IF YOU’RE ever arrested in the US, remember that what you say may not be as
important as how you say it. When the police arrest you in the States, they must
tell you at the outset that you have the right to say nothing unless a lawyer is
present. So why do so many suspects end up confessing to a crime without ever
seeing a lawyer?
Because the police and the courts use a rigid interpretation of language to
ignore obvious requests, says Janet Ainsworth, linguist and lawyer at Seattle
University.
Once they have been arrested, even the toughest thugs turn to jelly. More
precisely, Ainsworth says suspects lapse into a deferential mode called the
female register, identified in women’s speech 25 years ago.
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When speaking in this way, people turn statements into questions and avoid
direct commands. They use the conditional form of verbs, such as “might”, “may”
and “should”, to weaken the impact of what they are saying. They also hedge
everything with phrases such as “kind of” and use inflections more appropriate
to questions.
A suspect might say: “I better get a lawyer, hadn’t I?” Or “If I’m going to
be charged with murder, I want to talk to my lawyer.” Or “My lawyer’s card is in
my wallet, can you get me my wallet?”
Police often ignore such statements and pressure suspects into confessing
before they have had a chance to get legal advice. The courts normally back the
police in these efforts. Indeed, the US Supreme Court has ruled that only a
direct declaration—”I want my lawyer”—needs to be honoured.
In the interests of justice, the courts should recognise the obvious intent
behind less forceful requests, Ainsworth says. “Courts ought to take into
account how people actually use language to communicate, not just how we would
like to think they communicate.”
But the Supreme Court won’t change its mind any time soon, because lower
courts would then have to throw out many confessions, says Laurie Levenson of
the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “It’s very much an uphill battle to
convince the court that this is not just a matter of interpretation, but is a
Գ.”
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