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Essay false confessions
Pros and cons about false confessions
Essay false confessions
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I. The Problem of False Confessions A false confession takes place when an individual admits to a crime that he or she has not committed. Current approaches to criminal law place confessions as the ultimate form of proof of guilt. Amounting to the point where confessions were and are often given prominence over other DNA or physical evidence that even indicates innocence. The deference given to a confession lies in the assumption that no person, short of being tortures would admit guilt for a crime they did not commit. (A) Types of False Confessions Kassin and Wrightsman classified false confessions into three types: voluntary, coerced, complkiant and coerced-internalized. The types of false confessions have only been modified and expanded …show more content…
However, in the adversarial system, and through the techniques most utilized by law enforcement these methods are often lost and replaced by collaborative storytelling. There is an assumption that an interrogation and effectively a confession is over once a suspect states “I did it.” More signals pre-admission is over, but a simple “I did it” does not suffice for a conviction. Here lies where the presumption that one who admitted to the crime actually committed the crime. If a simple “I did it” is not sufficient, and they stated facts, specifically facts unknown to the general public, how else would they have come to know that information if not for committing the crime. Here lies the problem that must be resolved. Because although inquiries into voluntariness and coercion at trial provide a quality control over pre-admission conduct on the police, they do little to manage post-admission conduct. That is the construction of the
Carcasses attract scavengers. The Guilty Party by O. Henry showcases the untimely death of a girl of twelve, Liz. Above Chrystie Street on the east side, a strange bird stalks the children of the playground. Although people say it’s a stork, locals call it a vulture. In this case, Liz is the carcass that the vulture sets its eyes on.
In the Norfolk Four case, Ford began his interrogatories by a prior assumption that the four suspects were involved in the case. As Chapman (2013) noted, “ the interrogator will use whatever means necessary to elicit a confession, and not only will the suspect confess, but they will form false memories of the crimes they did not commit,” (p.162). Joseph Dick, one of the four suspects in the Norfolk Four case, claimed that due to the harsh interrogatories, he accepted the label put on him and began to believe that he committed the crime. Accordingly, Joseph Dick and the others began telling false narratives of the way they committed the crime. Even though, their narratives contradicted with evidence and facts of the actual murder, Ford proceeded to psychologically abuse the four suspects in order to hear what he wanted to hear.
After reviewing the article “Inside Interrogation: The Lie, The Bluff, and False Confessions”, it became very evident the huge problem with interrogations and false confessions in the criminal justice system is with false confession. Jennifer T. Perillo and Saul M. Kassin crafted three distinct experiments to try and better understand false confessions and how trues the actual numbers in real life are. What Perillo and Kassin were trying to prove is that “the bluff technique should elicit confessions from perpetrators but not from innocents” (Perillo, Kassin 2010). What is called the “Bluff Technique” is an interrogation technique that uses a sort of threat or hint that there is certain proof that a person will think is more of a promise for
``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the drastic and controversial measures that the prosecuting team will take to provoke a confession, be it true or false.
Now, to the layman, that appears simply to be a frame up – when you arrest and charge and find the evidence subsequently. To make matters worse, when we examine the manner in which that evidence was put forward by the prosecution (a matter for which the director of Public Prosecutions must be held responsible), we find some startling inconsistencies, strange and frightening things. Like one man giving three statements. – two of them before Arnold Rampersaud was arrested, never mentioning the accused or anything to do with the accused. A third statement made after he had been arrested conveniently mentions the accused.
Even those who should have a clear sense of the an interrogation, fail to see the coercion brought upon the suspect that might lead to a false confession, and once a confession has been made, false or true, detectives or police terminates their investigation that could have found potential evidence to exonerate them. Once a confession is obtained, police tend to ‘‘close’’ cases as solved and refuse to investigate other sources of evidence (Leo and Liu) which is why such a high number of innocent people still remain behind bars. Across samples, police-induced false confessions were evident in between 15 and 25% in cases, making it one of the likely leading causes of wrongful conviction (Leo and Liu), but still juries disregard this evidence! Unfortunately, more cases like Rivers are out there. According to the Washington Post, the National Registry ha logged 1,733 exonerating cases of false confession. In one case, a man by the name of Ricky Jackson spent four decades for a crime he did not commit, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence after 40 years. To emphasize, few states, if any at all, courts provides information to the jury regarding how to assess voluntariness, nor do
The act of interrogation has been around for thousands of years. From the Punic Wars to the war in Iraq, interrogating criminals, prisoners or military officers in order to receive advantageous information has been regularly used. These interrogation techniques can range from physical pain to emotional distress. Hitting an individual with a whip while they hang from a ceiling or excessively questioning them may seem like an ideal way to get them to reveal something, but in reality it is ineffective and . This is because even the most enduring individual can be made to admit anything under excruciating circumstances. In the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights there is a provision (“no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” ) which reflects a time-honored common principle that no person is bound to betray him or herself or can be forced to give incriminating evidence. This ideology of self-incrimination has been challenged heavily over the past s...
Among various arrests, people who are put in jail or prison due to their confession must make them a proven criminal, right? Unfortunately, not everybody who confesses to a crime is in fact guilty. A false confession is an act of confessing to a crime that the confessor didn’t commit. That creates a conflict involving the individual being accused and the trust towards police interrogation. For instance, after nearly eight years in prison, Nicole Harris sued eight Chicago police detectives, alleging that they coerced her confession (Meiser Para.2) The police detectives incorrectly informed Harris in failing “the polygraph test” indicating that she lied about not committing the murder of her son, Jaquari Dancy (Meiser). She felt that there was
...igations today has a huge impact on false confessions. The Reid Technique is being criticized in the media because of its guilt-presumptive, aggressive, and psychologically manipulative nature. It is based on a series of assumptions that lack scientific support, and by using it they are creating hostile and coercive environment for the interrogation. The fact that they try to pass these confessions off as voluntary should also be an issue against using them since we know they are usually coerced. There are two alternatives to the Reid technique being used to interview suspects. These do not use coercion and manipulation to get confessions. The first is the PEACE Model, which is an interview technique that is more ethical, and the other technique is Cognitive interviewing which is used by police as a memory technique used to enhance the retrieval of their memory.
To show an unbiased and educated examination of the five cases involving questionable interrogations, I will give information on the crime that occurred, the problems with the interrogations and other evidence, who is at fault for problems within the case, how the defendant was cleared (if he was), and the compensation and future changes that were a direct response to these cases provided that they occurred or are in the process of occurring. The five cases that I will examine involve the accused: George Allen, Hunter Johnson, Peter Reilly, Michael Crowe, and Reggie Clemons. Each case is significantly different yet showcases many acts of injustice within the justice system.
Mr. Duane also commented that police make mistakes, innocently, inadvertently or unintentionally with any statements they presented to the convicted, which is kind of linked up to his second and fifth reason, that there are no benefices in return to admit guilty even if that person is guilty or innocent. Police are human, if they can get any important information, whether the information is extensive or it is just a slip of the tongue, that significant detail can convict a person. Likewise, the police are willing to lie or they might just have faulty recollection of what actually happen when presenting a statement, nonetheless that is a way they could “crucify” the convicted. I believe the police are present to secure/guard the people and their
Honesty is a characteristic that everyone should possess. However, being honest is a difficult task for many people. Living honestly means allowing a person’s true self to be exposed to others. Honesty is considered owning up to one’s wrongdoings and not lying, cheating, or stealing. Being honest is a trait that many people believe is obsolete. Even though every person interprets honesty differently, it all stems back to telling the truth. Being honest allows a person to earn respect from their peers. Honesty is allowing oneself to be completely exposed by being truthful.
For instance, considering the case of Florida v. Cayward, the police manufactured laboratory reports to obtain a confession from the suspect (Cain, 2015). The Florida Second District Court of Appeal dismissed the case because the police infringed the rights of the suspect to obtain the confession. During the ruling, the jury reached the decision by taking into consideration the confidence entrusted by citizens to the police. The law enforcement agencies should demonstrate a high level of professionalism when performing their duties. The jury acknowledged the role of confessions in the criminal justice systems as it speeds up the process of conviction. However, the jury noted that the interrogators might be tempted to use illegal means to have the suspect confess to committing the crime. The public is on alert to observe any unlawful behavior by the law enforcement officers. Engaging in illegal deception tactics harms the respect that the citizens have on the criminal justice system (Cain,
Pressure can force people into doing deranged actions. When innocent people plead guilty or make incriminating statements the main reason is because they feel guilty or know more inside information. There have been many cases in which an innocent person was secretly blackmailed or forced into pleading guilty. The mental state of a confessor is also vital in knowing the truth. Confessions from juveniles is usually unreliable because most of the time they don’t understand the situation completely and they can also be manipulated easier than an adult could. Mentally capable adults confess when they’re innocent for a variety of reasons, exhaustion from excessive interrogation,a belief that they could be released if they confessed,or that they truly do feel guilty. Pressured confessions are less common, but there have been cases. False confessions are a hazard in trial cases and can also give an innocent person a cruel sentence.
Asymmetry also plays a role in the differentiation of real and fake emotional expressions of the face. Ekman (1980) found that when an emotion was being falsified, that one side of the face, particularly the left, would detail a stronger intensity than on the right.