These “302” things should be done away with immediately. All interviews should be subject to audio recording at the minimum. Everyone involved should be free to do so and to retain copies.
Relying on subjective hand written notes is archaic.
L
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>> “Relying on subjective hand written notes is archaic.” <<
But still done in every trial court in the land, in every case.
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Relying on subjective hand written notes is archaic.
It’s dishonest. They can write whatever they want and skew it anyway they want.
It’s probably done that way so the government can lie, which is what they do professionally. Lying written words are better than truthful audio. How do you expect them to lie if they’re recorded?
Spot on. Local LEOs could never get away with presenting handwritten after the fact notes of a suspect’s interview. And something must be done about the felony of lying to the feds. At the St and local level it is at worst a misdameanor obstruction and rarely prosecuted.
Spoke to a friend, a retired SAC with the FBI. He admitted that there is no felony of lying or perjury for agents, only the charge of demonstrating a lack of candor.
And everyone should read Michael Goodwin in today’s NY Post. This is a guy who voted gor Barky in ‘08 and then recognized the truth.
What evidence do you have that video and audio records of the interviews do not exist as well as the 302?
I would argue that such records keep the written 302 honest and can be dissiminated easy and quickly read whereas a video takes a long time to review.
Completely agree. A digital recorded is cheap, and anyone who talks to a government official needs to make their own recording that is also being uploaded to the cloud during the conversation.
302 reports are valuable for later or future analysis for both prosecution reasons and historical reasons. I’ve reviewed them for several major ‘action/prosecution’ cases and found them to be very useful.
However, all interviews, if possible should be recorded for completeness and accuracy (re transcribing or words that might be unclear, i.e. almost illegible or illegible).
Handwritten notes are okay but they are, unless one uses shorthand, incomplete, and therein lies the problem. Recording the interviews would resolve any “fullness” and “accuracy” issues.
Even the most rural Sheriff’s department records interviews.