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"We do approve of such psychological tactics and techniques as trickery and deceit that are not only helpful but frequently necessary in order to secure incriminating information from the guilty." –Criminal Interrogation and Confessions; Inbau and Reid.
Last week, I had an interesting conversation with Friend Rubin about a few legal cases, as well as a couple of books we consider to be "required reading." At the intersection was a book, edited by two of his friends and co-workers at Northwestern University School of Law, Rob Warden and Steven Drizin, titled "True Stories of False Confessions." The book, published in August, is indeed required reading for anyone interested in the American criminal justice system.
The book contains 38 true stories about individuals who, for a variety of reasons, gave police what were later proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be false confessions. This phenomenon may seem unlikely – for who would incriminate themselves for a crime that they had nothing to do with? -- yet it presents a serious problem for the justice system. The book breaks these false confessions into 11 distinct categories (although in some cases, there is overlap), which show that this is not limited to the disturbed person who confesses to a crime they did not commit, for the very reason a moth is attracted to a flame.
Instead, we read of issues such as mental fatigue, threats, deceit and outright lies, and the manipulation of "lie detector" tests. What is striking is that the same tactics that are found to be useful when applied to interrogating those who are actually guilty, have the ability to produce false confessions.
Such false confessions can and do lead to false convictions and incarcerations, and to police investigators not following other trails of evidence, which could have identified the actual criminal. Of the cases covered in this book, the majority appear to be the result of honest police investigators, seeking to solve serious crimes, who mistakenly believe that they know who to blame. Others, of course, are clearly the result of dishonest police investigators, who have a self-righteous belief that they have the right to break the law in the name of "justice." While both of these situations present serious problems, I would suggest that the first represents a more serious problem with the techniques used to gain confessions.
It is easy to think that this could never happen to you or a family member or friend. This belief is generally based upon two factors: {1} people believe that during a conversation with an investigator, especially if they are trying to help provide information, they have no need for a lawyer; and {2} that if the police begin to doubt their word, they will recognize the shift by noting something like a "good cop – bad cop" routine. And in many cases, this may be true. But not always.
Let’s consider a "worst case" scenario. A member of a family is murdered at night, within the household, and the surviving family members do not know who committed the crime. From the giddy-up, the police investigators will consider the husband and/or wife as primary suspects, then the children (teens before pre-teens), followed by other family members, friends, and neighbors. This, of course, is because statistically, this is the order in which they are likely to find the culprit.
This creates a difficult balancing act, for even the most humane investigator has to attempt to maintain a sense of emotional detachment when questioning family, friends, and neighbors, to gather information as potential evidence. Yet those very same family members, friends, and neighbors are likely to be in a highly emotional state – including the individual(s) guilty of the crime.
Add to this the fact that a good investigator’s job is to form a sympathetic relationship with a suspect, and you have strange dynamics. This approach precedes any effort for a "good cop – bad cop" routine (something that is only the initial approach on tv, in movies, and among the least talented, real life investigators).
Again, for sake of discussion, I’ve focused on a worst case scenario. Certainly, other situations take can lead to similar dynamics. A number of factors can and do come into play: a person’s age (teens are especially vulnerable); the person’s view of police ("they are trying to help me, and get to the truth"); time spent in the environment of an interrogation room; mental illness/ personality disorders; physical status, including illness, hunger, sleep deprivation, etc; and others detailed in this book, all have the ability to result in a person signing a false confession.
While things such as the 1966 US Supreme Court Miranda decision provides protections for guilty people, authorities such as Henry Foster, Jr., professor of law at New York University, and noted psychiatrist Herbert Spiegel, are among the experts cited in this book who detail the risks that face the innocent people who are subjected to police interrogation.
It came as no surprise to me that, in reading the book, one of the most callous individuals mentioned was the then-governor of Texas, George W. Bush. While others, including investigators, DAs, and judges recognize the problems involved in the process that can lead to false confessions, Bush took a "shit happens" attitude in dealing with it. It’s a problem that should be of interest to everyone who believes that there should be justice in our legal system, and a problem that I believe has become more entrenched in the system as a result of the Bush-Cheney administration.
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