When D.C. police sit down at a station to question a suspect in serious crime, they are required, under almost all circumstances, to record the interrogation on video.
It's the law, and it has been for two years. But for just as long, D.C. police have flouted the statute and the department order that followed it by recording only a small fraction of their interrogations.
So the D.C. Council is looking to raise the stakes, and it is facing opposition from police and prosecutors.
Under a proposed law, if the police do not record an interrogation from the time the Miranda warning is given, the suspect's statements would be presumed to be involuntary and therefore inadmissible in court.
Prosecutors would be allowed to challenge that presumption, but it would be a new burden for the government.
Supporters of the proposal expect that the police, faced with the prospect of losing cases, will quickly become more diligent in recording interrogations. Whatever the strategic advantages in selectively recording interrogations, they would hardly be worth putting entire prosecutions in jeopardy, the argument goes.
Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the police should have followed the law from the outset.
"When your major law enforcement agency doesn't comply with the law, that's a problem," she said.
The proposal covers murder, rape and other serious crimes. Barely 20 percent of the interrogations this year that should have been fully recorded were recorded even in part, according to a report submitted by the police to the council.
After listening to testimony from Michael Anzallo, superintendent of detectives, Patterson said she was encouraged but nevertheless believed the time had come to put real force behind the law.
"It looks like they may finally be complying," Patterson said, "but I think enough time has passed to do this statutorily."
The D.C. Public Defender Service and the D.C. Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers support the proposal to strengthen the requirement.
The D.C. police, the U.S. attorney and the D.C. attorney general oppose the new law and laid out their objections during the hearings earlier this week.
All three agencies said they agree that routine video recording is a step toward sounder, stronger criminal prosecutions.
