When Dr. Isaac Amon wrote an article about self-incrimination in the criminal justice system, he thought it was a timely topic.
“I wrote the article because I genuinely believe in the importance of educating....and making people aware of self incrimination’s long and sometimes complicated history,” he said.
The article, The enduring lesson of John Lilburne's saga: Self-incrimination in the criminal justice system, which published in the January/February 2022 Journal of The Missouri Bar, won him the 2023 W. Oliver Rasch Award.
Amon will be presented the award Sept. 13 during The Missouri Bar Foundation and Public Service Awards Luncheon at the annual meeting of The Missouri Bar in Kansas City.
“I never expected to get an award for writing an article I really care about but, on the other hand, I'm very pleased that the Bar Foundation or Board of Trustees decided to select it,” he said.
Amon, a researcher, and counselor-at-law, serves as the director of academic research at the Jewish Heritage Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the history and future of Sephardic Jews. He obtained a Juris Doctorate and a Master of Laws in negotiation and dispute resolution and Doctor of Juridical Science in comparative criminal procedure at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.
“It's a very nice award,” Amon told the St. Louis Record. “I'm very honored and I hope this will lead to a greater awareness of the importance of learning history. People would appreciate their constitutional rights better, especially in the criminal justice setting, if they're aware of the long and arduous process it often took to achieve these protections and then enshrining them in the Constitution.”
The article is about the 1637 trial of John Lilburne and how it impacted the modern legal system.
Lilburne was an English political leveller who lived during the 1600s.
“He played a great role in asserting natural rights or freeborn rights in England about 400 years ago, and he suffered greatly for it,” Amon added. “Self-incrimination is really amplified in the case of innocent people who are put in jail sometimes because of false confessions. The history of coercing confessions by one way or another goes back very long. I was just struck by the history of it, and that's why I wrote the article.”
Some states have begun implementing videotaped confessions to deter torture or intimidation to force a suspect into admitting something they may be innocent of, according to Amon.
“Making these videotapes publicly available would create some type of accountability for law enforcement and suspects would know of course that it is being taped,” he said. “It’s a way to help shine greater sunlight and get some disinfectant into the system.”