False confession “experts” often claim that "the Reid method of interrogation is universally believed to lead to coerced and/or false confessions/statements in a significant number of criminal cases" without any substantiation at all.

Consider the case U.S. v. Jacques (United States v. Jacques, 784 F. Supp. 2d 48 (2011). In this case, the false confession expert testifying for the defense about interrogation techniques was Professor Alan Hirsch. The court stated that:

“In his declaration and at the hearing, Professor Hirsch explained that the primary cause of ‘coerced compliant’ confessions are certain interrogation methods employed by law enforcement, including a widely used method known as the Reid technique....Beyond his own intuition, however, Professor Hirsch offered no basis for concluding that these tactics had any tendency necessarily to cause false, rather than true, confessions.

... Professor Hirsch's declaration offered no other evidence of the danger of certain police interrogation tactics, and the Reid technique in particular, except to say that “the use of these tactics [employed in the Reid technique] and their correlation with false confessions are extensively documented in the literature....Despite this broad statement, he did not provide any further explanation...”

In sum, the proffered expert testimony to the effect that the Reid technique enhanced the risk of an unreliable confession lacked any objective basis for support, whatever. Although Professor Hirsch insisted that “there is a wealth of information about the risks of the Reid technique,” he could point to none.”

No US court decision has ever found that the following Core Principles and Best Practices of the Reid Technique are coercive or in any way cause false confessions:

• Do not make any promises of leniency

• Do not threaten the subject with any physical harm or inevitable consequences

• Do not deny the subject any of their rights

• Do not deny the subject the opportunity to satisfy their physical needs

• Withhold information about the details of the crime from the subject so that if the subject confesses the disclosure of that information can be used to confirm the authenticity of the statement

• Exercise special cautions when questioning juveniles or individuals with mental or psychological impairments

• Always treat the subject with dignity and respect

• Conduct an interview before any interrogation. Absent a life-saving circumstance the investigator should conduct a non-accusatory interview before engaging in any interrogation

• Conduct an interrogation only when there is a reasonable belief that the suspect committed the issue under investigation or is withholding relevant information

• Attempt to verify the suspect's alibi before conducting an interrogation

• When interrogating a non-custodial suspect, do not deprive the suspect from his freedom to leave the room

• Do not conduct excessively long interrogations

• When a suspect claims to have little or no memory for the time period when the crime was committed the investigator should not lie to the suspect concerning incriminating evidence

• Electronically record the interview and interrogation

To the contrary, the courts have consistently found that false confessions are caused by inappropriate conduct by the investigator, such as

• Physical abuse of the subject

• Threats of physical harm

• Threats of inevitable consequences (threats that if the subject did not confess, he would be sent to the penitentiary for more serious crime; threats that his family members would be arrested)

• Promises of leniency (that if he confessed, he would be released from custody; that he would not be prosecuted; that he will be granted a pardon; that he will receive a lighter sentence than the law prescribed)

• Denial of rights

• Denial of physical needs

• Excessively long interrogations

• Disclosure of crime details

• Failure to properly take into account the subject’s mental limitations and/or psychological disabilities

• Failure to properly modify approaches with socially immature juveniles

• Failure to properly corroborate confession details

• Conducting excessively long interrogations

For a more detailed analysis of false confession, see our Investigator Tip, Best Practices That Investigators Should Follow To Prevent False Confessions