
False confessions - j-g-faustus
http://www.economist.com/node/21525840
======
michaelschade
Unfortunately _not_ a lab test, I saw this on Frontline recently and it was
very disturbing to see that confessions could be so easily had:
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-
confessions/etc/...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-
confessions/etc/introduction.html)

Essentially, the story involves these sailors individually confessing to a
crime (and allegedly tailoring their confessions to the investigator's words)
when they were implicated by someone already being interrogated. With each
additional person being interrogated, more people were implicated (who were
previously unnamed), and previous confessions were amended accordingly.

Quite saddening indeed.

~~~
nikcub
The Frontline story was very eerie. The other famous case is the West Memphis
Three:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three>

Who were jailed partly because of a police-coerced confession from one of the
three. They are still in prison, but apparently close to getting a re-trial.

The case was made famous by the excellent HBO documentary 'Paradise Lost' -
which is a must see:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost:_The_Child_Murder...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost:_The_Child_Murders_at_Robin_Hood_Hills)

They are lucky because their case has a high-profile because of the film - but
there must be many, many other innocent people in prisons because of false
confessions.

For example, many people believe that Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in
Texas, was also innocent (he was also the subject of a Frontline story:

<http://video.pbs.org/video/1618590505/>

and a feature in the New Yorker:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann)

~~~
wgren
An interesting read is "Remembering Satan", about a small community torn apart
by accusations of sexual abuse and satanic rituals. Many people confessed,
some were convicted, no evidence was ever produced.

[http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Satan-Tragic-Recovered-
Mem...](http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Satan-Tragic-Recovered-
Memory/dp/0679755829/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313411669&sr=1-1)

~~~
michaelschade
Wow, very creepy stories that both of you posted. Thanks for linking to them.

> They are lucky because their case has a high-profile because of the film -
> but there must be many, many other innocent people in prisons because of
> false confessions.

This is exactly what concerns me–so much effort and attention went into these
few cases that achieved a high profile, but I'm certain that many just like
it–with inconclusive or completely unmatched DNA and police hasty to close an
investigation–exist, and it worries and saddens me to think how many other
people are innocently sitting in prison or on death row as a result.

------
Duff
Rule #1: Don't talk to the police.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik>

You're better off taking the beating.

~~~
baddox
Something I've never understood from one example from that talk: If it's your
word in court vs. the police officer's regarding an unrecorded conversation,
how exactly does _not talking_ help you? In the example (linked below), the
police officer lied in court, saying that the defendant admitted to placing a
hand on the plaintiff when the officer first approached the defendant. How
does being silent help you in that example? The officer could still lie.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik&feature=player_detailpage#t=286s)

~~~
Duff
"Lie" in the eye of the beholder.

To the cop, stating that you touched someone means that you've opened the door
-- it's a thread connecting your story to the plaintiff's. Since you are
probably not routinely interrogated, your body language may reinforce that
thought process as well.

~~~
baddox
In the example, the cop testifies that when he first approached the defendant,
the defendant admitted to placing his hand on the plaintiff's throat, but only
as a joke. The defendant claimed that he never said anything of the sort to
the cop. It was the cop's and plaintiff's word against the defendant's word,
and the defendant was found guilty. How would it have helped if the defendant
had said nothing to the cop? The cop lied about him talking.

To me, the words of a cop and a plaintiff are "reasonably doubtful," but I
guess not. Anyway, my point is that in this example, the cop lied about what
the defendant said.

~~~
StavrosK
It's harder for the officer to lie and say that you said something when you
refused to say anything.

It's easier to just "slip" something in a conversation if you're talking to
him in the first place.

~~~
baddox
How so? If your interaction with the cop wasn't recorded, even if you started
out by saying "I choose to remain silent" and never said another word, the cop
can easily testify that you said something. I don't see how it's "easier" to
change an actual conversation than it is to completely fabricate one.

~~~
StavrosK
> I don't see how it's "easier" to change an actual conversation than it is to
> completely fabricate one.

It's easier because, when you fabricate an entire conversation rather than one
sentence, you have to make up more things.

That's the purely technical argument. There are also psychological
considerations on the part of the officer, people are more likely to
rationalize making up one little thing than making up an entire conversation.

~~~
stretchwithme
Yes, they can ask you all kinds of questions about what you said and make you
appear quite talkative.

Say nothing and you can truthfully say repeatedly that you said nothing.
You'll be able to consistently tell the truth on the stand without having to
explain any of your statements, statements that the prosecution will attempt
to twist into incriminating statements.

Of course, if you do the same to the prosecutor before trial, the chances of
you making it to trial go down. Prosecutors like to win their cases.

------
mc32
I think something like this would have a huge impact on the conviction rate in
Japan where a significant amount is based in coerced confessions. See BBC
article: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8290767.stm>

But this reminds me of the malleability of memory and also herd-like
mentality. I think it was on Tv or somewhere where the experiment involved
flooding a room with participants with fake smoke but confederates were set to
deny it was smoke. The effect was that the fake smoke was ignored. Had it been
a real fire, they'd all have perished.

------
takinola
I used to think the whole false confession issue was bunk. I could not imagine
confessing to a crime I did not commit for the obvious reason that there was
simply no upside. However, this changed when someone I knew told me the story
of how he found himself in a situation where he almost confessed to a crime.
Here's the story

My friend, Bill, was in charge of construction projects at a real estate
development. One night, he gets a phone call at 3 in the morning to let him
know that one of the homes under construction is on fire. He jumps out of bed,
grabs his camera and rushes out to scene of the fire. Once he gets there, he
starts taking pictures in order to get a jump start on the insurance
paperwork. Unfortunately, the firemen trying to put out the fire start to get
suspicious. From their perspective, here's a strange guy taking pictures of
burning homes at 3 in the morning (it's a development so there were no other
occupied homes in the vicinity). They get to thinking maybe he is a pyromaniac
who is now collecting trophy photos of his handiwork. They call the cops, Bill
gets arrested and ends up in the interrogation room. Now, Bill is a pretty
tough guy. Remember, he worked his way up in the construction business to
become a manager so he is not a weakling by any means. However, after a couple
hours of being grilled by the cops, he said he was just about ready to confess
just to make it stop. They didn't beat him or anything, just the relentless
application of all manner of psychological techniques (badgering, cajoling,
threats of long sentences, good-bad cop, etc) completely wore him out. He was
only saved when his boss found out that he had been arrested and called the
station to back up his story.

From that time on, I realized that under the right circumstances, it is
possible for a mentally stable, reasonable person to confess to a crime they
did not commit.

More importantly, I realized that because I can't imagine something happening,
does not mean it can not happen.

------
Aloisius
I've always worried that if I ever became a suspect in a crime that I would
confess under pressure even if I didn't do it. There is something about me
feeling guilty, authority and intimidation that makes me think I might.

Then again, my coping mechanism of becoming flippant/sarcastic could flip on
and I'd confess to murdering JFK, Michael Jackson and Biggie using my
mind/time machine.

~~~
splat
If that's the case, then the first words out of your mouth if you are ever
interrogated are "I would like to exercise my right to remain silent." If you
say that, then the police are legally required to stop the interrogation then
and there. (Ironically, simply remaining silent is not sufficient:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghuis_v._Thompkins>)

~~~
seabee
Ironically but not unreasonably, since if silence were an indicator that you
wished never to speak, people who wanted to talk would never reach that point.

(In the UK there is no such thing as the right to remain silent, unless you
are in a situation in which you are denied access to legal advice (rare). In
all other situations your solicitor will instruct you to say 'no comment' to
any question the police asks you. Funny how it differs.)

~~~
pavel_lishin
> In all other situations your solicitor will instruct you to say 'no comment'
> to any question the police asks you.

Isn't that effectively the same thing?

------
scotty79
I always found it strange that when a guy is saying he was doing something
else noone believes him but when he starts telling he was doing what people
suspect him of suddenly his word is rock solid.

If someone is consistently upset with what you are saying and makes your life
miserable you try behaving differently especially in such stressful situation.

It's useful to listen to people suspected of crimes but you should treat their
"confessions" as a clues where to finds evidence of what actually happened.

~~~
kemayo
Funnily enough, the Phoenix Wright series of games for the Nintendo DS,
despite featuring an utterly ridiculous legal system, has this as a fairly
central element. The basis of gameplay is cross-examining witnesses... and
nearly every single one of them is either lying or misremembering things. I
seem to recall at least one time where you were defending someone who had
already confessed, for that matter.

The lying's not uncommon in TV dramas, but the unreliability of eyewitnesses
accounts certainly is.

------
derefr
It'd be nice if [insert popular TV crime drama] would pick this up and run
with it. We might start to see juries doubting confessions in the same way
they've already been trained by the media to doubt non-forensic evidence.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The burden of proof has apparently been raised to ridiculous levels by CSI,
according to some prosecutors. Juries believe that the sort of thing done on
CSI is realistic, and they expect very definitive results and evidence, which
usually doesn't happen.

~~~
eru
And don't even start to look at court proceedings in Germany, where people are
astonished that it's nothing like in the dubbed American shows they watch.

------
alanfalcon
I confess that I didn't read the article, but this reminds me of the HN story
of the University professor who asked students who cheated to come in to his
office, and then found some large percentage who came to the office though the
software exonerated them.

The question is: did they cheat and get it past the software? Or were they, as
suggested in this article, admitting to something they did not do?

~~~
glimcat
They could easily have been intimidated by the prospect that they would be
wrongfully accused and went to his office under the implied premise of
amnesty. The game as visible to the student is something like an extra essay
assignment weighed against possibly having to fight expulsion.

I suspect that there are similar factors involved in other false confessions.
It's an asymmetric knowledge game. The only winning move for the person being
questioned is not to play, but they may not be aware of that - and worse, they
may trust the other player. With further intimidation, privation, and
humiliation, it's not hard to imagine why people could break down.

------
suprgeek
When I was reading the article, I was wondering when they would get to the
role of interrogations especially aggressive ones. I cannot find the link now
but there was a study which subjected people to sustained questioning that
went on for more than 3 hours without a break. After 3(?) hrs all the subjects
were offered the chance to end the interview if they agreed to deposit some
non-trivial amount of money for 60 days. Something like 95% of people agreed
and even signed (fake but real looking) legal contracts to that effect - even
tough most were students (not rich) recruited for the study.

Never underestimate the stress caused when in a room with people aggressively
questioning you. Even if they do no physical harm, This is VERY stressful.

In the US - "Am I free to go?" and "I want a lawyer" should be at the top of
your 2 item list when in this situation. Remember, the Police care about
solving crimes certainly - they care more about clearing cases quickly.

~~~
a3camero
Three hours? That's nothing for Canadian interrogations.

Here's a 2008 case (from the highest court in a major Canadian province) I
found pretty quickly that's about a four and a half hour interrogation where
the police lie about having DNA evidence that pins the crime on the person:
[http://canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=%22The+interview+...](http://canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=%22The+interview+continued+for+approximately+four+and+one-
half+hours%22&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/bc/bcca/doc/2008/2008bcca127/2008bcca127.html)

Here's a 2000 Supreme Court of Canada case about an approximately eight hour
interrogation (at which point the guy confessed):
[http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2000/2000scc38/2000scc38...](http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2000/2000scc38/2000scc38.html).
There are plenty more of these. There's no hard and fast limit to how long
Canadian police can interrogate you for.

------
res0nat0r
The Confessions on Frontline is one of most interesting reports from that show
that I've seen, it's related to four men who confessed to a crime they didn't
commit. Highly recommended.

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/>

------
mchusma
While the experiment with the ALT key was interesting and can shed some light
on this subject, it would be a mistake to extrapolate too much. I would be far
more likely to assume "I probably did accidentally hit the ALT key" than "Oh,
I probably did murder that person." Hitting the ALT key by accident is
extremely easy, and the punishment in this study small relative to most
criminal offenses.

------
holdenc
When an investigator tells someone that they have two choices: confess and
face potentially five years in jail, or plead not guilty and face potentially
twenty years in jail, what sounds like the best deal?

------
yuhong
Yea, I am well aware of the advice to not talk to the police. But I wonder why
the police would go to such trouble to get confessions as to write a letter to
trick people into doing so etc.

~~~
autarch
Police are generally under a lot of pressure to close cases. Getting a
confession closes a case quickly and neatly.

Watch The Wire to get an idea of what kind of pressures the police face to
"solve" crimes.

~~~
baddox
Also, police have power. Power has a profound impact on most people, and
generally not a good one.

~~~
billswift
I think Frank Herbert had a point when he wrote that it isn't so much that
having power corrupts, as the sort of people who seek power in the first
place.

~~~
foobarbazoo
The experimental record disagrees with Frank Herbert: power corrupts.

It was worth doing the experiments though, so good on him.

------
stretchwithme
Peer pressure is a powerful thing.

