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False confessions research paper
True crimes false confessions
False confessions research paper
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A false confession is an “admission plus a post admission narrative of a crime that the confessor did not commit” (Leo, 2009). Research shows that individuals falsely confess to crimes that they have not committed (Drizin & Leo, 2004; Kassin et al., 2010). Interrogations have been seen to lead to false confessions, which individuals are then incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Some of these individuals are then later exonerated because of DNA evidence proving their innocence. Many of these cases are involving false confessions, which are given by individuals in coercive, police interrogations. “ In 15 to 20 percent of the DNA cases, police-induced false confessions were the primary cause of the wrongful conviction” (Leo, 2009). The …show more content…
Voluntary false confessions, compliant false confessions, persuaded false confessions. A voluntary false confession is one that is given in the absence of police interrogation (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). These may be the result of a psychological disturbance, desire for notoriety or fame, need to expiate guilt over imagined or real acts, desire to protect a criminal, provide an alibi for a different crime, or for revenge (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). Compliant false confessions are given in agreement to police coercion or pressure. These are typically to escape from the stress of an interrogation, to take advantage of a perceived suggestion or promise of leniency, or to avoid an anticipated harsh punishment (Ofshe & Leo, 1997). Persuaded false confessions are those which occur when “ police interrogation tactics cause an innocent suspect to doubt his memory and he becomes temporarily persuaded that it is more likely than not that he committed the crime, though he has no recollection of committing it (Leo, 2009). These types of false confessions cause suspects to suffer cognitive dissonance because of the accusers telling him that he committed a crime but the innocent suspect has no memory of it, so he believes that he just does not remember committing the crime. These types of false confessions occur much less than compliant false …show more content…
this came up through the Supreme Court Decision in Miranda v. Arizona. There was concern with the powers of the state through law enforcement overbearing “the will of citizen suspects, thus threatening their Constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination” (Kissin et. Al., 2009). The court required police officers to inform suspects of their right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel before confessions. This requirement exists to separate the threatening power that the police have relative to the suspect, hopefully reducing the likeliness of coercive confessions. In cases that involved challenges to the validity of the waiver of rights, courts were required to apply a test regarding the admissibility of the confession at trial (Kassin et al., 2009). If a waiver to the rights to silence and counsel was not made voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, then statements made by a defendant would be inadmissible. After the Miranda rights decision came out, Gault made these rights apply to youth who faced delinquency charges in juvenile court. Though these rights exist, no research evidence exists that they really achieved their goal. Officers do give suspects a warning before they take statements, but research does not show that confessions are more or less reliable before the Miranda rights existed. Paul Cassell, had believed that the confession and
Garrett, B. L. (n.d.). The Substance of False Confessions. Criminal Justice Collection. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from find.galegroup.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/gtx/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28su%2CNone%2C28%29%22Wrongful+Convictions+%28Law%29%22%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28RE%2CNone%2C3%29ref%24&sgHitCo
The Supreme Court ruled that due to the coercive nature of the custodial interrogation by police, no confession could be admissible under the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination Clause and Sixth Amendment right to an attorney unless a suspect has been made aware to his rights and the suspect had then waived them
Miranda Vs Arizona was a United States Supreme Court case in 1966. The court “ruled that a criminal suspect must make a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary decision to waive certain constitutional rights prior to questioning” (Ortmeier, 2005, 285). This ruling meant that suspects must be aware of their right to remain silent and that if they choose to speak to the police the conversation can be used against them in a court of law. If they do decide to speak under police it must not be under false promises
In order to incriminate Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice with the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, Detectives Maureen Evans and Robert Ford conducted long, grueling interrogation sessions using many provocative and manipulative tactics. Throughout this process, Ford and Evans coerced the suspects into renegotiating their perception of the crime until an entirely new reality was created. This new reality evolved as the police elicited additional confessionary evidence to account for each new piece of physical evidence from the crime scene. Eventually, in an iterative process that had police editing their theories of the crime and then forcing the suspects to claim this new reality as their own, the reconciled reality of the crime became one that was consistent with both the criminal evidence and the suspects’ new perception. An analysis of empirical m...
This is derived from the rights Americans have to not be forced to testify against themselves in a criminal case. But, the Fifth Amendment also protects against double jeopardy and gives people charged with a felony the right to a grand jury indictment (Bohm & Haley, 2011). Double jeopardy basically states that if a conviction or acquittal was reached in a criminal case, the person can no longer be tried again for the same offense (Bohm & Haley, 2011). The procedural rights for self-incrimination are also applied to any custodial situations the police conduct. To ensure that statements, or confessions a suspect makes are allowed in court there is a two-prong tests that should be followed. First, is the person considered to be in a custodial situation and two, are the police intending to ask incriminating questions. If yes is the answers to both then the suspect must be read his or her rights. This is known as giving someone his or her Miranda rights derived from the famous case
The Central Park Jogger case is one of false confessions to a crime, with a little help from police, which the defendants did not commit. Evidence taken at the crime scene did exclude the defendants, however, because of videotaped confessions they were sentenced to prison for a crime they admitted to committing even though they did not. It was not until many years later did the original perpetrator step forward from prison to admit he was the one who committed the crime with evidence (DNA) and firsthand knowledge of the scene. The five original defendants were released from prison but until serving a lengthy term. There are cues that can be noticed when investigators are conducting preliminary interviews that have a very high rate of success in determining the guilt or innocence of an individual. Some of these cues may be verbal such as a rehearsed response (Kassin, 2005). Other types of cues may be nonverbal body language such as a slouching (Kassin, 2005).
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...
Depending on what study is read, the incidence of false confession is less than 35 per year, up to 600 per year. That is a significant variance in range, but no matter how it is evaluated or what numbers are calculated, the fact remains that false confessions are a reality. Why would an innocent person confess to a crime that she did not commit? Are personal factors, such as age, education, and mental state, the primary reason for a suspect to confess? Are law enforcement officers and their interrogation techniques to blame for eliciting false confessions? Regardless of the stimuli that lead to false confessions, society and the justice system need to find a solution to prevent the subsequent aftermath.
In both cases, confirmation bias and investigative bias played a considerable role in all eight false confessions; as well as psychological coercion and the abuse of power by investigators when interrogating the suspects. Many situational and individual factors came into play during the case such as the amount of time all eight were interrogated, intrinsic and extrinsic evidence/ maximization used against them. For example, both Joe Dick and Carole Richardson were the most susceptible to psychological manipulation. Joe because of possible cognitive reasoning’s that I personally feel weren’t mentioned, but was implied; Richardson because of substance abuse during the period in which she was investigated.
...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.
Even if a suspect initially waives his rights, during an interrogation he can halt the process at any time by asking for a lawyer or taking back the waiver. The police, from that moment on, are not allowed to suggest that he or she reconsider (ncpa.org). Because of this, many people feel that this has had a harmful effect on law enforcement. Police have found it much more difficult to get a confession. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the fraction of suspects questioned who confessed dropped from 49% to 14% in New York and from 48% to 29% in Pittsburg.
Miranda v. Arizona is a very important activist decision that required police to inform criminal suspects of their rights before they could be interrogated. These rights include: the right to remain silent, that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, you have a right to an attorney, if you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed to you be the court. In this case the Fifth Amendment's right that a person may not be forced to incriminate one's self was interpreted in an activist way as meaning that one must be aware of this right before on is interrogated by the police. Prior to this ruling it was common practice to force and coerce confessions from criminal suspects who did not know they had the right not to incriminate themselves.
Miranda also protects suspects from overzealous police officers. Although most law-enforcement agents in the United States are decent men and women, some abuse their power. They may try to coerce suspects into giving false confessions. Time and time again, we read of cases where suspects were forced to make confessions because an overzealous or prejudiced police officers want to close a case. The story of Rubin Hurricane Carter, made popular by the motion picture of the same name, demonstrated how lives could be destroyed when vindictive and manipulating detectives abuse their power. The Miranda Warning helps keep abuses in check. If the law is used correctly, the guilty would receive their due punishment. When police officers inform suspects of their rights before interrogation, it is very unlikely that the judge presiding over any case would throw out statements made during questioning.
Leo, R and Ofshe R. The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The Theory and Classification of True and False Confessions. 16 Studies in Law, Politics and Society 189,