Unit 4: False Confessions

Confessions

• False confession
  • Intentionally fabricated
  • Not based on actual knowledge of facts
• Retracted confessions
  • Claim confession false at a later date
• Disputed confessions
  • Legal technicality
  • The claimed confession was never made

Incidence of false confessions

• Difficult to determine
• Bedeau & Radelet (1987)
  • 49/350 cases (14%)
• Gudjonsson et al., 2008
  • 7.3% of Icelandic students w/police contact
• Scheck, Neufeld, & Dwyer (2000)
  • 15 of 70 cases (21%)
• Innocence Project in NY City
  • 35/130 cases (27%)
  • 362 people exonerated today
• Kassin, Bogart, & Kerner (2012)
  • 59/241 cases (24%)

Interview factors

• False evidence (Kassin & Kiechel, 1996)
• Minimisation (Russano et al., 2005)
• Promising leniency (Kassin, 2008)
• Accusatory interviewing

Interviewee factors

• Mental health issues
• Substance use (illegal and medical)
• Negative life events (death of relative and friends, victim of violence, school problems; Gudjonsson et al 2007)
• Compliance & suggestibility (Kassin, 2008; Gudjonsson 2003)
• Youth (Goldstein et al., 2003)

Types of false confessions

1. Voluntary
   1. No prompting by the police
   2. This can be the result of:
      1. An attempt to protect the real offender
      2. A desire for notoriety
      3. A need to be punished
      4. Inability to distinguish fact from fantasy
   3. Examples
      1. Lindbergh baby
         1. 200 people confessed
      2. JonBenet Ramsey
         1. John Karr falsely confessed
      3. Lance Armstrong was fined for a collision in Aspen where Anna Hansen (girlfriend) took the blame
         1. Hansen told officers she was driving as Armstrong was drinking
2. Coerced-compliant
   1. The confessor knows they did not commit the crime
   2. Caused by coercive interrogation tactics
      1. Escape further interrogation
      2. Gain a promised reward/benefit
      3. Avoid threatened punishment
   3. Most common type
   4. Example
      1. Gerry Conlon and the Guilford 4
         1. Pub bombings
         2. False evidence and threatened family
      2. Central Park Jogger Case
         1. 5 juveniles falsely confessed
         2. Lying, bargaining, pitting against each other
      3. Mohamedou Ould Slahi
         1. Detained at Guantanamo Bay from 2002-2016
         2. Moved to an isolation cell
         3. Coerced into writing a false confession
            1. Plot to blow up CN Tower in Toronto
            2. Physical violence, cold, shackling, sleep deprivation, threats to have his mother incarcerated at Guantanamo (an all-male prison)
3. Coerced-internalized
   1. The confessor believes that they committed the crime
      1. May create memories
      2. 18%-42% show internalization in lab studies
   2. Results from highly suggestive interrogations
   3. Some people are more susceptible to this type
      1. Substance abuse
      2. Suggestions from interviewer
      3. Severe anxiety, confusion or guilt
      4. Low IQ
      5. Sleep deprive
   4. Example
      1. Amanda Knox
         1. Charged with murdering Meredith Kercher
         2. Eventually admitted to being at the crime scene
         3. Acquitted in 2015
         4. Manipulation by the police
      2. Paul Ingram
         1. Confessed to sexual and satanic abuse of daughters
         2. Recalled crimes in vivid detail
         3. Resulted from visualization and hypnotic interviewing
      3. Marty Tankleff
         1. Convicted of murdering his parents when he was 17
         2. Spent more than 17 years in prison
         3. Released in 2007

Important terms

• Compliance: Tendency to agree with the person in authority
• Suggestibility: Tendency to internalize information
• Internalization: The acceptance of guilt for an act, whether or not it was actually committed
• Confabulation: reporting events that never actually occurred (but does not have to be intentional)

Studying False Confessions

“Alt key” study (Kassin & Kiechel, 1996)

• Type without hitting “Alt” Key
• All computers crashed and people “interrogated”
  • False evidence
  • Vulnerability
• Experimenters’ measure level of:
  • Compliance
  • Internalization
  • Confabulation

Cheating paradigm (Russano et al., 2005)

• Participants perform individual and group problems
  • Guilty condition – provide help on “individual” problem
  • Innocent condition – not asked to provide help
• Accused of cheating by experimenter
• Large minority falsely confessed (20%)
  • Offered a deal (8% increase)
  • Minimization tactics (12% increase)
  • Both tactics (37% increase)

Consequences of false confessions

• Legal consequences:
  • Confessions are considered very persuasive evidence of guilt (Leo & Davis, 2008; Kassin & Neumann, 1997)
  • Even when retracted they still create a very strong confirmation and motivational bias against the confessor
• Innocent people sent to jail (or executed)
  • Juries ignore how confession was obtained
• Guilty person not apprehended
• Waste of time and resources
• Impact on victim

Avoiding false confessions

• Improve interviewing
  • Move toward interviewing
  • Special protocols for children, adolescents, and people with mental health problems
• Interviewee rights
  • e.g., Miranda Rights, Police caution (Charter rights)
• Improving comprehension of legal rights
  • People facing police interview have two rights
    • Right-to-Silence
    • Right-to-Legal Counsel
    • Informed of rights via police cautions
  • People must understand rights
    • Protect interviewee and interviewer
  • People consistently struggle to comprehend police caution
    • Research attempting to increase comprehension
    • Police need to verify understanding

What are your legal rights?

• Right 1
  • Retain or hire a lawyer or counsel
  • Talk to or instruct a lawyer or counsel
    • (Above two) can be done without delay/immediately
• Right 2
  • Talk to a government lawyer or get legal advice
  • Government legal services is free
    • (Above two) without delay/immediately
• Right 3
  • The number available to call to talk to a free lawyer
• Right 4
  • Can apply for legal aid
  • Application for legal aid dependent on a person being charged with a crime

How much do people actually comprehend?

• On average, adults comprehend less than 40% of their legal rights
  • Our research has improved comprehension of legal rights up to 80%!
  • Removing unnecessary and difficult words
  • Repeating key points of information
  • Chunking the information into manageable sections
  • Checking comprehension regularly