False confession
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.
People may also confess to a crime they did not commit as a form of plea bargaining 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 scores high on the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale are more vulnerable to making false confessions.
[10] A 2010 study conducted by Fisher and Geiselman showed the lack of instruction given to entry-level police officers regarding the interview process.
[17] 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.
[21] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[19] As Justice Brennan noted in his dissent in Colorado v. Connelly: "Reliance on confessions is due, in part, to their decisive impact upon the adversarial process.
"[19] 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.
[36] 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.
One study into this approach suggests it eliminates the usual camera perspective bias on voluntariness 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.
[44] To aid criminal-justice practitioners and legal policy makers to achieve sound and fair policy, a study in Behavioral Sciences and the Law presented the following recommendations based on the body of research:[32][44] Iwao Hakamada was convicted of murder largely because of a forced confession coerced through threats and violence, spending 57 years behind bars and becoming the world's longest-serving death row inmate.
"[46] Mauha Fawcett[47] Teina Pora[48] 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.
[further explanation needed] 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.
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.
[58] Gary Gauger was sentenced to death for the murders of his parents, Morris, 74, and Ruth, 70, at their McHenry County, Illinois farm in April 1993.
Although his confession contained massive internal inconsistencies and differed significantly from the facts of the physical evidence revealed, the prosecution continued.
[citation needed] 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Embarrassed by the reversal, the Escondido police and the San Diego County District Attorney let the case languish without charges for two years.
[67] 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.
Bell filed a civil lawsuit with the help of Herschella Conyers and her University of Chicago Law School students, which was settled by the city in 2006 for $1 million.
