against self-incrimination …
The Washington County sheriff’s office uses a digital recording system that tracks and stores calls that inmates make from the jail’s pay phones. Each inmate is assigned an identification code that is attached to all calls, which police and prosecutors can access via a secure Web site, said Cpl. Jak Kimball, information technology manager at the sheriff’s office. The system has other features, such as blocking certain numbers and detecting threeway calls, which aren’t allowed, Kimball said. In a 24-hour period last week, the jail’s 530-some inmates made roughly 10,000 collect calls, Kimball said. “The numbers are incredible,” he said. “You get inmates who are extremely bored, and that’s what they do: call people” …
Tim Buckley, an attorney for [the defendant], argued that the jail’s process of recording the calls is a “silent form of interrogation.” He argued to exclude the calls as evidence on the basis Westeen had the right not to self-incriminate. Inmates are told by a judge at an initial appearance that they’re allowed to call friends and family, which gives the impression they can speak freely without legal ramifications, Buckley said. The recorded AT&T message an inmate hears at the beginning of the call that says it “may” be monitored or recorded isn’t good enough, Buckley said. “It sounds like a customer service or a quality-assurance message,” he said. “We argued it ought to be a stronger warning.” Circuit Judge William Storey ruled against Buckley’s argument, finding the recording process isn’t an active interrogation; therefore, it doesn’t require a Miranda rights warning.
More on this important story from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.