Police tricks do not automatically save you from falling for prevaricating LEO tactics, says Fairfax criminal lawyer

Police tricks are a common approach for law enforcement officers (LEOs) to coax confessions from Virginia suspects. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer I know that the Virginia Court of Appeals in a recent unpublished opinion. underlined that LEO gets wide berth to engage in such tactics without adverse repercussions. Hudspeth v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Record No. 0743-24-1 (Va. App. April 14, 2026) (unpublished). To what extent can Virginia criminal defendants obtain court relief for such LEO tactics as indicating the suspect’s submitting interrogation will enable the suspect to see their child one more time before being locked up; telling the suspect that an arrest will be avoided by answering LEO  questions (and then handing the defendant a summons, which still commences a prosecution; or masquerading through texts or other writings that the suspect is communicating sexually with a minor child, when in fact the child is made up through LEO prevarication. Yes, a Virginia criminal defense lawyer needs to be ready to pursue relief for such LEO misbehavior, but challenging LEO misbehavior does not automatically mean that the challenge will be successful.

Will the judge suppress my statements to LEO if police tricks elicited my confession?

In the Hudspeth murder case involving police tricks, the detective told Hudspeth “I’m never telling anybody anything you told me.” At Hudspeth’s suppression hearing, the detective testified “that he made the ‘never telling anybody’ statement because he viewed Hudspeth as a potential witness against Brown and understood that Hudspeth feared the ‘ramifications for talking on him’ on the street.” Hudspeth. In refusing to suppress Hudspeth’s statements to LEO, Hudspeth points out that Hudspeth had already been Mirandized, to include that anything he told LEO could and would be used against him in a court of law, and added: “Virginia precedent establishes that even deliberate falsehoods by interrogators are ‘but another factor’ in the totality analysis and do not automatically render a confession involuntary, absent evidence that the suspect’s will was actually overborne….; see also Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969) ([LEO] misrepresentation that an accomplice had confessed did not render the defendant’s confession involuntary). Moreover, Hudspeth was aware that any statement could be used against him in court, and he reflected that awareness by telling the detectives that anything he told them could leave the room and eventually ‘go . . . to the judge.’ Even still, after that, he made his admissions. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in concluding that Hudspeth’s statements were not the product of coercion by Detective Austin’s remark.” Hudspeth. 

How do I overcome prosecutorial inevitable discovery arguments?

LEO gave Hudspeth conflicting information on his chances of being released from jail, which was part of police tricks. At one point, a detective informed Hudspeth that “I mean it’s guaranteed you’ll get a bond. You’ll be out in about three months.” The foregoing assertion was not truthful, but Hudspeth finds the totality of the circumstances to mean that Hudspeth freely and voluntarily spoke with LEO . Neither the federal Constitution’s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer, nor Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) . Hudspeth says: “Davis spoke in terms of a future decision about release on bond—an inherently discretionary judicial determination that detectives had no authority to guarantee. Before that exchange, the detectives had repeatedly told Hudspeth that they could not make promises and that only the Commonwealth’s Attorney could do so. Hudspeth’s own responses showed that he understood the difference between a possibility or “might,” and a guarantee and that he was attempting to bargain for release rather than simply yielding to LEO  pressure. The surrounding context therefore allowed the trial court to find that Davis’s language could not reasonably be understood as a binding guarantee that overbore Hudspeth’s will.” Hudspeth. Consequently, know the power of asserting your right to remain silent with law enforcement officers.

What is inevitable discovery?

Hudspeth also lost his appellate challenge to admitting into evidence what Hudspeth told LEO about the whereabouts of the ditched murder weapon. Apparently without seeing the need to elaborate any further than it did, Hudspeth addresses the likelihood that LEO would have found the weapon through inevitable discovery even without Hudspeth’s statement about any firearms and even without police tricks: Hudspeth addresses inevitable discovery as follows: “The doctrine of inevitable discovery provides an exception to the general rule that evidence obtained by unlawful means is subject to suppression… It is ‘intended to put the police in the same position they would have been in without the error or misconduct.’  The inevitable discovery exception applies when evidence obtained by unlawful means would have ‘ultimately or inevitably been discovered by lawful means.’ Thus, to prove that the exception applies, the Commonwealth must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, ‘(1) a reasonable probability that the evidence in question would have been discovered by lawful means but for the police misconduct, [and] (2) that the leads making the discovery inevitable were possessed by the police at the time of the misconduct.'” Hudspeth. 

Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz relentlessly pursues your best defense against Virginia felony, misdemeanor and DUI prosecutions. For your free in-person initial confidential consultation about your court-pending prosecution, call Jon Katz’s staff at 703-383-1100, Info@KatzJustice.com