I recently saw a crime program on TV where:-

1) A man murdered his girlfriend in a fit of rage (not premeditated).

2) The man confesses his crime in confidence (10 or so years later) to his brother who is a policeman - but doesn't officially confess his crime to the authorities.

3) The policeman then decides to deceive his brother by wearing a wire and getting the brother to again confess to the crime (ie without his knowledge the conversation was taped).

4) As a result of the taped confession, the man goes to jail for the rest of his life.

While murder is a serious crime, I believe the policeman's actions in this instance were unethical - does anyone agree / disagree? would you be prepared to deceive a family member in this way?

My opinion is that betraying family trust is similar to breaking the confidentiality between a doctor / patient relationship - it should only be considered in extreme circumstances. If the policeman's brother still posed a threat to society or his crimes were of a heinous nature (ie torture / pedo / serial activity) then I would agree with the policeman's actions in deceiving his brother. In this instance however I believe the policeman should have removed himself from any investigation into his brother's murder based on a conflict of interest.

How would there be an investigation if the policeman brother didn't say anything?

The brother undoubtedly did the right thing, but I couldn't do that to my brother.
It was a sneaky trick to bug him, the policeman wasn't a nice person.
I would have suggested to the brother that he might like to confess his crime and leave it up to him.

Murder isn't an extreme circumstance? A man who murders his girlfriend in a fit of rage doesn't pose a threat to society? If he tortures the victim or is a pedophile or kills string of people then you would take action but if it's just a one off, you know, routine murder, it's ethical to do nothing?

I realize it was just a television show but you can't be convicted solely on a confession in the U.S. There has to be evidence a crime was actually committed and evidence connecting you to the crime.

I suspect that most people who murder somebody have murdered the only person they are ever likely to murder. In that sense, they don’t pose any continuing threat to society’ they’re not likely to murder anyone else.

But murder is a terrible crime; it doesn’t become any less terrible by having gone unpunished for ten years. It needs to be dealt with.

Like Christine, I doubt that I could surreptitiously ensnare my brother into a taped confession. But I could urge my brother to face this by confessing to someone other than myself, and I probably could report to the police what he had admitted to me. They couldn’t get a conviction on my hearsay evidence, of course, but they could mount an investigation which might yield evidence that they could convict on.

Samuel, I should state that the man was already a suspect and under investigation prior to his confession to his policeman brother

true, however it was a cold case and the taped confession was the main piece of compelling evidence to both arrest and convict the man - ie the police couldn't make an arrest without the confession (this was a documentary on actual events).



I personally put a high price on family loyalty / confidentiality - if I was in the same situation then I would strongly encourage the brother to do the "right thing" and confess however I would not become involved and would leave the decision entirely up to him. I also believe there are lines that are crossed (ie heinous crimes) where family ties would be cut - in this instance however there was a 10 yr period after the murder where the brother didn't reoffend - I'd be relatively comfortable that the brother would not re-offend or pose a threat to anyone.

Interesting point.

Suppose your brother had murdered, not his girlfriend, but his wife – i.e. your own sister-in-law. Would your answer be different? Would it depend on how you felt about your sister-in-law? Or about her children – your nephews and nieces?

Suppose he had murdered his sister (and yours)?

Suppose he had murdered your wife?

I suspect your decision here – anyone’s decision – would depend not just on your relationship with the perpetrator, but also on your relationship with the victim.

What you do for your brother by you silence is to keep him out of prison. What you do for the victim, if you speak out (or entrap) is ensure that her killer is called to account.

But is our obligation to the murder victim (and to their family and friends) limited as we ourselves are distanced from the murder victim? Can we say that my obligation to call my sister’s killer to account is greater than my obligation to call my sister-in-law’s killer to account, which in turn is greater than my obligation to call to account the killer of a casual acquaintance, or a complete stranger, or someone who lives far away and in another country?

I would be concerned about this. In general we regard tribalism – treating the interests of the tribe and its members as the paramount ethical consideration - as a curse, and we struggle to transcend it. But it seems to me that we succumb to tribalism if we concede that my obligations to the perpetrator of a crime, and to the victim of the same crime, vary according to how closely each of them is connected to me, and that my decision should ultimately be dictated by the closeness of one of them to me, and the relative distance of the other.

I’m much more comfortable with an analysis which says, no, keeping silent to protect my brother is not ethical, but it is understandable. I simply lack the moral strength to do what I ought, in the face of my close connection to my brother.

(Let’s face it; I’ve done unethical things for considerably less compelling reasons in the past.)