Fixing false confessions

Maybe the sister thought that if her 13 year old brother confess to the murder, he would get off. It back fired. The boy still received life in prison. The sister is a geniue manipulator.

I completely agree that juvenile confessions should always be recorded and they should always occur in the presence of an attorney representing the child. However, the way the system is set up allows for this kind of violation to happen. There is no accountability or penalty when police coerce or force confessions out of people, particularly juveniles and there is little that can be done to prosecutors who try cases (like the one involving the Arizona boy) where it is clear that the statements are coerced and likely false.

I think if there was a legal standard in place, If police officers and prosecutors face some penalty for essentially manipulating the system and working legal loopholes, then I think we would see fewer of these kinds of cases. I also think that the standard for bring cases against juveniles, whether charged as children or as adults, ought he be higher. There ought to be something tangible linking them to the crime, otherwise there is just too great a potential for innocent children to confess to acts they did not commit or to be talked into plea deals are completely one-sided.

I have been watching this trial being that i am from Mississippi
However i live in Calif. Where is all the DNA do they not have any ? And why not ?

First and foremost it's not the "police" that interview the suspects; it's the "homicide detectives"! Either way it is the law to have a parent or attorney present when underage. I don't care how old they are, if they are stupid enough to commit the crime, they should pay the price. Then again we can go back to the parents in each issue and ask where in the HE** have they been for their children? The blame is always put off onto someone else other than the one that committed the crime. If you commit a major crime as a child, then I strongly believe that they should be tried as an adult. It's sad that our country has come to know so much violence within the past decade. May the Lord Jesus Christ lay his hands on all that are in need.

Boy, Jami, I could not agree with you more about documenting everything. My nephew was in a custody battle...the maternal grandmother made a call to DSS alleging sexual abuse. The caseworker immediately sided with the mother's side of the battle, called my nephew in, played head games with him, told him if he confessed, he would have therapy and see his daughter again, if he did not co-operate, he'd never see her again. The caseworker drove him to the police dept., rehearsed him, told him it would be useless for him to have legal counsel, she was going to help him, and she sat with him until he made his confession. He was in his 20's, my family actually worked for DSS in another county, he wanted to believe she was telling the truth. We went to trial, but there was the taped confession, and the judge suppressed anything that would help to tell his side of the story. The caseworker? Both prosecution and defense had her on their list of witnesses, defense relied on pros. to subpoena her (stupid), she never got subpoenaed.

ALL CONFESSIONS should be video taped!!!

Got to agree with you on this one Jami. What are these police thinking of interviewing a minor without a parent/guardian or legal representation (which they are entitled as a US citizen) for something as real as murder, much less any crime? Makes you wonder when you see a story like this on the news.

I feel the boy was handled in the correct manner, however, this boy should be handled with kid gloves, I think he has more issues than what was brought out. So he is 8 years old, I would think that in years from now, he would really be a problem. He needs to have complete mental check out, It is good that he can be handled the way our courts work with children that you would think has had no guidance in his young life. I am glad that I would not have to judge this case. Betty

The problem is that once an attorney is brought in, you can kiss any chance of finding out the truth goodbye. And isn't what we're after...the truth?

All this talk about police coercing confessions, forcing confessions, etc., etc....it's a good idea to remember that the average crime-committer doesn't do the crime and then happily fess up. Police are trained to try and get to the truth, and if that takes getting tough, so be it. Most criminals are not going to blurt out the truth on the first try, are they? If you view even the most evidence-filled cases involving children, often they will lie and lie again until their lies eventually catch up to them.

While false confessions do exist, children do commit crimes...more and more each day. If we tie the hands of our law enforcement, don't be upset when a friend or family member becomes a victim and the perpetrator remains free to roam the streets. Everyone knows that any lawyer will stop the questioning within literal seconds once they enter the interrogation room, and POOF! There goes your investigation and ANY chance at the truth.

Taping the interviews of children and adults isn't a bad idea, but there needs to be a definitive line that is not crossed when forcing new "rules" on our police officers. We are getting dangerously close to crossing that line, and once we've crossed it, there's a real danger of losing large numbers of officers...and where will we be then? Crime isn't going away; it's getting worse, and the future isn't looking too rosy as far as cleaning it up. It would behoove us to remember the situation with teachers who, once their hands became tied when dealing with difficult students, fled from the teaching field...which left us begging for teachers in each and every state.

Do the ethical thing, but don't cross the line and prevent law enforcement from doing the necessary to obtain the truth. We'll all only regret it when that happens, and thanks to defense attorneys, that ball has already begun rolling at a very fast pace.

I would like to know what the outcome of the retrial was. I did watch the trial on Monday and Tuesday but had to return to work on Wednesday so I did not get to see the rest of the trial.

Do we have any information about the story behind the incident? (There always is one...) In our gun culture it would be reasonable to think that this boy (age 8, very limited psychological development) would want to hurt or punish someone who was hurting him.

Is there any background we know of? Were these men abusing him? Were they fighting with each other? What's the other side of the story?

How did tyler know that he would see his sister at the jail to get the "QUE" to tell the police that he did it, that right there does not add up. On the other hand, he was a child and children do what adults tell them to do, if you tell a child to sit down, they will, if you tell them to stand up they will, now dont get me wrong, I feel if a child commit a horrifying crime, they should be punish, but it depends on how the crime was commited, for example, the teenager who killed another child and cut him up, that is non excusable, but tyler was under his sister spell and I believe she led him to believe that Joey didnt want him to live there and that Joey didnt like him.

It should be law that a parent/guardian be with the minor in every state! How the police are getting away with this is unbelievable! I will say back in the early 2000's when I was a major of criminal justice in Cali (at the time it was a juvenile justice class I was in) we were taught that the minor has to ASK for his/her parent or lawyer. Now, with so many more homicides there should be a law that the parent/guardian be present. It should all be taped as well, not bits and pieces that the police 'choose' to tape.

I think the boys sister con'd him into covering up for her. I mean in reality a 13 year old boy or girl is ofcoarse going to trust and stick up for their sibling, at that age your family especially immediate family is the only person(s) in the world someone at that age can trust. In legal cases the law kinda screwed up when they did not even have a lawyer present for him when in questioning because he was a minor. If anything should be done with that boy is he should get some serious counseling, in all do respect all of this obviously messed up his mind BIG time.

If as this young man claims he was coerced by his sister into confessing to killing his brother-in-law, why was he still communicating with her while in jail and using terms such as l"augh out loud". It seems to me that with an IQ of 117 he is intelligent enough to try and pull the wool over the court's eye. He told the truth when pressued by the police and when faced with going to prison he recanted. This young man and his sister planned the murder of her husband and dreamed up an ellaborate scheme to get away with it. When that scheme backfired he had to change the plan by claiming his innocence.

I believe Tyler was not afforded proper representation during initial questioning. That should have some impact.
On the other hand I think he does have some culpability in this murder
But because of the circumstances of coersion of this case the charge should be manslauther which would allow release at some point.
Coventry, RI

I think about the mental status of jurors – seems as if people from southern states, give the benefit of any doubt to the prosecution. Thank for the defense lawyers – these cases involving children under age is why I'm almost all the time cheering for the defense.

I'm Jan in Ala. Not from here but from Grayslake, Illinois

I think that this case should have been thrown out in the first place. There should not have been allowed contact with the sister while being interogated. Children really are influenced by adults and he never had a chance with a sister as eveil as his. She should be a woman and clear her brother of such a crime. How can a mother want to put a child in a bad situation, knowing that this child will pay for her crime. It is horrible to think that our justice system takes advantage of children. Have they not learned that child are not really good witnesses. We as a nation should try to protect the children from such situations.

I have a theory of what the vomiting of Tyler Edmonds was all about. I think Kristi put poison on the subway sandwich thinking it would kill Tyler. She would then set it up somewhere else and kill him. Then set the scene to make it look like he committed suicide because he has so much remorse for killing Joey. Therefore Kristi would be off scott free because they probalby wouldn't have looked for poisoning on the boy if he had a "self inflicted" suicide.
Kristi manipulated this whole thing. She became the big sister saying that she would give him all the things he wanted if he would come and live with her therefor being a preditor on him. Plans of making him the scapegoat all along . A 13 year old boy would never suspect or think that far ahead to realize she plotted this whole thing probably the day she left the Montel Williams show.

I think this boy and his family have a huge monetary windfall coming to them for all of the muck that was brought upon them. For adults the law enforcement in this town acted very unprofessionally and badly. The whole law enforcement and prosecutor took advantage of innocence of a 13 year old boy and his family. They should be embarrased for the actions they took on all of this. What a mess they made of this. This should go down in the books for "What not to do with interrogating a child without council and at the least without parental supervision.
Paige Turner

This little boy didn't have a chance as it was and to have a sister use him so badly is pathetic.He should never have been charged..The officers knew his sister did it and knew she set him up to save her own arse.Too sad-now another trial?He wasn't guilty to start with.No-one should EVER talk to the law without a LAWYER(to h with the MOM who apparently was not too danged involed in his life anyway..She belongs where his sister is for allowing the sister to keep him and use him all the time anyway..He was that girls patsy..

This case makes me so very sad.

Why do they keep forgetting the fact that in the very beginning, the child said he saw the two men lying on the ground? By the time it was all over, he's supposed to have been the one who put them there. I definitely smell a rat here. I don't think there's any way an eight year old child could shoot two men. He wouldn't be strong enough or quick enough to kill both of them.

Yes Tyler did committed a crime but it clearly wasn't murder, he was manupulated by his sister, he was too young at the time to even know what he was getting himself into, give the boy Juvenile Life and let him go back home with his parents. He doesn't deserve a life sentence, the system is not a place for him.

Well said Jami, and I completely agree. Young children are easily manipulated. They are programmed to please, even when they know in their head, that they are innocent. This happens all the time. Law enforcement is trained to push the envelope with long, mind bending interrogations, to the point of physical exhaustion. It's bad enough when they do this to adults, but with a child, now that's criminal behavior!

Lets remember Tyler was a child. Why does'nt Mississippi charge other thirteen year olds as adults when they sell drugs, rob, & steal?

I think the cops in this case reek of misconduct and over all are bankrupt of morals and professionalism...

Has anyone heard when the 2nd Sean Fitzpatrick Trial (in MA) will be and will CNN cover it again like the 1st trial?

In my opinon law enforcement manipulated this young man juat as much as his sister.

I can relate to this case as a mother. My youngest son was 17 at the time he was accused of making threatening phone calls to students at his school. I had no doubt he would have done such a thing. He was shy, had a lot of friends and there were no indications he felt animosity toward any of the students at his school, which was private and religious. Nevertheless, he was summoned to Juvenile Court. I went with him and the counselor did her best to convince him to 'fess up and the whole thing would go away and after all it was just a misdemeanor. He refused. The counselor said she would contact the students who filed the complaint. She called my son a few days later when I was not home, and asked him again about pleading guilty. He told her she had to talk to me. The students never contacted JC and the case was dropped. The DA was determined to convict my son and JC wanted to just close the case. Thankfully, my son stood his ground and didn't cave to the pressure. I think the police in this case were totally out of line. This boy was still a child. I can't believe, waiver or not, that the confession was allowed.

When you consider a male or female cannot buy a beer or mixed drink until age 21, then yes I do believe Tyler Edmunds should be considered a minor in every aspect. I do not believe a 13 year old has the mental faculities to make good, well informed decisions and deserves an adult ( his mother) in the room while being questioned. I also believe all this must be taken into consideration during his trial.

These cases are insane This thirteen year old boy, with no previous criminal background, did not kill a man for no reason. The police that interrogated the boy are ignorant idiots. And once again, while child rapist run free, our law enforcement is busy interrogating an eight year old boy for murder, this sure builds my confidence in our criminal system.
By the way, my boys would never sit in my car for a three hour drive when they were sick as a dog and throwing up, let alone take care of my kids while I talked to my husband. Hello! It looks like this boy lived in a state of coercion for a long time. And how does any loving grandfather take only two kids to shop every Friday and leave the other children at home? This is a messed up family, but this boy should be let out and given all the support he needs to fix his life. This is where major lawsuits will be the only way to correct the wrongs in this case. This boy deserves millions of dollars to compensate for lack of procedures and overzealousness of this DA's office.

some of us nurses feel the boys rights were violated when this child was thirteen and questioned as there was no parent or lawyer present. what a mistake they did once again. we feel the sister was old enough to know better and he was just a child. if anything should come of this he should just get probation. whats wrong with the system.

There are over 2000 children in America who will spend their entire lives in prison convicted under mandatory sentencing of "life without the possibility of parole" Many of these children were tricked into confessions without receiving or understanding their miranda rights or allowed to have a parent present. Only two countries in the world allow for sentencing children to prison for life without the possibility of parole..the USA and Somalia
Sad that our judical system is so archaic to allow such sentencing.

Yes! I do believe that the mother of the 13 year old should have been in the room from the very begining.I feel the case would of turned out to be very different in the long run. And I believe it would not been a second trial at all.

we feel he is not guilty and should not be tried.

I know for a fact the importance of documentation. I was in Law Enforcement for many years and retired. I believe ALL confessions must be recorded, and in the case of juveniles I believe parent(s) and an attorney being present is a MUST, I do not care what state you are in or what the law may state. I realize there are cases that charge and convict juveniles as adults however, I still believe what I just stated. A child is considered a juvenile until 18 years of age. The recordings not only protect the suspect but also the agency conducting the interrogation. I have been watching the Tyler Edmonds case and I believe he has been put in a position he had no control over beginning from a very young age. Meaning he needed to believe in someone and that he was loved, only to learn, the love and belief he had for his sister and believed she had for him has destroyed his belief, regardless of the results of his trial. I really feel for Tyler. He really was and is in a no win situation that involves the very people he should have been able to trust, FAMILY.

I don't know if the boy in Arizona is guilty or not but I do know there is no way he should be tried as an adult. As for Tyler Edmonds, the police should never have questioned him without a parent and when the Mom tried to contact an attorney, they should have stopped altogether. I believe that no child under 15 should be questioned at all without an attorney and we as citizens should demand that at least public defenders be assigned to these cases immediately. False confessions are too common and most kids that go to jail never get a second chance at justice. It is much more expensive to us, financially and morally for an innocent child to be falsely convicted than to do it right the first time.

The police and DAs are way too aggressive in their pursuit of getting someone, even a 13 year old boy into a cell for the rest of their life. How often do we hear, "We have enough evidence to convict" instead of "The physical evidence doesn't support the confession, do we really think this kid did it?"

I think Tyler should never have been separated from his mom nor should he have ever been put in the same room with the manipulative older sister. Shame on the investigators. I live in Roswell, New Mexico and am very familiar with the Cody Posey case. Other states need to take a lession from not only the people who interrogated him but the decission the judge made to prosecute him as the juvenile he was at the time. Cody did live in Roswell while his mom was alive and many teachers and students knew of the abuse he suffered both mentally and physically from his father and stepmother. Teachers reported it but nothing was ever done. He fell through the cracks. Children are children and can not join the military until they are 18. Why? Because they are not old enough to make that decision. We need guidelines for interrogating, trying, and punishing juviniles. They are not adults and should not be treated as such.
Respectfully yours<

Leslie Earnest

I lived in the westpoint ms area during the time of both of these trialsand i am still curious as to why the chief deputy sherrif for oktibbeha county was allowed to be in charge of the "investigation" while the sherrif was out of town carrouthers admitted to being very close to the victim. The victim called him "POPS" i personnally know dolph bryan and the way he runs his jail -talk about keystone cops this isjust normal business. I mean the sherrifs department decided that 2 people pulled the trigger but where is the gun with the 2 different sets fingerprints. This young man was held in jail and not given any form of viable state mandated education "schooling" that is required of the counties in the state to give to minors in their custody the kid could have been held in Columbus MS in a juvenile facility and still received the basics as for as a state mandated school education goes(columbus is only 20-25 miles away) also the first judge in the ccase is still a judge and former prosecutor for oktibbeha clay and lowndes counties with the belief that if a person is arrested then that person is guilty because the police say so he has no regards for what the laws are or how confessions are obtained as long as he gets to send criminals to jail.

we always thought a cook stayed in the kitchen. how would she know who signs in or out. where was the office help for the sign in sheet every jail has to have security yes jail makes a child hard and they do not rehab them this system makes me very sadend. you should be ashamed of yourselves mississippi

A childs mind does not develop till they are in there twentys . I feel for the family of the victim but a big injustice has been done to this boy. I hope this out come is different.

Taking a birthcontrol pill won't put you in jail for the rest of your life..Get real people..

Police are trained to find evidence of a crime. Not the truth. If you think otherwise, you're the fool. (worked as a civilian for several PD's and heard this straight from the cops...)

Still think the Mom should have protected her son from exposure to that girl..SHE let him spend WAY too much time with someone who she knew very well was not a good person or influence.

I watched the whole trial about Tyler, and after seeing the hell that this boy went through because of his rotten sister, i cried when they said what the verdict was. That cry was because i was happy for Tyler. I know that the police have a job to do but, they need to take their heads out of you know where and do their jobs right!!! We love you Tyler!!!!

I believed all along that Tyler was not guilty!
And that no child should be questioned without a parent and an attorney present.

The question of whether or not a jury should be told if the accused has refused a plea bargain was brought up today.
Don't you think MORE guilty people would "not accept" hoping it would
make them appear more likely to be innocent?

we just heard the virdict not guilty for tyler boy were we happy now this child can go on with his life. he never should have been tried in the first place. the police should learn to do there job right. i am so sorry he had such a rotten sister and life. i cried as i am a grandmother and as the years have passes i have seen how bad the system has gotten. we love you tyler darlene

I do think Kristi pulled the trigger on the gun but that tyler was holding it and turned his head she just aimed it and pulled the trigger with him. But i do believe she is the actual murderer. If Tyler had been a 5 yr old or a 6 yr old would he still be on trial for murder? I don't think children 13 no matter how high his I.Q. is is capable of understanding that death is so final. He idolized his sister and trusted her. If she had a 1/2 an ounce of decency she would have spoken up and took the blame seeing as she got the death penalty anyways, if she truely loved him she would have tried to save him from going through all that he did. But i think in the end this will truely make Tyler into a strong law-abiding man.

Whatt happened to the law that said that a minor had to have a parent or lawyer present before being ask any questions?

what was the verdict????

I watched the trial all week but had to leave for work on Thursday before the Jury came out.Anyone know what the verdict was this time.Is there a video somewhere of the verdict?

thank you

what is the verdict for tyler edmonds

Tyler should have never taken the rifle from his house without asking permission to do so from the rightful owner. Even at 13 he should have known better than to take the rifle no matter what the excuse his sister gave him.

how many cowboy cops are going 2 get away with murder before we stop thinking every day people are crimenils?

Kids always respond to adults questions, with what they think the adult wants to hear. We were all 8 & 13. @ that age adults are intimidating.

SO TRUE.

I live in the town where Tyler Edmonds stood trial. You have no idea how investigations are conducted here in the city and county. The officers use every means to get a confession. They get in your face, they tell you that if you don't sign your rights away, you are going to jail, and they harass you to the point you no longer feel safe in your own home. The law looks the other way, when some people committ crimes, but throw the book at others. It is a very prejudice town and I would advise anyone to get a lawyer and not talk without one. If anyone knows who we can complain to about their tactics, let me know.