Can Police Record My Interview Without Telling Me in Illinois? Attorneys Christopher Combs and Joshua Boardman from Combs Waterkotte discuss everything you need to know about Illinois sex crime charges, including sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and more.
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Interview Transcript
Scott Michael Dunn: Can police record my interview without telling me in Illinois?
Joshua Boardman: Yes, so you can expect that they will record audio. Oftentimes you’re taken into interrogation rooms that have both audio recording and video recording.
Christopher Combs: Which law enforcement causes to call interviews, right? To them it’s an interview room and it’s an interview, but believe me…
Dunn: It’s a recorded conversation. Don’t even need to say that they’re recording it. They just can.
Boardman: Yes. So, it’s not some sort of formal process of them announcing, “Oh, here’s what we’re asking, why we’re asking it. I mean, they are looking to trip you up. They’re looking to like Chris has said, some sort of response and then flip around and glean that information, go back and rewatch it, compare it with other conversations they’ve had with their witness and build that case. Oftentimes part of the initial discovery package that we get is the interview with the witness that’s oftentimes audio and video and then also if our client, in my opinion, made the poor decision to go into some sort of interrogation or interview, oftentimes we’ll get a copy of that tape as well.
Dunn: By poor decision what do you mean? Alone?
Boardman: Alone, without counsel. Yes, without asserting their right to counsel at that stage of the case.
