It seems intuitive when you think about it. Those 50,000 volts don’t merely impact one’s muscles and nervous system, but can addle one’s brains as well.  And let’s face facts, there are brains that are more than addled enough, and a tasing will put them over the line.

Scientists say the results — detailed in the journal Criminology and Public Policy — call into the question the legitimacy of police questioning in the immediate aftermath of an arrest involving the use of a Taser.

“The findings of this study have considerable implications for how the police administer Miranda warnings,” lead study author Robert J. Kane, a professor of criminology and justice studies at Drexel, said in a news release.

The efficacy of Miranda warning has never been entirely clear.  The Supreme Court assumed that following its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, no one would ever willingly subject themselves to interrogation, because it was obviously a really stupid thing to do. 

It’s one of the foremost examples of how little Supreme Court justices understand regular people or appreciate the consequences of their rulings.  Not only did it not have the anticipated effect, but it gave rise to an easy-peasy method for the government to overcome any claim of coercion. If a cop gives Miranda warnings, then the confession comes in. Boom.

In light of Kane’s study, however, a new wrinkle is added to the Miranda saga, and its consequences.

Kane says he and his colleagues felt a moral obligation to learn more about a subject’s ability to comprehend and appreciate their due process rights in the wake of being Tased.

As part of the study, participants underwent several layers of screening to uncover previous drug use as well as cardiac and psychiatric problems — any potential factor that might compromise a person’s health during the experiments. All the chosen volunteers were high-functioning, healthy, young people.

Notably, the voluntary shocking was done on people who lacked the known indicia of serious harm or death from the use of Tasers, which have gone from non-lethal at their introduction to less-than-lethal as people started dying from being tased.  What this meant for the study was that these were people for whom a tasing was least harmful, least deleterious.  And as noted, these subjects were also “high functioning.”

For individuals tased in real life, these positive factors are not necessarily present. Their physical condition may be significantly less than excellent, and their intellectual functioning may not be particularly good on their best day.

As one would expect of a study using something that’s harmful, indeed, deliberately painful, on subjects, the test tried to replicate circumstances on the street but fell short:

Some did nothing, others hit a punching bag to replicate the heightened physical state of a tussle and arrest, some received 5-second Taser shocks and others both punched and were Tased.

There were no kicks to the head by officer number 7 on the scene, who couldn’t get his punches in because all the other cops were still busy with punches of their own.  The Taser shocks were of five seconds duration, as opposed to the occasional shock administered by a cop who is temporally challenged.

After establishing the cognitive baseline for subjects, they were retested post tasing.

When retested, the average scores on memory and verbal tests for those who were Tased went down. Those who were Tased also reported difficulty concentrating, higher levels of anxiety and feeling overwhelmed.

The effects wore off in time, and the students’ cognitive skills were as strong as they were beforehand. But following the tasing, one thing became clear: that after a damn good tasing, the administration of the Miranda warnings was inadequate to establish a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver, because the tased guys’ brains were addled.

While the study didn’t take it to the next level, it would seem fairly obvious that if a person who has just been tased isn’t competent to waive Miranda, any statements or responses to interrogation are similarly untrustworthy, and thus should be subject to suppression.  Of course, there is no caselaw as yet to support this position.

Does that mean that cops shouldn’t use Tasers if they want to interrogate a perp? The authors of the study suggest that there is a pretty simple solution to the problem of promoting the use of less-than-lethal force rather than a bullet to the head (which, I note, also makes interrogation kinda problematic, though may do away with the need for a confession), and subsequently giving Miranda warnings and conducting a custodial interrogation.

The researchers suggest a public dialogue about how to best integrate the Taser into everyday lawful policing in ways that maintain officer safety while reducing potential social costs incurred by suspects exposed to a Taser discharge. They ask: “What would it cost police to wait 60 minutes after a Taser deployment before engaging suspects in custodial interrogations?”

Aside from the odd concern about a “public dialogue,” given that this is a legal problem rather than one of dueling tears, the question posed has two answers: First, patience is not one of the virtues that dominate policing.  If it was, there would be far less need for the use of force at all.

Second, donuts get cold and stale. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. My bad.