What Defense Attorneys and False Confession “Experts” Do Not Want You To Know

Over a period of numerous decades, the courts have examined the issue of false confessions in thousands of cases, as a result of which the following coercive behaviors represent the primary causes of false confessions:

• Physical abuse of the subject

• Threats of physical harm

• Threats of inevitable consequences

• Promises of leniency

• 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

In many confession cases, the defense and their “expert witness” often attribute every action taken during an interrogation to the Reid Technique, even when those actions are fundamentally inconsistent with the Reid Technique Principles of Practice.

In some cases defense attorneys and their ‘confession experts’ have gone so far as to suggest that the Reid technique involves locking suspects in small rooms for hours, denying suspects access to attorneys and a phone call, confining suspects without arrest warrants or legal justification, physically abusing and choking suspects, promising to set suspects free if they confessed, promising that a suspect would be subject to lesser charges if they signed false confessions, drafting false confessions without input from the suspect and demanding they sign them…..labeling all of these actions as part of the “Reid” interrogation process.

Defense attorneys often will use “experts” on interrogation techniques who will testify that the interrogation process consists of what they refer to as the minimization /maximization process in which the investigator suggests inducements that motivate the suspect to confess by minimizing the consequences or the punishment they will receive by offering a suggestion or promise of either leniency or reduced punishment in exchange for cooperation – specifically a confession. They then contrast this “minimization” with what they call “maximization,” in which the investigator threatens or implies more severe treatment or punishment if the suspect refuses to confess….. the use of threats and promises.

The problem with this description of the interrogation process offered by social psychologists and the defense attorney is that the behaviors they refer to are behaviors that we teach investigators not to do…. we teach never to engage in making threats of harm or inevitable consequences or promises of leniency.

Defense attorneys do not want the court or jury to know what the essential elements of the Reid Technique are because it undermines their effort to suggest that the Reid Technique involves coercive behaviors.

Clearly, when you review the Core Principles and Best Practices of the Reid Technique it is clearly evident that the claims made about the technique by defense attorneys and false confession experts are groundless.

In addition to the above, defense attorneys and their interrogation experts claim that the Reid Technique is an accusatory, confrontational process, suggesting that the initial contact with the subject is to accuse them of committing the crime that is under investigation.

To the contrary, we teach that the Reid Technique should always begin with a non-confrontational, non-accusatory investigative interview. Throughout the interview process, the investigator should maintain a neutral, objective, non-judgmental fact-finder approach. No accusations of guilt should be made during the interview process. The interview should begin with casual conversation, biographical information, employment information, etc. to acclimate the subject to the interview process, develop the subject’s behavioral baseline and develop rapport. The investigator should use open-ended questions to develop the subject’s statement, alibi, story, version of events, or explanation of what happened.

After the subject relates their initial story or version of events, the investigator should then ask a series of questions to develop additional details, as well as questions to clarify the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the incident that is under investigation.

False confession “experts” often claim in their testimony 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" but cannot offer any substantiation for this statement.

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 the following:

“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 caution 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

Please feel free to share this Tip and the accompanying PDF which offers a stark contrast between Coercive Investigator Behaviors That Can Cause False Confessions and the Reid Core Principles and Best Practices to Prevent False Confessions