Abstract
The Supreme Court of the United States continues to chip away at the protections afforded to factually and legally innocent incarcerated individuals. It is more important than every to modify the way we police to ensure the innocent never get there in the first place. This Comment argues that because disabled people are highly susceptible to coercive police tactics and disproportionately likely to falsely confess or say things that can be used against them when taken out of context, we must revisit the way we interrogate disabled people as the United States reimagines the way it polices. Specifically, Section II of this Comment examines the ADA’s applicability to law enforcement and the constitutionally protected rights to which individuals are entitled during interrogations. It futher analyzes the ways in which disabled people are disproportionately harmed by commonly used coercive police tactics and, consequently, more likely to falsely confess. Section II illustrates these facts through an examination of the cases of Stephen Brodie and Jessie Misskelley Jr., and details the harms of these false confessions on disabled people and society as a whole.
Section III argues that because Title II of the ADA applies to law enforcement, disabled people are entitled to and need comprehensive reasonable accommodation while being interrogated in police custory. This Section explains how not reasonably modifying coercive interrogation tactics is not only facially and directly discriminatory against people with disabilities, but also has a disproportionate impact on them, making it dually ADA-violative. It concludes by offering several suggestions of accommodating custodial interrogation to combat the pervasive impact of the interrogation tactics which disabled people experience. By adopting reasonable accommodation for interrogation of disabled individuals, not only will police comply with the ADA’s non-discrimination mandate, but they also will be less likely to arrest innocent individuals and permit those who perpetrate the crimes to go free.
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About the Author
Baylee D. Kalmbach earned her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in May 2023. She joined FMR in March 2022 as a law clerk and began as an attorney in November 2023. Baylee is licensed to practice law in the State of Ohio and in the Southern District of Ohio.
During law school Baylee worked as a Litigation Fellow for the Ohio Innocence Project and externed with the Honorable Michael R. Barrett in the Southern District of Ohio. BPrior to law school Baylee graduated from the University of Toledo where she obtained her B.A. in Disability Studies and Law and Social Thought in May 2020. At UT Baylee wrote a departmental honors thesis on subminimum wages and was awarded the department’s Outstanding Student Award. Baylee’s passion for disability activism has translated well into her representation of working people.
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