Detective Saldate gets confessions from unconscious people on hospital gurneys???
So these are the brave cops who protect us from criminals
Phoenix Police Detective Armando Saldate who claimed Milke confessed to him had a history of lying to grand juries and extracting confessions even from unconscious suspects on hospital gurneys, according to the court opinion.
On the last post I made about this case I said the confession was probably obtained using the "9 Step Reid Method". While the "9 Step Reid Method" pretty much uses psychological beatings with mental rubber hoses to get confessions, I have never heard of it getting confessions from unconscious suspects.
The "9 Step Reid Method" is pretty much a version of the good cop, bad cop questioning method. The bad cop tells the suspect he will be sent to the gas chamber if he doesn't confess, and the good cop tells the suspect he will get a slap on the wrist if he confesses. And the suspect usually confesses to the good cop, because after all he will only get a slap on the wrist if he confesses.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/arizona/articles/20130314arizona-woman-death-row-convictions-overturned-milke.html?nclick_check=1 Convictions of woman on Ariz. death row overturned
By Michael Kiefer The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Mar 14, 2013 10:39 PM
Debra Milke was a celebrated villain of 1989, a woman accused and convicted of dressing up her 4-year-old son to see Santa Claus and, instead, sending him off to be shot execution-style in a desert wash.
She is one of three women on Arizona’s death row.
But on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out her death sentence and murder conviction because the trial court refused to let her introduce evidence that might have discredited her supposed confession.
The Phoenix police detective who claimed Milke confessed to him had a history of lying to grand juries and extracting confessions even from unconscious suspects on hospital gurneys, according to the court opinion. There were no witnesses to the confession, and it was not recorded. Milke denied she ever confessed.
The 9th Circuit asked the U.S. District Court to send the case to the Arizona court system for a new trial and ordered that the detective’s personnel files be made available for Milke’s defense.
Assistant Arizona Attorney General Jeffrey Zick said his office will likely ask a larger panel of 9th Circuit judges to rehear the appeal before taking it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Milke was tried and convicted in Maricopa County Superior Court, but a spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office said it would defer to the Arizona attorney general pending the appeal.
According to Milke’s attorney, Lori Voepel, Milke’s response when she heard of the opinion was, “Are you kidding?”
Milke, 49, was charged with first-degree murder, accused of conspiring with two acquaintances to kill her son Christopher in 1989.
According to court records and media accounts, Milke found the child to be an inconvenience and asked James Styers, her roommate, to kill him. She dressed the child in his favorite clothes and cowboy boots and told him that he was going to Metrocenter mall to see Santa Claus, court records said.
Another man, Roger Scott, drove Christopher and Styers to a pizzeria, and then to the desert near 99th Avenue and Happy Valley Road, where Styers shot the boy three times in the back of the head, according to court records.
Milke, Styers and Scott were each sentenced to death — and all three cases have languished in the federal court system. Styers’ conviction and sentence are pending before the appellate court. Scott lost his case in the 9th Circuit and is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, but he is near the end of his appeals.
At issue in Milke’s case is the confession supposedly obtained by now-retired Phoenix police Detective Armando Saldate. According to the 9th Circuit opinion, Saldate claimed Scott implicated Milke in the murder. Saldate then arrested Milke, and after a one-on-one interrogation that was not recorded, Saldate claimed he had extracted a confession. Milke always denied having confessed. Neither Scott nor Styers testified against Milke.
During her trial, Milke’s attorneys tried to subpoena Saldate’s personnel record, but the subpoena was quashed by the court.
What the personnel record would have shown was that Saldate had a history of misconduct that could have been used to call into question his credibility.
According to the 9th Circuit ruling, he had falsified information to a grand jury, extracted confessions from people drifting in and out of consciousness in hospital rooms and continued to interrogate suspects even after they invoked their Miranda rights to an attorney.
Once, he stopped a female motorist for a faulty taillight and then “took liberties” with her, letting her go without a citation after she promised to meet him later for sex. She didn’t show up for the arranged date and, instead, reported Saldate.
Saldate could not immediately be reached for comment.
The case was tried by now-retired Deputy County Attorney Noel Levy, the prosecutor who sent alleged “Snaggletooth Killer” Ray Krone to death row. Krone was exonerated after 10 years in prison.
In the 9th Circuit opinion handed down Thursday, written by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, the court ruled that Milke’s confession to Saldate was illegally extracted.
The court did not throw out the confession altogether but ordered that the potentially exculpatory material in Saldate’s file be provided so that the jury can weigh it against the supposed confession.