False confessions

What was one of the first known false confessions in history

• The great fire of London

• Trial of Robert Hubert, 1666

What are suspect interviews

• When a suspect is identified through crime scene evidence and witnesses/informants

• There is a personal judgement during the pre interrogation interview 

• Personal appearance and suspect’s demeanor is judged 

• Most often suspect is not invited for an ‘interview’ but more of a ‘brief conversation’ 

Further reasons for becoming a suspect and invited for an ‘interview’

• A witness misreport seeing them

• Surveillance footage of the area

• Physical trace evidence

• Problematic relationship with the victim

• History of similar crimes 

What is a confession

• An admission made by a defendant in criminal proceedings 

• It is admissible evidence against the person who made it, unless proven unreliable 

What is a false confession

• An admission to a criminal act, usually accompanied by a narrative of how and why the crime occurred

• False confessions are difficult to discover

• They are typically not publicized and no state or organization keeps record of them

What are the 4 possible interrogation outcomes

• Confesses innocent- false confession

• Confesses guilty- true confession

• Denies innocence- correct acquittal

• Denies guilty- false denial

What are the 3 types of false confession

• Voluntary

• Coerced compliant

• Coerced internalized 

What are voluntary false confessions

• Made without any pressure from outside, the person willingly and knowingly confesses to a crime

• May be done to:

• Protect the real criminal (family/friend)

• The individual is seeking publicity and fame

• A guilt ridden person, for their own reasons

• (Gudjonsson and MacKeith, 1988)

What are coerced-compliant false confessions

• Made only to avoid harm eg escape interrogation or to get a benefit eg promised leniency

• The suspects are fully aware that they are admitting to a crime that they did not commit, will bow to social pressure

• Based off the belief that the short term benefits of a confession outweigh long term costs

What are coerced internalized confessions

• People who make the confession actually come to believe they have committed the crime

• The suspect comes wrongly to believe during the police interrogation that they really did commit the crime 

• It occurs when people develop a distrust of their own memory

What are the consequences of false confessions

• Jurors and judges

• Eye witnesses and alibi witnesses

• Forensic experts

Test of the corruptive confessions hypotheses (Kassin, Bogart and Kerner,2012)

• Archival analysis, DNA absolved from blame from individuals who gave false confessions vs not

• Number and kind of errors, multiple errors in 78% of confession vs 47% of no confession cases

• 63% bad forensic science despite standardization and reliability

• 29% mistaken eye witness ID

What is forensic confirmation bias (Kassin, Dror and Kukucka, 2013)

The effects through which an individual’s pre existing beliefs influence the collection, perception and interpretation of evidence during a criminal case

What is the Lange et al (2011), degraded speech study showing forensic confirmation bias

• Participants listened to a recording of two people talking, filled with static and hard to understand 

• Some participants were told they were listening to “suspects” in a criminal investigation.

• Others were told they were listening to “job applicants” being interviewed

• Suspect group was more likely to say they heard words like ‘guns’ ‘kill’ and other violent terms 

• Shows interpretation of the evidence was biased by context

What is the Kukucka and Kassin (2014) handwriting evidence study showing forensic confirmation bias

• Participants looked at two handwriting samples:

• One from a robbery note given to a bank teller and one from a suspect.

• Some participants were told the suspect had confessed and others were told the suspect had not confessed.

• When told the suspect had confessed, participants were more likely to say the handwriting matched the robbery note.

• When told the suspect had not confessed, they were less likely to say it matched.

• Knowing that someone had ‘confessed’ biased people’s judgements 

What is the cumulative disadvantage framework of false confession (Scherr et al, 2020)

• Explains how a false confession can start a chain reaction of bias and disadvantage that spreads through the criminal justice process

• Makes it more likely that an innocent person will be wrongfully convicted 

• Biases ‘piles up’ over time 

• A false confession occurs- confirmation bias kicks in- bias spreads through the system- cumulative disadvantage- wrongful conviction more likely 

Example of the confession effect on alibis

• Teresa Fusco’s murder (1984, Nassau county)

• Disappearance of 20+ birthday party alibi witnesses after false confession

• Witnesses started to doubt the murderers presence at the party

What leads to confessions

• Dispositional risk factors 

• Innocence as a risk factor 

• Situational risk factors 

What are dispositional risk factors

• Adolescence and immaturity

• Cognitive and intellectual disability

• Personality and psychopathology

How do adolescences get treated differently in confessions

• Adolescents are less mature than adults which can manifest into:

• Impulsive decision making

• Decreased ability to consider long term consequences

• Engagement in risky behaviors

• Increased susceptibility to negative influences

• Developmental abilities are highly relevant to the behavior in the interrogation room

What is the Reid technique (Inbau, Reid 1962 and 2013)

• Phase 1- non confrontational interview 

• Designed to detect if the suspect is lying or not

• Phase 2- accusatory interrogation

• Designed to elicit a confession 

Phase 1 of the Reid technique (behavioral analysis interview)

• Designed to decide whether to conduct a full interrogation

• List of deception cues + 15 structured questions

• Underlying idea is anxiety is triggered by hiding the truth

• This can be obvious from non verbal cues and some verbal statements

• Final decision is based on ‘global assessment of suspects behavior’

Problems of the Reid technique

• No scientific evidence for deception cues

• People try to hide that they are lying

• People are bad at detecting liars

• It has a ‘milgramesque’ nature, like the Milgram experiments 

• It is guilt presumptive 

Kassin and Fong (1999) study, testing the behavioral analysis interview

• Participants trained vs not in Reid technique 

• Watched videotaped interviews of people who committed mock crimes or not

• Untrained participants were 56% accurate and confident 5.9 (on a 1-10 scale)

• Trained in BAI were 46% accurate and 6.6 confident

• Police officers were 50% accurate and 7+ confident 

• Shows trained people were more confident but less accurate 

• Their training made them believe they could spot lies

Vrij (2006) study, testing the behavioral analysis interview

• Participants commit mock crimes eg steal money and motivated to hide their guilt during BAI

• Independent observers could not differentiate between guilty and innocent during the key behavior eliciting questions

• The BAI’s special “behavioral questions” (like “Do you think the person who did this should be punished?”) didn’t make any difference.

What is the cognitive load theory (Vrij, 2008)

• Lying is more cognitively demanding than truth telling

• Cognitive demand can be increased in multiple ways during a police interview such as:

• Reverse chronological order

• Forced to maintain eye contact

• Occasional unexpected question

• Liars experienced it more demanding and their performance was more impaired

What is the strategic use of evidence technique (Hartwig and Granhag, 2006)

• A method to investigate interviewing and to improve how interviewers detect deception

• When suspects are questioned truth-tellers generally try to be consistent and cooperate, because their story matches the evidence.

• Liars try to avoid revealing contradictions and control the flow of information, since they don’t know what the interviewer knows.

• The SUE technique exploits these differences by managing when and how the evidence id disclosed 

• Training study

• Accuracy rates increased

• Stage 1- pre interview planning

• Stage 2- free recall (statement)

• Stage 3- Specific questions (statements)

• Stage 4- confrontation with evidence at strategic points of the interview

What is the strategic use of evidence study (Hartwig and Granhag, 2006)

• A training study where participants played the role of interviewers 

• Some were trained in SUE techniques whereas others weren’t

• The SUE trained interviewers were much more accurate (62%) at distinguishing truth tellers from liars 

• Untrained (43%)

• The increase in accuracy shows strategic questioning and evidence disclosure is more effective than relying on nonverbal cues 

What is phase 2 of the Reid technique 

• Confrontational

• First part is precondition:

• Isolation of the suspect, alone and just with the interrogator 

• In a specially designed room eg small and windowless 

• Then the 9 steps of interrogation 

What is the Milgram experiment 

• An experiment that aims to study obedience to authority and why ordinary people obey orders that may conflict with their morals

• Participants are told to administer electric shocks to the ‘learner’ whenever they made mistakes

• No one was actually shocked but participants believed they were causing real pain and most continued up to 450 volts when urged by the authority figure 

• Was found that people will often obey authority even to the point of harming others when in a controlled setting 

What is the Milgram experiment- in a police interview (1963)

• The subject is still isolated, no social support

• Both in a specially and carefully designed space

• Confronted by an authority figure, in this case a detective

• Legal agreement where the suspect ‘voluntarily’ waives Miranda rights

• Participant volunteers to talk

• Deception, participant is told ‘this is your chance to clear this up’

• Series of relentless demands, no is not accepted for an answer

• Gradual escalation, from small admissions to a full confession

• Ethics, both the Milgram experiment as well as police interrogations raise similar ethical questions

Describe the guilt presumptive nature of interrogations

• Happens after stage 1 concludes the person is probably lying

• The authority figure that leads it, already has the opinion that the person is guilty

• The measure of the interrogations success is the confession

What is the alternative non confrontational PEACE method

• Developed in the UK in 1993 because of PACE- police and criminal evidence act

• Non confrontational investigative interviewing technique 

• Investigative mindset, get as much information from the suspect as possible + further probing questions 

• 2 types of this method- cognitive interview (co-operative suspects)

• Conversation management (non cooperative suspects)

What does the PEACE method stand for

• P- planning and preparation

• E- engage and explain

• A- account, clarify and challenge

• C- closure

• E- evaluation

How does innocence act as a risk factor

• Innocent people have the tendency to ‘tell it how it is’ and think that their innocence will shine through and the truth will prevail (Kassin, 2005)

• People are more likely to confess during difficult interrogations

• They are also more likely to wave their Miranda rights, talking to the police without legal help

Innocence and waving Miranda experiment (Kassin and Norwick, 2004)

• A study that looks at why so many suspects even innocent ones agree to talk to police after being read their Miranda rights 

• IV- whether the participant committed a mock crime or not 

• DV- Detective’s demeanor eg nice/friendly

• Each participant had to convince the detective of their innocence and if they succeeded they got extra money, if not they had to come back for a second session

• Before the interview they were asked to make a Miranda decision, sign to remain silent or sign to talk to the detective 

Innocence and waving Miranda findings (Kassin and Norwick, 2004)

• For innocent people, the detectives style did not matter and they almost always chose to talk (81%)

• Guilty participants were more cautious and less likely to talk (36%)

• Innocent people are ironically more likely to waive their rights and incriminate themselves 

Confession as decision making (Yang et al, 2017)

• Temporal discounting

• Preference for a smaller, immediate rewards vs larger delayed reward

• Small immediate consequence, immediate brief follow up questions

• Larger later consequence, meet up for a longer interview later

• The further away is the distal, the more pronounced the effect

How does physical custodial and isolation exacerbate short sighted decision making (Madon et al, 2013)

• Interrogation outside familiar surroundings 

• Duration of interrogation, recommendation is 30 mins 

How does sleep deprivation exacerbate short sighted decision making (Frenda et al, 2016)

• May accompany prolonged periods of isolation and heighten susceptibility to influence and impair decision making abilities

• Long interrogation leads to high distress and an incentive to remove themselves from the situation

How does fatigue and self regulation decline exacerbate short sighted decision making (Davis and Leo, 2012)

• False confessions usually happen at off peak hours 

• Fatigue leads to hunger/thirst and self control decline

• Cognitive functions such as memory consolidation and rational analysis are affected 

• Impulse control and emotional regulation leads to immediate impulses 

Sequence of lying and presentation of false evidence

• Target event

• False evidence

• Inducing a false confession

What is the ALT key experimental paradigm (Kassin and Kiechel, 1996)

What is phase 1 of the cheating experimental paradigm (Nash and Wade, 2010)

• The effects of presentation of false evidence 

• Participants were told that this is a study about gambling behavior when individuals gamble with physical vs virtual money, they were filmed while playing

• The task was to win as much money as possible by answering 15 questions correctly

• When wrong, red cross means return money

• When correct, green tick means take money

What is phase 2 of the cheating experimental paradigm (Nash and Wade, 2010)

• The video was created and the resulting clip showed the subject collecting money from the bank when they should have returned it

• Signs on the screen changed

• The participants were told there was a problem in the earlier session

• The video showed they had taken money from the bank when they had given an incorrect answer

What is phase 3 of the cheating experimental paradigm (Nash and Wade, 2010)

• All participants were then asked to sign a confession form

• If they sign, no reception of payment

• If they did not sign, meet the professor in charge

What is minimization- promises implied but not spoken

• Establishment of superficial friendships and fake kindness

• Interrogators are trained to minimize the crime through ‘theme development’

• Minimize the seriousness of the situation

• Research shows minimization is particularly harmful 

Evidence of minimization as risk factor

• People are ‘reading between the lines’

What can be done to fix parts of the interrogation technique

• Video recording of the interrogation

• Education on the pseudoscience of lie detection

• Banning false evidence lies during interrogations, allowed only in a few western countries

• Banning minimization strategies that imply leniency

• Replacing Reid technique with techniques such as PEACE

How are video recordings of interrogations helpful

• Permanent objective record, even if there is a recording jurors will only see a recap

• The camera’s point of view matters (Lassiter et al, 2014)

• There are time limits on interrogations, no more than 4 hours 

• False confessions usually follow a 6 hour+ interrogation (Davis and Donahue, 2004)

What is the camera perspective bias

• Perceptual salience, Fisk and Taylor 1975:

• 2 people face each other and have a conversation

• Viewers sitting around in circle

• Who do they attribute more influence

• Lassiter’s camera focus experiments:

• Videotaped mock interrogations in his laboratory

• Randomly assigned p-s to watch one camera angle

• Asked if the situation was coercive and if the statement was voluntary

• If suspect in focus, less coercive and more voluntary

• Results identical for laypeople and expert trial judges

What is the alibi witness experiment (Marion et al, 2016)

• Researchers were trying to understand how people react when someone they’ve given an alibi for is later accused or confesses to a crime 

• Participant, confederate (actor working with the researchers) and a jar with 20$ bills next door involved

• All participants hear and partially see confederate working by next table 

Stages of the alibi witness experiment (Marion et al, 2016)

• Stage 1- participant is asked if the confederate did anything suspicious. 92% of participants gave the confederate an alibi 

• Stage 2- the experimenter returns and gives new information, participants are asked again if they stand with their alibi 

• 3 conditions

• 1. denied stealing- 95% still confirmed the alibi

• 2. confessed but retracted- 45% still confirmed the alibi

• 3. confessed- 20% confirmed the alibi

Findings of the alibi witness experiment (Marion et al, 2016)

• Shows that witness’ support collapse when the accused person’s credibility is damaged 

• Participants personally did not see the confederate steal but changed their answer depending on the confederates self presentation

What are Miranda rights

• Legal rights that inform individuals in police custody of their right to remain silent or to have an attorney present during questioning

• Established by US supreme court in 1966 Miranda vs Arizona