Coerced Confessions: Garrity V. New Jersey

The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids the use of coerced confessions in criminal proceedings (Peak et at, 2010). However, internal investigations are a different matter. The U.S Supreme Court case of Garrity v. New Jersey defined what must be done. The case got its start when officers under investigation for fixing citations were ordered to give statements or be fired (Roufa, 2014). The statements were then used to convict the officers and they appealed saying that their statements were coerced with the threat of being fired (Roufa, 2014). The court agreed and what arose from the case was the Garrity rule which states “that if an officer is compelled to provide self-incriminating information or statements, such statements