1 INSTITUT UNIVERSITARI DE LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA 3rd iIIRG Annual...

1INSTITUT UNIVERSITARI DE LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA

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Police Interrogation in Spain: some preliminary results

Police Interrogation in Spain:

some preliminary resultsAndré F.R.M. Braz

ForensicLab

[email protected]

Carlos Delgado

Laboratorio de Acústica Forense de la Policia Científica de Madrid

[email protected]

M. Teresa Turell

ForensicLab

[email protected]

http://www.iula.upf.edu/forensiclab


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Present practices

and protocols

in Police Interrogation

in Spain


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• Criminal Law Procedure (Ley de Enjuiciamiento Criminal-LECrim.): Proceedings of Inquiry or Investigation:

• What? Complex and formal proceedings• Where? Police station • Who? 3 Participants:

1) Instructor: directs the interrogation2) Secretary: take notes and writes the

proceedings3) Suspect: answers the questions

Current legislation


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How are the Proceedings organized?

1. Generalities of the Law (general questions).

2. Reading of suspect’s rights.

3. Police Interrogation(Non recorded electronically).

4. Suspect’s declaration (comment on the facts).

5. Writing of Acta de Declaración. (Suspect’s statement under caution)

Reference: Pérez et al (2004).


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Acta de Declaración(1)

• Written by the Secretary.

• Describes chronological order of the proceedings.

• Juridical-administrative Language:

•conservative lexicon and use of formulaic expressions;

•Indirect speech.

• Fixed format of Questions-Answers: •”PREGUNTADO para que diga si no es cierto que…, DICE…” (“ASKED to say if it is [not] true that..., [the suspect] SAID:…”)

• All participants sign in conformity at the end.

• Inserted in a case file to the consideration of judges/lawyers.

Reference: Anneré & Pastor (2000). Acercamiento al español jurídico a través del atestado. Actas del primer CIEFE,November:Amsterdam


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• Previous literature:

• Figueras (2001): Two linguistic mechanisms of modality:

(1)Epistemic- influence the inferential processes of the police when writing the Acta de Declaración;

(2)Deontic - influence the judge’s inferential processes of interpretation.

• Taranilla (2006, 2007): Existence of Double enunciation*:

(1)Production of Acta de Declaración;

(2)Spoken interaction between Instructor and Suspect;

• Linguistic polyphonic character (multiplicity of voices in discourse)

* Ducrout’s Enunciation theory says “that the utterances of a discourse inevitably contain traces of the act that produced them (enunciation), the context in which they were produced and the subjectivity of the producer.” (Marnette, 2001:244)

Acta de Declaración(2)


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The current reality

• Spain is a Civil Law tradition where the Police Interrogation process is considered a reliable investigative instrument which does not find the need to be recorded electronically, as opposite to what occurs in with some countries with Common Law tradition like England, USA, Australia.

• Spanish police forces are not very open.• Most studies consider a legal approach at the

proceedings.• Police manuals are superficially descriptive.

IN CONCLUSION: it is a real difficulty to obtaining relevant and substantial data.


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The present study


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• First attempt to “look” inside the interrogation room.

• Describe the practice and protocols in Police Interrogation currently in use in Spain.

• Particularly, identify, describe and compare the most prominent linguistic features of:

1) Acta de Declaración;2) Recorded Police Interrogation.

The present study: aims


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• Corpus (1): 1 Acta de Declaración.

• Corpus (2): 1 audio recorded Police Interrogation(PI)

• However, corpus (1) and corpus (2) are not from the same case.

• Both corpus refer to cases investigated in 2010 by the Brigada de Delincuencia Económica y Fiscal (Economic and Tax Crime Brigade) of the Comisaría General de la Policía Judicial.

• The corpus have been anonymised for confidentiality reasons.

Methodology: corpus


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• Macro perspective:

a) Structure;

b) Main discursive features.

• Micro perspective:

c) Type and sequencing of Questions and Answers;

d) tactic features;

e) Mechanisms used for the distribution of the participant’s role.

Methodology: the analytical approach


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Results


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“Superstructure” (van Dijk, 1982)

Acta de Declaración: a) structure


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- Formal language

• “el Sr. Instructor dispone se proceda a oír en declaración y en relación a los hechos que motivan las presentes”

- Indirect speech:

• verbum dicendi: “DECLARA” (declare),“MANIFIESTA” (manifest), “PRESTAR”(give or swear),“CERTIFICA” (certify) - perform illocutionary speech acts (Searl, 1969)

• subordinating conjunction “que” (that)

• past tense of the verbs: “dice” (said), “ha sido” (has been), “fue” (was)

• grammatical person of pronouns: “le” (him), “su” (his)

• Demonstrative elements: “estas dependencias” (these headquarters) instead of “aqui” (here)

Acta de Declaración: b)Main discursive features


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Questions (Quirk et al, 1985)

Examples

Yes/No PREGUNTADO para que diga si…

Wh-PREGUNTADO para que diga que/cuando/en que/cual(es)/cómo…

Alternative PREGUNTADO para que diga si…o…

Acta de Declaración: c) Type of Questions


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ShortAnswers

(max 3 lines)

Yes/No DICE: que no/si.

DirectDICE: que tarjetas de crédito, transferencias bancarias o domiciliaciones.

Don’t know/remember

DICE: que no sabe.

LongAnswers

(at least 4 lines)

Simple

DICE: Que el declarante recibe una nomina de unos 2.800 Euros netas mensuales, por catorce pagas, de Consulting Management, que es donde esta asegurado. Que esporádicamente, cuando FUCSA tiene beneficios, el los percibe, y tributa por ello, que en el 2007, cree que ha recibido 30.000 Euros.

Elaborated

DICE: que desconoce las posiciones bancarias de xx, que escuchó decir a xx que tenía dinero en Suiza y que participó con una persona que se llama xx que es un broker suizo en una reunión en el Hotel HESPERIA, que la mayor parte de la conversación trascurrió en francés y no se enteró de la conversación que al parecer hablaron de las inversiones que xx realizaba para xx. Que xx le presentó a xx ese día. Que no ha vuelto a reunirse con esta persona y que no ha vuelto a tener una relación con esta persona.

Acta de Declaración: c) Type of Answers


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Acta de Declaración:

c) Comparison of Questions and Answers


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• Excessively long and complex sentences

• Formulaic style: “Que una vez personado”,”Que en presencia”, “a efecto de”

• Frequent use of:

• coordination “...y...y...y..”

• subordination(para que diga, dice que)

• Non personal-forms of the verbs: “siendo”, “teniendo”, “estando”, “poseyendo”, “leída”

• Use of technical words: “Acta”, “Colegiado”, “epigrafiado”, “detenido”, “encartado”, “Letrado”, “articulo”, “capital social”

• NO typical features of dialogue were found

Acta de Declaración: d) Particular lexical, semantic, morphological and syntactic features


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Acta de Declaración: e)Mechanisms used for the distribution of the participant’s role


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a) structure:

1)Opening:• Informal introduction:

- Inst.:”Que hay? Buenas Que tal? Sientese por favor”• Generalities of the Law; • Reading of rights (very fast and not really clear):

• Inst.:”Bueno eh…Vamos a tomar una pequeña declaracion en relación a todo este tema ¿vale? Vamos a hacer primeramente unas preguntas así generales que se las hacemos a todo el mundo…”- use of informal language, closer to Suspect

• Sect.: “eh, si hay alguna pregunta que no desee contestar está en su derecho.”

2)Body of Interrogation: varies (dependent on interaction)

3)Closing: Inst:”Alguna cosa más quiere hacernos constar?”

Recorded PI: a) structure


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- Informal language - to establish rapport ;

- Direct speech;

- markers:”Entonces”,”o sea”,”bueno…”,”oye”;

- Acknowledgements of replies to questions: “ya ya”, “Vale!”,”val”;

- Repetitions: “no no”, “si si”, “supongo que si, supongo que si”;

- Several interruptions, pauses and hesitations from all participants;

- Incomplete utterances;

- Different intonation.

PI: b) Main discursive features


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• Yes/No questions•“Y ustedes construyeron en ese periodo?”•“Usted tenia conocimiento de que, quién era el propietario de la casa desde el primer momento?”

• Wh- questions•“cuanto dinero ingresó usted..?”

• Tag-questions•“…¿me ha dicho?”• “estos querian reformarla, no?”

• Alternative questions:•“mano de obra, materiales, ¿esto se lo decia?”•“los pagos como se producían en efectivo, en cheque?”•“recuerda si era por encima o por debajo?”

PI: c) Type of Questions


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• Asymmetric distribution:- The Instructor:

• Has the active role• Use of informal language through out the

interrogation• Controls the interrogation:

•Make questions•Allows the suspect’s narrative- “Aha..”,”Mhm..”, “Mhm mhm”, “y...”, “ya ya...”

•Interrupts the suspect’s narrative with a resume of what has been spoken

• Talks with the Secretary and corrects what has been written down.

PI: e)Mechanisms used for the distribution of the participant’s role(1)


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• Asymmetric distribution:- The Secretary:

• Talks while writing;• Intervenes to ask for clarification and to help the

Instructor;• Is sometimes corrected by the Instructor.

- The suspect:• Very cooperative but speaks very fast; • Interrupts the Instructor constantly, either in agreement, correcting, exculpating himself;• Dominates the interaction but assumes a subordinating position before the authority.

PI: e)Mechanisms used for the distribution of the participant’s role(2)


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Comparison of Acta de Declaración

and recorded PI

Acta de Declaración Recorded PI

Rigid and organized structure Typical 3 stages but unorganized structure

Language:formal, technical, non personal

Language: informal, commonly used, closer to the suspect

Indirect and formulaicspeech

Direct speech

Qs:Yes/No and WH- Qs:Yes/No, WH-,tag, alternative

Asymmetric distribution of roles:1) Secretary-active narrator2) Suspect-subordinated but with responsibility3) Instructor-only represented by Secretary’s voice

Asymmetric distribution of roles:1) Instructor-authority and active figure (asks the questions) 2)Suspect-main narrator but subordinated 3) Secretary-almost absent


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Conclusion

and

Future perspectives


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Conclusion and Future Perspectives

• The Instructor questions the suspect while the Secretary writes notes and then the Acta de Declaración.

• The Acta de Declaración summarizes the proceedings and represents the Suspect’s statement to the police.

• The suspect’s role is diminished in the Acta de Declaración and in the interrogation.

• The law requires the suspect’s words to be recorded, the

language of the Acta de Declaración is very formal and formulaic.

• So, to which extent does this document really represent the suspect’s own words?


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Conclusion and Future Perspectives

• There is sufficient linguistic evidence to suggest that the current proceedings can potentially have very incriminating repercussions in case suspects are accused of criminal activity in the future rather than just being used as information-gathering.

• It is likely that suspects are not completely aware of these consequences.

• Further research is required and it will :

• Provide more information about the police’s interrogation methods, and their needs and difficulties.

• More cooperativeness between scholars and the Spanish police forces.


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Thank you for your attention

1 INSTITUT UNIVERSITARI DE LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA 3rd iIIRG Annual...

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