"False confession ranks third after perjury and eyewitness error as a cause of wrongful convictions in American rape and homicide cases." (Radelet, Bedau and Putnam, 1992)
Police officers and prosecutors, judges and jurors are quick to rely on confession evidence as indication of guilt. They are usually unaware of the many ways that the voluntariness, reliability, accuracy and veracity of confessions can be undermined. A healthy scepticism about the
reliabiliy of confessions needs to be encouraged.
In this paper I analyze examples of false confessions from the United States and the United Kingdom which formed the basis of wrongful charges or wrongful convictions. I point out the problems which should have alarmed decision-makers during the pre-trial stage. In several of these cases I was called by the defense before the trial. In others I was consulted by media advocates trying to get a case reopened. In yet others I was consulted by defense attorneys considering an appeal. Some were shared with me by attorneys eager to contribute to the understanding of false confessions.
The cases represent three types of false confession: 'voluntary', 'coerced compliant', and 'coerced internalized' (Wrightsman and Kassin, 1994). They represent as well, a range of defendant 'vulnerabilities' to
interrogation (learning disability, mental retardation, mental illness, being a non-native speaker, cultural difference, stress and fatigue) and the differential effect of a number of accepted interrogation techniques and strategies.
It is during the course of a police interrogation that (actual or non-existent) memories are transformed into confession statements. Therefore the interaction between police officer(s) and suspect (each with his or her own social and psychological make-up and agenda, meeting in a setting with its own pressures, and under particular circumstances of arrest and custody) must be understood. The expert performs
a 'contextualized' discourse analysis, which must be based on knowledge of the arrest and custody, knowledge of the 'crime' and its investigation, and a complete social and psychological portrait of the suspect (provided by other experts).
In the course of analysis, factors such as fatigue, hunger, distress and
misunderstanding may be uncovered and their cumulative effect on the suspect and on the statement documented. Problems such as learning disabilities or cultural and linguistic difficulties which might form the basis of a mental or cultural defense may also be revealed.
Vulnerable testimony: police interrogation and false confessions