It seems that everyday we learn that something we believed is not quite what we thought it was. 20% of the persons on death row freed by DNA from execution for murders they did not commit confessed to their guilt prior to trial. Sometimes like in the case of Virginia’s Earl Washington the confession is manufactured by law enforcement eager to frame a supposed guilty man. I personally had a DWI client who was arrested for erratic driving. He confessed to drinking most of a fifth of whiskey. The problem was the blood test showed no alcohol in his system.
The Association for Psychological Science’s (APS) journal *Current
Directions in Psychological Science* has scheduled for future
publication an article: “False Confessions Causes, Consequences, and
Implications for Reform” by Saul M. Kassin .
Here’s how the article begins:
[begin excerpt]
In criminal law, confession evidence is highly persuasive–yet fallible.
Despite the pervasive myth that people do not confess to crimes they did
not commit, the pages of American history, beginning with the Salem
witch trials of 1692, bear witness to all the men and women who were
wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, often because of false confessions.
Although the prevalence rate is unknown, recent analyses reveal that 20
to 25% of prisoners exonerated by DNA had confessed to police, that the
percentage is far higher in capital murder cases (White, 2003), and that
these discovered instances represent the tip of an iceberg (Drizin &
Leo, 2004).
After reviewing a number of cases throughout history, and drawing on
theories of social influence, Wrightsman and I proposed a taxonomy that
distinguished three types of false confessions: voluntary, compliant,
and internalized. Still used today, this classification scheme has
provided an important framework and has since been used, critiqued,
extended, and refined in subtle ways (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985).
Voluntary false confessions are those in which people claim
responsibility for crimes they did not commit without prompting from
police. Often this occurs in high profile cases. When Black Dahlia
actress Elizabeth Short was murdered in 1947, more than 50 people
confessed. In 2006, John Mark Karr confessed to the unsolved murder of
young JonBenet Ramsey. There are several reasons why innocent people
volunteer confessions, such as a pathological need for attention or self-
punishment, feelings of guilt or delusions, the perception of tangible
gain, or the desire to protect someone else. In contrast, people are
sometimes induced to confess through the processes of police
interrogation. In compliant false confessions, the suspect acquiesces in
order to background image escape from a stressful situation, avoid
punishment, or gain a promised or implied reward.
Like the social influence observed in Milgram’s classic obedience
studies, this confession is an act of public compliance by a suspect who
perceives that the short-term benefits of confession outweigh the long-
term costs. This phenomenon was dramatically illustrated in the 1989
Central Park jogger case, in which five New York City teenagers
confessed after lengthy interrogations, each claiming he expected to go
home afterward. All the boys were convicted and sent to prison, only to
be exonerated in 2002 when the real rapist gave a confession that was
confirmed by DNA evidence.
Lastly, internalized false confessions are those in which innocent but
vulnerable suspects, exposed to highly suggestive interrogation tactics,
not only confess but come to believe they committed the crime in
question. The case of 14-year-old Michael Crowe, whose sister was
stabbed to death, illustrates this phenomenon. After lengthy
interrogations, during which Michael was misled into thinking there was
substantial physical evidence of his guilt, he concluded that he was a
killer: “I’m not sure how I did it. All I know is I did it” (Drizin &
Colgan, 2004, p. 141). Eventually, he was convinced that he had a split
personality--that “bad Michael” acted out of jealous rage while “good
Michael” blocked the incident from consciousness. The charges against
Crowe were later dropped when a drifter from the neighborhood was found
with his sister’s blood on his clothing.
Inspired by tales of innocents wrongfully convicted, recent research has
focused on three sets of questions: (a) Why are innocent people often
misidentified for background image interrogation, (b) what factors put
innocent suspects at risk to confess, and (c) how accurate are police,
juries, and others at judging confession evidence?
[end excerpt]
Here’s the abstract: “Despite the commonsense belief that people do not
confess to crimes they did not commit, roughly 25 percent of all DNA
exonerations involve innocent prisoners who confessed. After
distinguishing between voluntary, compliant, and internalized false
confessions, this article suggest that a sequence of three processes is
responsible for false confessions and their adverse consequences.
First, police sometimes target innocent people for interrogation because
of erroneous judgments of truth and deception. Second, innocent people
sometimes confess as a function of certain interrogation tactics,
dispositional suspect vulnerabilities, and the phenomenology of
innocence. Third, jurors fail to discount even those confessions they
see as coerced. At present, researchers are seeking ways to improve the
accuracy of confession evidence and
its evaluation in the courtroom.”
We represent people charged with DWI/DUI, reckless driving, speeding tickets and people injured in car crashes. If you have questions about any of these topics please look on our site for the information E-Books: http://www.bobkeeferlaw.com. Attorney Bob Keefer has been practicing in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia for over 25 years. He routinely goes to court in Rockingham County VA; Harrisonburg VA; Augusta County VA; Staunton VA; Woodstock VA; Shenandoah County VA; and Waynesboro VA. His other sites are http://www.keefercard.com; http://www.duidriver.net; http://www.recklessdriving.net