Examining the Content and Implementation of the New U.S. Air Force Policy of Recording Suspect Interviews
Abstract
Effective 1 October 2009, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) implemented a new policy wherein Special Agents are required to video and/or audio record all suspect interviews. The new policy has been outlined in AFOSIMAN 71-118V4, paragraph 4.18 and while some portions of the policy give clear and specific guidance, other portions of the policy leave more opening for interpretation or convey actions which will create challenges that must be considered. These challenges, based on the author's personal experiences and JA-AFOSI focus groups divergent findings, will bring about potential growing pains and heavy scrutiny in the policy's implementation and appearance in court-martial proceedings. Recommendations and conclusions from these observations will help overcome these obstacles. While this policy and practice is new for the Air Force, it has been an established requirement for some of our sister service law enforcement agencies, other federal law enforcement agencies, and many state, city and county level law enforcement agencies. A review of how those various agencies conduct recorded interviews, as well as a review of case and statutory law, will also shed light on how the new AFOSI policy can be solidified to ensure fewer issues at the time of conducting the interviews up through the anticipated use of those recorded interviews in military courts-martial. Even though this policy has been implemented and all AFOSI Detachments are now executing it in the field, a number of issues raised from the various sources explored in this paper remain unresolved. While implementation of this new policy will undoubtedly encounter growing pains based on these issues, it will go a long way not only in protecting the rights of the suspect and the agents engaged in their investigation, but also in ensuring enhanced fairness in the judicial process. The goal of this research paper is to offer recommendations based on the identified issues to members of AFOSI.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- AD1019043
Entities
People
- Lynn Schmidt
Organizations
- Air Command and Staff College