A false confession is an admission of
guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
* ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
* "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...
for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with highly sophisticated intelligence or manipulated by their so called "friends" are more likely to make such confessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commit—but years later, have been exonerated. It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emerge—and how often false confessions played a role in these.
False confessions are distinguished from
forced confession
A forced confession is a confession obtained from a suspect or a prisoner by means of torture (including enhanced interrogation techniques) or other forms of duress. Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession is not valid in rev ...
s where the use of torture or the threat of physical harm is used to induce the confession.
Types
False confessions can be categorized into three general types, as outlined by American
Saul Kassin Saul Kassin is a distinguished professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice - City University of New York and Massachusetts Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Biography and educ ...
in an article for ''Current Directions in Psychological Science'':
Voluntary false confessions
These confessions are given freely, without police prompting. Sometimes people incriminate themselves to divert attention from the actual person who committed the crime. For instance, a parent might confess to save their child from jail. Alternatively, people sometimes confess to a notorious crime because of the attention they receive from such a confession. About 250 people confessed to the 1932 kidnapping of the
Lindbergh baby which received headlines around the world. Approximately 500 people confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short (known as the "
Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – January 14–15, 1947), known posthumously as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized ow ...
") in 1947 which also received enormous media attention—some of those who confessed were not even born when she died.
A more recent example of a voluntary confession occurred in 2006, when John Mark Karr confessed to the murder of six-year-old
JonBenét Ramsey in the United States. Karr had become obsessed with every detail of the murder and, ten years after her death, he was extradited from
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
based on his confession. But his account did not match details of the case, and his
DNA did not match that found at the crime scene. His wife and brother also said he was home in another state at the time of the murder, and had never been to
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
, where the murder occurred. His confession was so clearly false that prosecutors never charged him with the crime.
Coerced compliant confessions
These confessions are the result of coercive interrogation techniques used by the police. Suspects may be interviewed for hours on end, sometimes without a lawyer or family member present. Even when the suspect is innocent, this creates stress and eventually leads to mental exhaustion. Sometimes, police offer inducements to suspects, telling them they will be treated more leniently if they confess. Material rewards such as coffee or the cessation of the interrogation are used to the same effect. Suspects may be told they will feel better by confessing, thereby getting the truth out in the open. After enduring this pressure, often for hours on end, vulnerable suspects may confess just to bring the process to an end.
The
Reid technique
The Reid technique is a method of interrogation. The system was developed in the United States by John E. Reid in the 1950s. Reid was a psychologist, polygraph expert, and former Chicago police officer. The technique is known for creating a high ...
codifies these strategies and is still used by many police forces in the United States. People may also confess to a crime they did not commit as a form of
plea bargaining
A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or '' nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defend ...
in order to avoid the risk of a harsher sentence after trial. Teenagers and young adults, individuals with mental health problems or low intelligence and those who achieve high scores high on the
Gudjonsson suggestibility scale The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale (GSS) is a psychological test that measures suggestibility of a subject. It was created in 1983 by Icelandic psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. It involves reading a short story to the subject and testing r ...
are more vulnerable to making false confessions.
Coerced internalized confessions
These confessions are those in which the person is so affected by the interrogation process, they come to believe they have actually committed the crime, even though they have no memory of doing so. This seems to occur when the suspect lacks self-confidence, especially in their own memory about a particular event. Research suggests "An interrogator can take advantage of this weakness, sometimes unwittingly, through highly suggestive questioning and proffered explanations for the suspect's alleged lack of memory." The suspect is unable to detect that they are being manipulated into agreeing with something that is not true and begins to agree with the interrogator "until he or she finally comes to accept guilt".
Factors involved
To the average person, the possibility that someone would confess to a crime they did not commit seems highly unlikely and makes little sense. The following factors have been found to contribute to false confessions.
Police mindset
Police use persuasive manipulation techniques when conducting interrogations in hopes of obtaining a confession. These can include lying about evidence, making suspects believe they are there to help them or pretending to be the suspect's friends. After enough time and persuasion, suspects are likely to conform to the investigators' demands for a confession, even if it was to a crime they did not commit. One of the most important findings in guilt manipulation research is that once guilt is induced in the subject, it can be directed into greater compliance with requests that are completely unrelated to the original source of guilt. This has important implications for police interrogation because guilt induction is recommended in manuals on police interrogation.
A 2010 study conducted by Fisher and Geiselman showed the lack of instruction given to entry-level police officers regarding the interview process. They stated in their research that, "We were discouraged to find that police often receive only minimal, and sometimes no, formal training to interview cooperative witnesses, and, not surprisingly, their actual interview practices are quite poor." While many officers may develop their own interview techniques, the lack of formal training could lead to interviewing with the purpose of simply completing the investigation, regardless of the truth. The easiest way to complete an investigation would be a confession. Fisher and Geiselman concur, saying, "It seems to be more on interrogating suspects (to elicit confessions) rather than on interviewing cooperative witnesses and victims". This study suggests that more training could prevent false confessions, and give police a new mindset while in the interview room.
Reid Technique
The
Reid Technique
The Reid technique is a method of interrogation. The system was developed in the United States by John E. Reid in the 1950s. Reid was a psychologist, polygraph expert, and former Chicago police officer. The technique is known for creating a high ...
of interrogating suspects was first introduced in the United States in the 1940s and 50s by former police officer, John Reid. It was intended to replace the beatings that police frequently used to elicit information. The Technique involves a nine-step process. The first step involves directly confronting the suspect with a statement that it is known that he or she committed the crime. This would usually involve frequent interruptions when the suspect tried to speak. Researchers have found that police interrogators only allowed people to speak for an average 5.8 seconds before they interrupted. Often, the police lie and describe non-existent evidence that points to the suspect as the offender. In the second step, the police present a hypothesis about why the suspect committed the crime. This explanation "minimizes the moral implications of the alleged offense or allows a suspect to save face by having a morally acceptable excuse for committing the crime."
The Reid Technique went on to become the leading interrogation method used by law enforcement throughout the United States and led to countless confessions. In recent years, justice researchers found that not all of those confessions were legitimate and determined that the technique primarily relies on deception, coercion and aggressive confrontation to secure confessions. Despite this, in 2014, it was still popular with police interrogators even though subjects provide less information, and the strategy provides fewer true confessions and more false confessions than less confrontational interviewing techniques.
In 2017, Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, one of the biggest consulting groups responsible for training law enforcement officers throughout the United States announced that because of its coercive methods, it would no longer use the Reid Technique.
Individual vulnerability
In the
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
The ''Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law'' is a quarterly academic journal published by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) is a professional organization in t ...
, Richard Leo wrote: "Even though psychological coercion is the primary cause of police-induced false confessions, individuals differ in their ability to withstand interrogation pressure and thus in their susceptibility to making false confessions. All other things being equal, those who are highly suggestible or compliant are more likely to confess falsely. Individuals who are highly suggestible tend to have poor memories, high levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and low assertiveness, personality factors that also make them more vulnerable to the pressures of interrogation and thus more likely to confess falsely. Interrogative suggestibility tends to be heightened by sleep deprivation, fatigue, and drug or alcohol withdrawal. Individuals who are highly compliant tend to be conflict avoidant, acquiescent, and eager to please others, especially authority figures." In particular, this tends to apply to individuals who are intellectually impaired or suffer from mental health issues.
Intellectual impairment
According to Richard Leo, the developmentally disabled are more likely to confess for a number of reasons. "First, because of their subnormal intellectual functioning, low intelligence, short attention span, poor memory, and poor conceptual and communication skills, they do not always understand statements made to them or the implications of their answers. They often lack the ability to think in a causal way about the consequences of their actions." This also affects their social intelligence. Leo says: "They are not, for example, likely to understand that the police detective who appears to be friendly is really their adversary or to grasp the long-term consequences of making an incriminating statement. They are thus highly suggestible and easy to manipulate ... (they are also) eager to please. They tend to have a high need for approval and thus are prone to being acquiescent."
The case of Canadian Simon Marshall is an example and was one of Quebec's most notorious miscarriages of justice. Marshall was mentally disabled, and accused of a series of rapes in 1997. He confessed to 13 charges, and was convicted and imprisoned for five years. While in prison he was beaten, sodomized, and scalded with boiling water by other prisoners. Eventually DNA testing established that Marshall was not involved in the crimes. Despite being released, Marshall continues to live in a state of "semi-detention"; he is being held in a psychiatric hospital due to the psychological damage caused during his incarceration. He was awarded $2.3-million in compensation. An inquiry into the case made the point that not only had DNA testing not been done at the time of his trial, Marshall's mental handicap was entirely overlooked throughout his prosecution.
Mental illness
Individuals who are mentally ill tend to have a number of symptoms which predispose them to agreeing with or confabulating false and misleading information. In
The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Richard Leo wrote that these "include faulty reality monitoring, distorted perceptions and beliefs, an inability to distinguish fact from fantasy, proneness to feelings of guilt, heightened anxiety, mood disturbances, and a lack of self control. In addition, the mentally ill may suffer from
deficits in executive functioning, attention, and memory; become easily confused; and lack social skills such as assertiveness. These traits also increase the risk of falsely confessing."
Youth and immaturity
Saul Kassin, a leading expert on false confessions, says that young people are also particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized. In the
Central Park Jogger case
The Central Park jogger case (events also referenced as the Central Park Five Case) was a criminal case over the aggravated assault and rape of a white woman in Central Park in Manhattan, New York, on April 19, 1989, occurring at the same time a ...
, for example, five teenagers aged from 14 to 16 falsely confessed to assault and rape of a white woman in Manhattan's Central Park on April 19, 1989. The police ignored the fact that none of the suspects' DNA matched two semen samples found on the victim. Both samples belonged to a single source, Matias Reyes, a violent serial rapist and murderer who finally confessed to the Central Park rape in 2002.
Incidence
The incidence of false confession, and its causes, are likely to vary from one country to another. The rate also varies depending on the methodology used to measure it. Some studies only use confirmed cases where DNA proved the person who confessed was in fact innocent and has been exonerated by a court. This mostly applies to murder and rape cases. For instance, in the United States, the
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futur ...
reports that since 1989, 375 offenders have been exonerated by DNA. Twenty-nine percent of them confessed to the crime for which they were convicted, but were then exonerated. As of July 2020, twenty-three of the 104 people whose cases involved false confessions had exculpatory DNA evidence available at the time of trial—but were still wrongfully convicted. According to the National Registry of Exonerations in the United States, 27% of those on the registry who were accused of homicide, but were later exonerated, gave false confessions. However, 81% of people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities also confessed when accused of homicide.
Offenders may also be exonerated by means other than DNA evidence. In the US, 2,750 people have been exonerated in the last three decades—9% of whom were women. Nearly 73% of women exonerated in the last three decades were convicted of crimes that never took place at all, according to data from the
National Registry of Exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School, Michigan State University College of Law and the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society. The Registry was co-founded in 2012 ...
. Their alleged "crimes" included events determined to be accidents, crimes that were fabricated and deaths by suicide. About 40% of female exonerees were wrongly convicted of harming their children or other loved ones in their care.
Other studies use self-report surveys where offenders are asked if they have ever falsely confessed to a crime, although there may be no way of checking the validity of such claims. These surveys apply to confessions to any kind of crime, not just rape and murder. Two Icelandic studies based on self-report conducted ten years apart found the rates of false confession to be 12.2% and 24.4% respectively. A more recent Scottish study found the rate of self-reported false confessions was 33.4%.
Impact on judicial process
Leo noted that "most people assume that a confession, especially a detailed confession, is, by its very nature, true. Confession evidence therefore tends to define the case against a defendant, usually overriding any contradictory information or evidence of innocence. A suspect's confession sets in motion a seemingly irrefutable presumption of guilt among justice officials, the media, the public, and lay jurors. This chain of events in effect leads each part of the system to be stacked against the individual who confesses, and as a result he is treated more harshly at every stage of the investigative and trial process. He is significantly more likely to be incarcerated before trial, charged, pressured to plead guilty, and convicted".
As Justice
Brennan noted in his dissent in ''
Colorado v. Connelly
''Colorado v. Connelly'', 479 U.S. 157 (1986), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that was initiated by Francis Connelly, who insisted that his schizophrenic episode rendered him incompetent, nullifying his waiver of his Miranda rights.
Prior histor ...
'': "Reliance on confessions is due, in part, to their decisive impact upon the adversarial process. Triers of fact accord confessions such heavyweight in their determinations that 'the introduction of a confession makes the other aspects of a trial in court superfluous, and the real trial, for all practical purposes, occurs when the confession is obtained.' No other class of evidence is so profoundly prejudicial. 'Thus the decision to confess before trial amounts in effect to a waiver of the right to require the state at trial to meet its heavy burden of proof'."
Leo argued that false confessions gather collective force as the judicial process proceeds, and become almost impossible to overcome. He noted that "this chain reaction starts with the police. Once they obtain a confession, they typically close their investigation, clear the case as solved, and make no effort to pursue any exculpatory evidence or other possible leads, even if the confession is internally inconsistent, contradicted by external evidence, or the result of coercive interrogation. Even when other case evidence subsequently emerges suggesting or demonstrating that the suspect’s confession is false, police almost always continue to believe in the suspect’s guilt and the underlying accuracy of the confession."
Remedial strategies
Better police training
Researchers argue that the police need to be trained better at identifying the circumstances which contribute to false confessions and the type of suspects inclined to make them. In the early 1990s, British psychologists collaborated with law enforcement to develop a more conversational approach to obtain information from suspects. This approach, which is more ethical and less confrontational, became known as the
PEACE method of interrogation
The PEACE method of investigative interviewing is a five stage process in which investigators try to build rapport and allow a criminal suspect to provide their account of events uninterrupted, before presenting the suspect with any evidence of inc ...
.
The method has five stages: Preparation and Planning; Engage and Explain; Account, Clarification, Challenge; Closure; and Evaluation. Using this approach, investigators are not supposed to interrupt suspects while they tell their story; use open‐ended questions; and challenge any inconsistencies or contradictions after the subject has told their story. Also interviewers are not allowed to deceive or pretend they have incriminating evidence they do not actually have.
Taping interrogations and confessions
In response to the prevalence of false confessions induced by aggressive police interrogation methods, one suggested solution has been to videotape all interrogations so that what occurred can be monitored by the legal defense team and by jury members.
This solution stems from the perception that videotaped interrogations and confessions allow for a more complete and objective record of the police–suspect interaction.
Those who advocate for the videotaping of interrogations argue that the presence of the camera will deter the use of
coercive methods to induce confessions and will provide a visual and auditory record which can be used to evaluate the
voluntariness In law and philosophy, voluntariness is a choice being made of a person's free will, as opposed to being made as the result of coercion or duress. Philosophies such as libertarianism and voluntaryism, as well as many legal systems, hold that a contr ...
and potential
veracity
Veracity may refer to:
* ''Veracity'' (album), a 2008 album by Evacuate Chicago
* Veracity (ethics), an ethical principle
* ''Veracity'' (novel), a 2010 novel by Laura Bynum
* Veracity, an automobile from the early 1900s built by the Smith Autom ...
of any confession.
However, a study in
The Journal of Psychiatry & Law
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
notes that videotaping on its own "will not solve the problem of false confessions occurring nor will it ensure that false confessions will be detected before an innocent life is ruined". The authors argue that "More needs to be done with regard to reforming how police go about interviewing/interrogating suspects in the first place".
[Video recording custodial interrogations: Implications of psychological science for policy and practice, The Journal of Psychiatry & Law, vol. 38/Spring–Summer 2010.]
In the US
Until the 1980s, most confession
evidence
Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.
In epistemology, evidenc ...
was recorded by police and later presented at trial in either a written or an audiotaped format.
Electronic recording of interrogations was first mandated in the United States in Alaska in 1985 by the Supreme Court of Alaska in ''Stephan v. State''—based on the state constitution's due process clause.
In 2019, 21 states plus the District of Columbia require recording by law in serious cases. Many other cities have voluntarily implemented electronic recording as best practice, including Philadelphia, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, and Austin. Electronic recording of interrogations has become mandatory in approximately 1,000 law enforcement agencies across the country.
In the United Kingdom
In England and Wales, the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984 built certain protections into the questioning process, including the requirement that all suspect interviews be taped.
Concerns about videotaping
Camera perspective bias
Psychological research suggests that evaluations of videotaped confessions can be affected by the camera perspective used at the initial recording.
Extensive empirical data has been collected in this area by manipulating the position of the camera: to a suspect-focus (looking at the front of the suspect from waist up and the back of the
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
's head and shoulders), detective-focus (looking at the front of the detective and the back of the suspect), and equal-focus (where the profiles of both the detective and the suspect were equally visible) perspective.
The research indicates that the camera perspective influences assessments of
voluntariness In law and philosophy, voluntariness is a choice being made of a person's free will, as opposed to being made as the result of coercion or duress. Philosophies such as libertarianism and voluntaryism, as well as many legal systems, hold that a contr ...
, the level of
coercion
Coercion () is compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against a party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desi ...
on the part of the detective, and even the dichotomy of guilt.
Changes in camera perspective lead to changes in the visual content available to the observer.
Using eye-tracking as a measure and monitor of visual attention, researchers deduced that visual attention mediates the camera perspective bias.
That is, the correlation between camera perspective and the resulting bias is caused by the viewer's visual attention, which is decided by the focus of the camera.
In the United States and in many other countries, interrogations are typically recorded with the camera positioned behind the
interrogator
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful infor ...
and focused directly on the suspect.
These suspect-focus videotapes lead to the perception that the subject is participating voluntarily, when compared to both
audiotape
An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present- ...
s and
transcripts, which are assumed to be
bias
Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, ...
-free. In other words, the manner in which videotaping is implemented holds the potential for bias. This bias can be avoided by using an equal-focus perspective. This finding has been replicated numerous times, reflecting the growing uses of videotaped confessions in
trial proceedings.
Racial salience bias
Psychological research has explored camera perspective bias with African American and Chinese American suspects.
African Americans are victims to strong
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
s linking them with criminal behavior, but these stereotypes are not prevalent towards Chinese Americans, making the two ethnicities ideal for comparison.
Participants were randomly assigned to view mock police interrogations developed using a male Caucasian detective questioning a Caucasian, Chinese American, or African American male suspect regarding his whereabouts at a given time and date. All interrogations were taped in an equal-focus perspective.
Voluntariness judgments varied as a function of the race of the suspect.
More participants viewing the Chinese American suspect and the African American suspect versions of the interrogation judged the suspect's statements to be voluntary than did those viewing the Caucasian suspect version.
Both the African American suspect and the Chinese American suspect were judged to have a higher likelihood of guilt than the Caucasian suspect.
Racial salience bias in videotaped interrogations is a genuine phenomenon that has been proven through
empirical data
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
.
Policy recommendations
Research indicates that an equal focus perspective produces relatively unbiased assessments of videotaped interrogations.
A variation of the equal focus perspective is the dual camera approach where the subject's and the interviewer's faces are presented side-by-side. One study into this approach suggests it eliminates the usual camera perspective bias on
voluntariness In law and philosophy, voluntariness is a choice being made of a person's free will, as opposed to being made as the result of coercion or duress. Philosophies such as libertarianism and voluntaryism, as well as many legal systems, hold that a contr ...
and guilt judgments, but was no better than the infamous suspect-focus condition in terms of its impact on the ability to accurately distinguish between true and false confession.
To aid criminal-justice practitioners and legal policy makers to achieve sound and fair policy, a study in
Behavioral Sciences and the Law
''Behavioral Sciences & the Law'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the intersection of the law and behavioral sciences. It was established in 1983 and is published by John Wiley & Sons. The journal is edited by Charles Patrick ...
presented the following recommendations based on the body of research:
* Custodial interrogations recorded in their entirety with the camera positioned so that the resultant videotape displays an equal-focus or detective-focus perspective.
* If an interrogation has already been videotaped from a suspect-focus perspective, it should not be used. Rather, the use of an
audio track or a
transcript derived from the videotape should serve in its place.
* The dual-camera approach is not advised because it does nothing to moderate actual accuracy of judgments.
Cases by country
Japan
In 2007, thirteen men and women, ranging in age from their early 50s to mid-70s, were arrested and indicted in Japan for buying votes in an election. Six confessed to buying votes with liquor, cash and catered parties. All were acquitted in 2007 in a local district court, which found that the confessions had been entirely fabricated. The presiding judge said the defendants had "made confessions in despair while going through marathon questioning."
Sweden
Sture Bergwall (1990)
Sture Bergwall, also known as Thomas Quick, confessed to more than 30 murders in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland while incarcerated in a mental institution for personality disorders. He had been committed after being convicted of less serious crimes. Between 1994 and 2001, Bergwall was convicted of eight murders, based on his confessions. All of these convictions have now been overturned on appeal as he was found to have made false confessions and been incompetent to stand trial.
United Kingdom
Robert Hubert (1666)
In 1666, Robert Hubert confessed to starting the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
by throwing a
fire bomb through a bakery window. It was proven during his trial that he had not been in the country until two days after the start of the fire, he was never at any point near the bakery in question, the bakery did not have windows, and he was crippled and unable to throw a bomb. But, as a foreigner (a Frenchman), and a Catholic, Hubert was a perfect scapegoat. Ever-maintaining his guilt, Hubert was brought to trial, found guilty, and duly executed by hanging.
Timothy Evans (1947)
Timothy Evans was accused of murdering his wife and daughter. He was subsequently tried for the murder of the daughter, was convicted and hanged. When informed about their deaths and asked if he was responsible, Evans reportedly replied "Yes". He was later posthumously pardoned in 1966.
Stephen Downing (1974)
Stephen Downing was convicted and spent 27 years in prison. The main piece of evidence used against him was a confession he signed. He had agreed to this after an 8-hour interrogation which left him confused, and his poor literacy skills meant he did not fully understand what he was signing.
Stefan Kiszko (1976)
Stefan Kiszko was convicted of murder in 1976, in what was later described as "one of Britain's most notorious miscarriages of justice". One of the main pieces of prosecution evidence was a confession Kiszko made after three days of police questioning. After almost 16 years in prison, Kiszko was exonerated in 1992. When asked ''why'' he had confessed to a crime he did not commit, Kiszko replied, "I started to tell these lies and they seemed to please them and the pressure was off as far as I was concerned. I thought if I admitted what I did to the police they would check out what I had said, find it untrue and would then let me go".
United States
Peter Reilly (1973)
In 1973, 18-year-old
Peter Reilly
Peter Reilly (26 November 1933 – 15 March 1977) was a Progressive Conservative party member of the House of Commons of Canada. He was a broadcaster and journalist by career.
Career
He was elected at the Ottawa West riding in the ...
of
Litchfield County, Connecticut
Litchfield County is in northwestern Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 185,186. The county was named after Lichfield, in England. Litchfield County has the lowest population density of any county in Connecticut and is the ...
, was convicted of murdering his mother. He had signed a detailed confession after first discovering and informing of the crime, and then being detained and interrogated for many hours with little sleep. During this interrogation, with no lawyer present, he agreed to undergo a
polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
, which he was wrongly told he had failed, and was persuaded that only he could have committed the crime. He was sentenced to six to sixteen years for manslaughter but freed on appeal in 1976.
Pizza Hut murder (1988)
In 1988, Nancy DePriest was raped and murdered at the
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American multinational restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. They serve their signature pan pizza and other dishes including pasta, breadsticks and dessert at d ...
where she worked in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
. A coworker, Chris Ochoa, pleaded guilty to the murder. His friend and coworker, Richard Danziger, was convicted of the rape. Ochoa confessed to the murder, as well as implicating Danziger in the rape. The only forensic
evidence
Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.
In epistemology, evidenc ...
linking Danziger to the crime scene was a single pubic hair found in the restaurant, which was said to be consistent with his pubic hair type. Although
semen
Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic bodily fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. Semen i ...
evidence had been collected, a
DNA analysis of only one gene was performed at the time; even though Ochoa had this gene, it was known also to be present in 10–16% of individuals.
['']Forensic Files
''Forensic Files'', originally known as ''Medical Detectives'', is an American documentary television program that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness. The show was origi ...
'', "Forever Hold Your Peace" Both men received life sentences with no possibility of parole.
Years later a man named Achim Marino (who was in prison serving his three-life sentences for robbery, rape and murder respectively) began writing letters from prison claiming he was the actual murderer in the Pizza Hut case and that Ocha and Danziger were innocent. He said that he had converted to Christianity while in prison and wanted to tell the truth to free Ochoa and Danziger from prison. The
DNA from the crime scene was tested, and it matched that of Marino. The DNA of Ochoa and Danziger was excluded from matching that evidence. Ochoa later said that he was coerced by the police to confess and implicate his friend in the rape and murder.
In 2001, Ochoa and Danziger were exonerated and released from prison after 12 years of incarceration. While in prison, Danziger had been severely beaten by other inmates in 1991 and suffered permanent brain damage. He requires all day medical care for the rest of his life. Marino was later convicted of the murder (he couldn't be charged with the rape due to the statute of limitations) and was given an additional life sentence.
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic (1990)
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic (born October 27, 1973) is an American man from Peekskill, New York known for having been wrongly convicted in 1990 at the age of seventeen of raping, beating, and strangling Angela Correa, a 15-year-old high school classmate ...
was convicted in 1990, at the age of 16, of raping, beating and strangling a high school classmate. He had confessed to the crime after hours of interrogation by police without being given an opportunity to seek legal counsel. Court testimony noted that the DNA evidence in the case did not point to him. He was incarcerated for 15 years.
Juan Rivera (1992)
Juan Rivera, from
Waukegan, Illinois
''(Fortress or Trading Post)''
, image_flag =
, image_seal =
, blank_emblem_size = 150
, blank_emblem_type = Logo
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_type1 = State
, subdivisi ...
, was wrongfully convicted of the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker. Although his DNA was excluded from that tested in the rape kit, and the report from the electronic ankle monitor he was wearing at the time (while awaiting trial for a non-violent burglary) established that he was not in the vicinity of the murder, he confessed to the crimes. Rivera had been interrogated for several days by police using the Reid technique. His conviction was overturned in 2011, and the appellate court took the unusual step of barring prosecutors from retrying him.
[
Rivera filed a lawsuit against a number of parties, including John E. Reid & Associates, who developed the Reid technique. Reid contended that Rivera's false confession was the result of the Reid technique being used incorrectly. Rivera was taken to Reid headquarters in Chicago twice during his interrogation for polygraph tests. These were inconclusive, but a Reid employee, Michael Masokas, told Rivera that he failed. The case was settled out of court with John E. Reid & Associates paying $2 million.]
Gary Gauger (1993)
Gary Gauger was sentenced to death for the murders of his parents, Morris, 74, and Ruth, 70, at their McHenry County, Illinois
McHenry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 Census, it had a population of 310,229, making it the sixth-most populous county in Illinois. Its county seat is Woodstock. McHenry County is one of the f ...
farm in April 1993. He was interrogated for more than 21 hours. He gave the police a hypothetical
A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obser ...
statement, which they took as a confession. His conviction was overturned in 1996, and Gauger was freed. He was pardoned by the Illinois governor in 2002. Two motorcycle gang members were later convicted of Morris and Ruth Gauger's murders.
West Memphis Three (1993)
The West Memphis Three
The West Memphis Three are three men convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, United States. Damien Echols was sentenced to death, Jessie Misskelley Jr. to life imprisonment plus two 20-year ...
(Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley) were convicted for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys. At the time of the alleged crime, they were 16, 17, and 18 years old. One month after the murders, police interrogated Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72, for five hours. He confessed to the murders and implicated both Echols and Baldwin.
Misskelley immediately recanted and said he was coerced to confess. Although his confession contained massive internal inconsistencies and differed significantly from the facts of the physical evidence revealed, the prosecution continued. Misskelley and Baldwin were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole; Echols was convicted and sentenced to death.
For the next 17 years, the three men maintained their innocence. In August 2011, testing of DNA evidence was found to be inconclusive; it included DNA from an unknown contributor.
Prosecutors offered the three men a deal if they pleaded guilty: to release them for time served. They accepted the Alford plea but said that they would continue to work to clear their names and find the real murderer(s). They were released after eighteen years in prison.
Norfolk Four (1997)
Danial Williams, Joseph J. Dick Jr., Derek Tice, and Eric C. Wilson are four of five men convicted in the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...
. The convictions of the four were based largely on their confessions, which they have since maintained were coerced after hours of interrogation, during which the men were played off against each other over time. The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futur ...
considers this a miscarriage of justice. Moore-Bosko's parents continue to believe that all those convicted were participants in the crime.
Williams and Dick pleaded guilty to murder, as they had been threatened by the potential of being sentenced to death at a jury trial. They were sentenced to one or more life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. Tice was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to death. Wilson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8½ years in prison. Three other men, Geoffrey A. Farris, John E. Danser and Richard D. Pauley Jr., were also initially indicted with the crime through accusations by others, but their charges were later dropped before trial as Tice would not testify against them. The supporters of the Norfolk Four have offered evidence that purports to prove that the four men are innocent, with no known involvement or connections to the incident. No physical evidence supported their cases. Tice's conviction was overturned, and Williams and Dick received governmental pardons, clearing their names. The four received a settlement from the city of Norfolk and state in 2018.
The fifth man, Omar Ballard, was indicted in 2005 after his DNA was found to match that at the crime scene. He had informally confessed in 1997 but withdrew his statement after being pressured to implicate the four other men. He pleaded guilty to the crime in 2009 in order to avoid the death penalty. A serial rapist and murderer, he was apprehended and sentenced to prison after he pleaded guilty to other crimes of violence against women, and confessed to acting alone. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matched that found at the scene. He confessed to committing the crime by himself, and said none of the other men indicted and tried were involved. Forensic evidence is consistent with his story that there were no other participants.
Michael Crowe (1998)
Michael Crowe confessed to the murder of his younger sister Stephanie Crowe in 1998. Michael, 14 at the time, was targeted by the police when he seemed "distant and preoccupied" after Stephanie's body was discovered, and the rest of the family grieved. After two days of intense questioning, Michael admitted to killing Stephanie. His confession was vague and lacked detail; he said he could not remember committing the crime but believed he must have done so based on what the police were telling him. The confession was videotaped by police and showed Michael making statements to the effect of, "I'm only saying this because it's what you want to hear". His admission has been cited as a classic example of a coerced false confession during police interrogation.
Joshua Treadway, a friend of Michael's, was questioned and gave a detailed confession after many hours of interrogation. Aaron Houser, a mutual friend of the boys, was questioned and did not confess but presented a "hypothetical" and incriminating account of the crime under prompting by police interrogators using the Reid Technique
The Reid technique is a method of interrogation. The system was developed in the United States by John E. Reid in the 1950s. Reid was a psychologist, polygraph expert, and former Chicago police officer. The technique is known for creating a high ...
. All three boys subsequently recanted their statements, claiming coercion.
Crowe's confession and Houser's statements to police were later thrown out as coerced by a judge; part of Treadway's confession was also ruled inadmissible. Later all charges were dropped against each of the three boys. Prosecutors later charged an unrelated party with the crime. His defense team argued that the three boys who were first charged had been responsible.
The charges against the three boys were dismissed without prejudice (which would allow charges to be reinstated at a later date) after DNA testing
Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...
linked a neighborhood transient, Richard Tuite, to Stephanie's blood. Embarrassed by the reversal, the Escondido police and the San Diego County District Attorney
The San Diego County District Attorney is the elected district attorney for San Diego County, California. This office is responsible for the prosecution of both felony and misdemeanor violations of California state law that occur within the juri ...
let the case languish without charges for two years. In 2001 the District Attorney and San Diego County Sheriff's Department
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department (SDSD), is the primary and largest law enforcement agency in San Diego County, California, and one of the largest sheriff's departments in the United States: with over 4,000 employees, an annual budget ...
asked that the case be taken over by the California Department of Justice
The California Department of Justice is a statewide investigative law enforcement agency and legal department of the California executive branch under the elected leadership of the California Attorney General (AG) which carries out complex cri ...
.
Tuite was convicted of the murder in 2004, but the conviction was overturned. At the second trial in 2013, the jury found him not guilty. The murder of Stephanie Crowe remains unsolved. In 2012, Superior Court Judge Kenneth So made the rare ruling that Michael Crowe, Treadway, and Houser were factually innocent of the charges, permanently dismissing the City of Escondido case against them.
A TV movie
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
was made about the case called ''The Interrogation of Michael Crowe'' (2002).
Corethian Bell (2000)
In 2000, Corethian Bell, who has a diagnosis of mental retardation, was accused of murdering his mother, Netta Bell, after he had found her body and called police in Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...
. Police questioned him for more than 50 hours. He said he eventually confessed to the murder of his mother because police hit him so hard he was knocked off his chair, and because he thought that if he confessed, the interrogations would stop. He believed that he would be able to explain himself to a judge and be set free. His confession was videotaped, but his interrogation was not. At the time Cook County prosecutors were required to videotape murder confessions, but not the preceding interrogations. With his confession on tape, Bell was tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail.
When the DNA at the crime scene was finally tested a year later, it matched that of a serial rapist named DeShawn Boyd. He was already in prison after having been convicted of three other violent sexual assaults, all in the same neighborhood as the Netta Bell murder. Bell filed a civil lawsuit with the help of Herschella Conyers and her University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...
students, which was settled by the city in 2006 for $1 million.
Kevin Fox (2004)
Kevin Fox was interrogated for 14 hours by Will County, Illinois
Will County is a county in the northeastern part of the state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 696,355, an increase of 2.8% from 677,560 in 2010, making it Illinois's fourth-most populous county. The county seat ...
, police before he confessed to the 2004 murder of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley. He was convicted and sentenced to jail. His confession was later ruled to have been coerced. Because of DNA testing, police later identified Scott Eby as the killer. He was a neighbor living a few miles from the Fox family at the time of Riley's murder. Police identified him as the killer while he was serving a 14-year sentence for sex crime
Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes.
Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...
s. After questioning and confrontation with the DNA results, Eby confessed and later pleaded guilty.
Kevin Fox was released after serving eight months in jail. The Fox family eventually won an $8 million civil judgment against the county government.
Laverne Pavlinac (1990)
Laverne Pavlinac confessed that she and her boyfriend murdered a woman in Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
in 1990. They were convicted and sentenced to prison. Five years later, Keith Hunter Jesperson
Keith Hunter Jesperson (born April 6, 1955) is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many lett ...
confessed to a series of murders, including that of the woman. Pavlinac had become obsessed with details of the crime during interrogation by police. She later said she confessed to get out of the abusive relationship with the boyfriend. Her boyfriend purportedly confessed in order to avoid the death penalty.
See also
* British Post Office scandal
The British Post Office scandal is a miscarriage of justice involving the wrongful civil and criminal prosecutions of an unknown or unpublished number of sub-postmasters (SPMs) for theft, false accounting and/or fraud. The cases constitute the ...
* False evidence
False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence, fake evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally in order to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified evidence could be created by either side in a case (inc ...
* False memory syndrome
In psychology, false memory syndrome (FMS) is a condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by false memories of psychological trauma, recollections that are factually incorrect yet strongly believed. Peter J. Freyd or ...
* Fingerprint
A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...
* Forced confession
A forced confession is a confession obtained from a suspect or a prisoner by means of torture (including enhanced interrogation techniques) or other forms of duress. Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession is not valid in re ...
* Gudjonsson suggestibility scale The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale (GSS) is a psychological test that measures suggestibility of a subject. It was created in 1983 by Icelandic psychologist Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. It involves reading a short story to the subject and testing r ...
* Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal procedure, criminal or civil procedure, civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they actual innocence, did not commit. Mis ...
* Iatrogenesis
Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence. "Iatrogenic", ''Merriam-Webster.com'', Merriam-Webster, Inc., accessed 2 ...
* List of wrongful convictions in the United States
This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
* Police misconduct
Police misconduct refers to inappropriate conduct and illegal actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Types of misconduct include among others: coerced false confession, intimidation, false arrest, false impri ...
* Reid technique
The Reid technique is a method of interrogation. The system was developed in the United States by John E. Reid in the 1950s. Reid was a psychologist, polygraph expert, and former Chicago police officer. The technique is known for creating a high ...
* Timothy Evans
Timothy John Evans (20 November 1924 – 9 March 1950) was a Welshman who was wrongly accused of murdering his wife (Beryl) and infant daughter (Geraldine) at their residence in Notting Hill, London. In January 1950, Evans was tried, and was c ...
* Amanda Knox
Amanda Marie Knox (born July 9, 1987) is an American author, activist, and journalist. She spent almost four years in an Italian prison following her wrongful conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a fellow exchange student with ...
* Trisha Meili
* Martin Tankleff
Martin H. Tankleff (born August 29, 1971) is an American man who was wrongly convicted of murdering his wealthy parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, on September 7, 1988, when he was 17 years old. After serving more than 17 years of imprisonme ...
References
External links
The Confessions
at Frontline
Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield.
Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to:
Books and publications
* ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant
* ''Frontlines ...
NPR: False Confession
Slate: Why make a false confession?
Innocence Project: False Confession
Chicago Tribune: Cops urged to tape their interrogations
The Register: What is a Confessing Sam?
The Truth About False Confessions
* The radio drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
Forced Confession
, from ''Destination Freedom
''Destination Freedom'' was a weekly radio program produced by WMAQ in Chicago from 1948 to 1950 that presented biographical histories of prominent African-Americans such as George Washington Carver, Satchel Paige, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tu ...
'', depicts an American case
{{DEFAULTSORT:False Confession
Evidence law
Criminal investigation
Police misconduct
Abuse of the legal system
Error
Criminal defenses
Confession (law)