The gist is that coercion doesn’t have to be physical. Nor does the questioner have to even badger the suspect in an illegal or unprofessional way. The supspects own mental processes cause them to look for a way out and they quite often find that confessing fasely seems to give them this “out.”
The topic is brought up in relationship to new evidence that the brutal rape/beating of a jogger in NYC’s Central Park in 1989 may have been committed by a career rapists and not the 6 Harlem teenagers who confessed.
I don’t really want to debate their guilt or innocence–that is a question for the police/prosecutors/courts at this point.
Sure gives more weight to the abolition of the death penalty, even though the death penalty isn’t involved in that case.
IMHO it gives weight to abolishing the death penalty, in cases where a confession is the main or only reason for a guilty verdict. If the “sniper” is caught red handed, tried, convicted, I don’t see where the reliability of a confession would have much to do with using capital punishment.
An even better example is the subject of the book A death in Canaan by Joan Barthel, William Styron. This true-life crime story tells of a teen-age boy who was convinced to confess to beating his mother to death. The (presumably) false confession was elicited by means of some sort of sympathetic questioning procedure. The book makes a strong case that he was innocent, although I don’t believe the actual killer was ever identified. It’s a marvelous book.
Police are quite masterful at psychological manipulation. They don’t need to use physical force.
They use good cop/bad cop, sleep deprivation, limited contact with anyone who can help them (including lawyers), no information on possible continuing developments, and out and out lies about the evidence they do have. Factor in a lot of intimidation and fear, and it’s a wonder there aren’t more confessions.
The sad thing is, these tactics are legal. The police have fairly broad discretion when it comes to the things they are allowed to do. The only way to preserve your rights is to invoke them loudly and forcefully.
I don’t know what methods the police use when interrogating a suspect, but I spent 2 1/2 years working in Army intel with interrogators, and getting accurate information was the top priority, as opposed to just getting someone to “fess up”. That was a HUGE deal there, as bad info could cost lives. I understand that the police may have conflicting motivations in this situation, but I thought is should be noted that this debate isn’t lost on that community.