A digital recording system installed at the Lawrence Police Department's Investigation and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway, is used to record audio and video of crime suspect interviews. Detective M.T. Brown, who helped develop and set up the system for about 2,000, is shown in the monitoring and equipment room.

Douglas County Assistant District Attorney Amy McGowan prepares to show a videotaped police interview to jurors in the recent Jason Rose trial. The Lawrence Police Department has started using a digital recording system in nine interview rooms, increasing the availability and amount of taped interrogations. A mistrial was declared last week in the Rose trial.

For years, Lawrence police hesitated to record the images and sounds created in the department’s cramped, stark-white interrogation rooms.

The only time they would videotape a suspect was during a major crime investigation – and then video would typically only capture the confession, not the interrogation leading up to it.

But during the past year, Lawrence police have begun using a digital recording system that has added electronic eyes and ears to nine police interview rooms.

“It took the mystery out of the interview,” Lawrence police Capt. Dan Affalter said.

And that’s just what prosecutors and defense attorneys were after.

The new technology, though, has come at a cost – of time.

With the department now taping almost every suspect interview, it takes countless hours to record, copy, organize, watch and redact the tapes before a jury can see them.

And if a jury doesn’t see them – if a suspect isn’t charged or doesn’t go to trial – all that effort goes by the wayside.

Regardless, all sides say the effort has been worth it because it eliminates any questions about how detectives go about their jobs, and allows jurors to see interviews before reaching a verdict.

Old equipment

Police said they were hesitant to record every interview before the digital system was in place because of cumbersome equipment – an old VHS system. Police said they recorded confessions of suspects in serious crimes.

But prosecutors and defense attorneys persisted in calling for police to record every interview – mainly to quash concerns about tactics police used to gain information and confessions.

“We saw a lot of pitfalls in that, not because we were afraid to be recorded, but because of the logistical nightmare,” Affalter said. “Some people thought we didn’t want to be recorded because we were doing evil things in interview rooms. That’s just not the case.”

Interrogation room

Inside the Investigation and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway, suspects sit in interrogation rooms and, as Detective M.T. Brown puts it, try to keep their stories straight.

Hidden behind rectangular chrome plates – the kind of thing typically containing a light switch – electronic eyes and ears capture images and sounds for every detective and supervisor in the department to watch.

The recording happens in real time, allowing anyone with a computer and the necessary clearance to watch the interviews as they happen. The system, detectives say, allows them to quickly relay important information so detectives in the field can track down leads based on suspects’ or witnesses’ statements.

The system, which cost about $12,000 and was set up by tech-savvy detectives and officers, can capture more than 700 hours of video without having to change tapes or DVDs.

Benefits

In courtrooms, the videos show jurors the minutiae of police interviews – body language, tone of voice or reactions to investigators’ questions.

Before, judges or juries got impressions of how a suspect acted only from written reports or police testimony. Now, Brown said, they can see it for themselves.

“It might not be what you said, but how you said it or how you acted that becomes important,” he said.

When all suspect interviews are taped, interrogation expert Saul Kassin said, prosecutors, defense attorneys, police and juries benefit.

“It’s a win-win,” said Kassin, a distinguished professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and author of “The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure.”

Having video evidence of an interview reduces frivolous complaints of police coercion and the possibility that jurors could convict on what may be a false confession, Kassin said.

If anything in a videotaped confession doesn’t make sense or feels coerced, Kassin said, jurors can decide for themselves – rather than trusting police testimony or defense accusations.

Without watching the interrogation, he said, “It’s like asking a coroner to give you the cause of death without seeing the body.”

Drawbacks

A picture, defense attorney Skip Griffy said, is worth a thousand words.

But that doesn’t mean those pictures don’t come without a cost.

“There’s always unintended consequences,” Griffy said.

Griffy, who was critical of the department’s longtime reluctance to film interrogations, said it’s obvious the department has made efforts to change its policies.

But after the department began filming most suspects in late 2005, access to those interviews has been restrictive or expensive for defense attorneys to obtain, Griffy said.

For everyone involved, the new directive also is time-consuming.

Officers typically have to make four copies of every DVD – one each for prosecutors, the defense, records and detectives, Affalter said.

If the recorded interview is long – for example, an interview of arson and murder suspect Jason Rose ran about 12 hours – preparing the footage and burning DVDs can take even longer.

The trial for Rose, who is accused of starting a fire at Boardwalk Apartments that killed three people, ended in a mistrial last week because of a new witness and will begin again April 30.

Former Rose juror Brad Wertz hesitated to comment on what he thought of Rose’s taped confession, but he said, “I think seeing the video shed a lot of light on the process itself.”

But unless a case is charged or goes to trial, many of those DVDs will collect dust on a shelf.

“It just creates another level of stuff. More equipment, more costs, more time,” Affalter said.

Then, prosecutors spend hours editing out the portions of the interviews that can’t be shown in court.

Kansas law bars jurors from hearing police tell a suspect he or she is lying, and defense attorneys often ask that jurors not be allowed to hear about past crimes.

But Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson isn’t complaining. If the interrogation videos help jurors reach a verdict, he said, the effort is worth it.

“There are cases we would have lost if we wouldn’t have had the tapes,” he said.

During the trial of Thomas E. Murray, the former Kansas State University professor convicted in March 2005 of murdering his wife, jurors said watching his videotaped interview with police gave them the insight they needed to convict.

Jurors in that Douglas County case watched a 9 1/2-hour taped interview where Murray told of details of the crime scene – sometimes without prompting.

“He was telling things ahead of time, before they even asked,” juror Robert Wagner said at the time.