People v. Valerius

Chief Judge Fuld.

On January 20, 1969, a fire of suspicious origin damaged a building in Monticello. The defendant, a 24-year-old laborer, with a history of mental illness, was questioned by the police in a local station house and, after denying that he had been involved, agreed to a lie detector test. Taken to the State Police barracks in another city, he was closeted alone in a polygraph room with Officer J. F. Cotter for some four and a half hours, from 12 midnight to about 4:30 a.m., when he finally confessed. Immediately turned over by Cotter to another officer, B. B. Fuente, he repeated…