Category Archives: False confessions

Press release from the Center on Wrongful Convictions:

Thanks to Michael D. Ranalli, Chief of Police, Glenville, New York, Police Department for his insightful and important article that appears this month in The Police Chief (magazine) about how system failures lead to tunnel vision and wrongful convictions.  Ranalli compares an officer who elicits a false confession from a suspect to an officer who is lax on the job and as a result gets physically beaten by a suspect.  Both occur, says Rinalli, as a result of cutting corners and a lack of focus and vigilence.  Some highlights:

Officers consciously or unconsciously need to come up with a theory of the case that makes sense. Once that is done, there can be a tendency to have tunnel vision. Other leads or avenues that do not fit into this theory may be ignored or are viewed in the light of confirmatory bias. In other words, the facts that fit the theory are accepted and followed up on, and the ones that do not confirm the theory are either dismissed or made to fit the theory. It is human nature for officers to apply their own knowledge and experience to the examination of the actions of others. For many officers, it would not make sense  Continue reading →

This question has puzzled criminologists, psychologists and criminal lawyers for  centuries. It goes against the grain of all rational permutations, why a person would, on his own ‘volition’ own up to a crime he did not commit. Prof. Mark Godsey succintly restated the befuddling conundrum this way: ‘The idea that a suspect would falsely confess to a crime that he did not commit seems counterintuitive and nonesensical. Psychiatrists and social scientists are examining the reasons why false confessions occur, and we have a long way to go before we will have a complete answer’.

David K. Shipler in his article in the New York Times of February 23, 2012 attempted to grapple with the question. He identified shoddy police investigation; suspects apprehension and fear of the system – ‘They are susceptible to suggestion, eager to please authority figures, disconnected from reality, or unable to defer gratification’. In the case of children, he states: ‘Children think they will be jailed if they keep up their denial and will get to go home if they go along with interrogators’. As for adults, he opined that ‘Matured adults of normal intelligence have also confessed falsely after being manipulated’.

The penultimate and concluding paragraphs offers 2 suggestions which I consider apposite. He says –

1. ‘The police could be prohibited from lying about nonexistent evidence; from inducing a suspect to imagine leniency; from questioning minors without a parent or a lawyer present. They could be required to corroborate a confession with stringent evidence:

2. Finally, post-conviction challenges of confessions could be assigned to judges and prosecutors other than those who tried the original cases. The natural unwillingness to admit a grave error should not have to be overcome for justice to be done’

The full text of the article can be read herehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/why-do-innocent-people-confess.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=falsearrestsconvictionsandimprisonments