Suffolk to start recording homicide interrogations

More than two decades after a state investigations panel raised concerns about Suffolk's "astonishingly high" homicide confession rate, Suffolk police will begin recording all homicide interrogations.

Nearly three years after announcing his plan to mandate the taping, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said Wednesday that the recording equipment is finally in place, and that the new procedure is effective immediately.

"This system enhances the public's confidence in the system and helps ensure that you're convicting the guilty and not convicting the innocent," Levy said Wednesday.

Suffolk officials said the delay between adopting the new protocol and putting the system in place was because of the time it took to find a vendor to meet their specifications.

Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said his department was mindful of technical problems that other departments had, including Nassau, which began recording homicide interrogations in 2009.

In November of that year, a Nassau judge threw out the videotaped confession of Caleb Lacey, the former probationary volunteer firefighter from Lawrence charged with setting a blaze near his house that killed a mother and three of her children, because portions were inaudible. Lacey was still convicted of murder.

"We certainly did not want to repeat any problems or issues that other jurisdictions have," Dormer said of the new $60,000 system.

Attorneys and advocates for criminal defendants have long called for Suffolk homicide interrogations to be videotaped - dating back to when a 1987 state investigation panel expressed skepticism over Suffolk's then-94-percent confession rate in homicide cases.

"I think it's long overdue, but I welcome their willingness to do it now," said William Keahon of Hauppauge, a former Suffolk prosecutor and defense lawyer. "I believed we should have been doing this for more than two decades."

Dormer acknowledged that there remains some "apprehension" among detectives, but said the new system won't change how they do their jobs.

Stephen Saloom, policy director for the Manhattan-based Innocence Project, said "there's no good reason" not to record interrogations.