In People v. Oliver (July 2014) the Supreme Court, Kings County, New York rejected the testimony of false confession expert Alison Redlich. In their opinion the court stated the following:

"Dr. Alison Redlich, one of a small group of social scientists who have repeatedly proffered themselves as experts on the subject of false confessions, describes herself as an expert in "the areas of social influence, decision making, scientific methods, and specifically interrogation techniques and confession." She asserts that her testimony "will give jurors a more accurate understanding how to weight [sic] the confession itself and how to avoid using inaccurate cues and assumptions to judge the truthfulness of the confession and/or the defendant's testimony about his confession," yet her proffer makes no reference to the defendant at all, nor to the particular circumstances of this case. Instead, she has provided what appears to be a general treatise on the subject of false confessions. For that reason alone, her proposed testimony does not meet the threshold standard required by the Court of Appeals-that the proposed testimony be relevant to the particular facts of the case before the court.

Moreover, while Dr. Redlich has impressive academic credentials, there are serious reasons to question the extent of her expertise, the legitimacy of the theories she propounds, and her objectivity.

... the Court is not required to accept Dr. Redlich's assertion that her theories are "generally accepted among scientists," especially since many of the researchers she includes in that group are the very researchers whose testimony has been consistently rejected by New York courts. ( See cases cited infra.). As some of those cases make plain, the "relevant scientific community" is not at all unanimous about false confession research, the methods employed by Dr. Redlich and her colleagues, and the conclusions they reach. Dr. Michael Welner, a board certified psychiatrist, is of the opinion that false confessions are "rare events," and that the only way to determine whether a confession is actually false is through DNA testing that disproves the guilt of the confessing defendant.... He dismisses the theories Dr. Redlich and her colleagues advocate as "soft science," pointing out that some of the research actually relied on newspaper reports of cases as sources of allegedly false confessions.

There is even dissension among the researchers that Dr. Redlich cites. One of them, Dr. Saul Kassin, has conceded that there is no "scientific basis for distinguishing true from false confessions," that "further research in the field is sorely needed," and that lay people may be able to assess whether confessions are in fact false.... Dr. Redlich herself has admitted that her theories cannot be tested empirically.

... Dr. Redlich's report is filled with speculation, unsupported theories, and advocacy rather than expertise. There is no empirical support for many of her assertions.

... A review of her curriculum vitae reveals that Dr. Redlich has never worked in any law enforcement capacity, nor does she articulate the basis of her theoretical expertise. She is nonetheless critical of law enforcement in general, and police interrogations in particular, which she describes as "confidence games" with "strategies based on the manipulation and betrayal of trust." Given these views, it is difficult to envision an interrogation of which she would approve. In any case, while she is a critic of the police, the Court does not accept her statement that she is an expert in police methods, at least insofar as this case is concerned."