Digital documentation.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Most people unfamiliar with the particulars of police work - the kind of people often selected as jurors - have formed their impressions of suspect interrogations from watching TV cop dramas such as "NYPD Blue" or "Law and Or- der."

The mental image looks more or less like this: Detective Andy Sipo- wicz isn't getting anywhere grilling a belligerent murder suspect, so he flies into a rage, turns over a table in the precinct interview room, grabs the suspect by the shirt collar and screams right into his face, "Listen here, scumbag, if you don't tell me what I need to know in the next five seconds, the only phone call you're gonna wanna make is for an ambulance."

Defense attorneys would have a field day with a videotape of Sipowicz abusing a suspect or coercing a confession. Civil libertarians have long sought recorded interview sessions for just that reason - to protect people in police custody from improper police conduct. The conventional wisdom has been that law enforcement generally views recorded interrogations with suspicion.

But a new study of more than 200 law enforcement agencies in 38 states reveals that police departments that electronically record interrogations enthusiastically embrace the practice. The report by Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions found that real-world experiences with recorded interrogations saved time and money and created persuasive evidence. More important, the recordings reduced the "dual problems of false confessions that lead to convictions of the innocent and false accusations of police misconduct that lead to acquittals of the guilty."

Only four states and the District of Columbia require the electronic recording of interrogations, but the report's positive findings have lead the center to recommend that all courts and law enforcement agencies consider requiring recording of in-custody interviews in all major felony cases - from the time an officer informs a suspect of his rights until the interrogation is over.

Lane County law enforcement agencies regularly record suspect interrogations in serious felony cases. The decision on when to record an interview is generally left to the discretion of detectives and usually does not include preliminary conversations in which detectives are attempting to establish rapport with a suspect to facilitate securing an official statement.

Cost of recording interviews is an issue in Lane County, as it is elsewhere. Setting up an interview room typically requires about $3,500 for equipment and an annual budget of $2,000 per year for supplies, transcripts and associated expenses.

Those costs are insignificant compared with the benefits of recorded interrogations. Experience shows defendants rarely seek to suppress taped confessions, and recordings greatly reduce the threat of bogus police misconduct suits.

Local law enforcement agencies shouldn't wait for a legislative mandate to record interrogations. For a small investment, they can act now to expand their use of this powerful tool to every serious felony interrogation. As a representative of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office told the Northwestern researchers:

`If a picture is worth a thousand words, it's been my experience that a video is worth 10,000.'