Correcting the Record
On December 23, 2024, the Los Angeles Times published a story entitled “Cops lie to suspects during interrogations. Should detectives stick to the truth?”
The article describes a case in which a man was being interrogated by the police who accused him of killing his father. The article states that the police were “hours” into the interrogation when they falsely told the subject that his father’s body had been found. “Over several more hours,” the article states, the subject was interrogated and eventually said that he had killed his father…the father was, in fact, alive and well.
In another case mentioned in the article, the false confession came after 17 hours of interrogation.
In the first case above, the reporters stated that the officers “were drawing on a playbook of a combative and sometimes deceptive interrogation philosophy.” They then referenced the Reid Technique.
The two reporters who wrote the article had in their possession information prior to the publication of the article that the Reid Technique does not condone excessively lengthy interrogations or any abuse of the subject’s rights, and that Reid recommends that investigators should avoid misrepresentations concerning incontrovertible or dispositive evidence.
We sent 3 emails to the authors detailing the core elements and principles of the Reid Technique (sent December 13, 14 and 16) and discussed the Reid Technique with the two reporters in phone calls on December 13 and 15, 2024. The information provided via email included several links to a number of our Investigator Tips that are published on our website, including:
False Confessions – The Issues to be Considered, which contained the following information:
“To summarize our discussion up to this point, the primary causes and contributing factors for false confessions are the following:
• 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
The best way to avoid false confessions is to conduct interrogations in accordance with the guidelines established by the courts, and to adhere to the following Core Principles and Best Practices:
• 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 based on the
investigative information 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 of his freedom to
leave the room
• Do not conduct excessively long interrogations
• Electronically record the interview and interrogation to establish a record of what was
done and said
• The confession is not the end of the investigation.
Following the confession, the investigator should investigate the confession details to
establish the authenticity of the subject’s statement, develop corroborating information, and attempt to establish the suspect’s activities before and after the commission of the crime.
It is interesting to note that in the 17-hour false confession case referenced in the LA Times article, the investigator failed to investigate the subject’s alibi until after the false confession was obtained. As pointed out above, the alibi should have been investigated before any interrogation occurred.
We also sent the reporters the following links:
Common Erroneous and False Statements About the Reid Technique
As well as the following information on our website:
It has been consistently established by research and the courts that false confessions almost always occur when the investigators engage in coercive behaviors such as threats of harm, denial of rights, promises of leniency, excessively long interrogations, denying the subject the opportunity to satisfy their physical needs, etc., all of which the Reid Technique has been teaching as unacceptable practices for decades.
In one research effort, the author studied the first 110 DNA exoneration cases reported by the Innocence Project. The author reported that “This study failed to find a single false confession of a cognitively normal individual that did not include the use of coercive tactics by the interrogator, such as…the use of physical force; denial of food, sleep or bathroom; explicit threats of punishment; explicit promises of leniency; and extremely lengthy interrogations.” (J. Pete Blair, “A Test of the Unusual False Confessions Perspective: Using Cases of Proven False Confessions” Criminal Law Bulletin Vol 41, Number 2)
In fact, Richard Leo, a well-known law enforcement interrogation critic, has testified on numerous occasions that “when innocent people falsely confess, there's almost always some threat and/or some promise….. So threats and promises typically go together, and in the proven false confession cases, they are in a very high percentage of those cases.”
Leo has testified that “the Reid & Associates manual is sort of the bible of interrogation in America. It was then, and it is now.” When he was asked, “What actions did the officers in this case do that you are opining violated national police interrogation standards?”, he responded, “One would be the use of promises or threats which Reid has advised investigators not to do for over 60 years.” Leo also testified that “ ……. the Reid and Associates training manuals and programs have always from the 1st edition in 1942 to the current edition in 2022, repeatedly implores police investigators not to use any interrogation technique that is “apt to make an innocent person confess.”
The Los Angeles Times reporters were provided with numerous materials that detailed the essential elements of the Reid Technique. If they had recommended that investigators follow the Core Principles listed below, false confessions, even as rare as they are, would be substantially diminished:
• Always treat the subject with dignity and respect
• Always conduct interviews and interrogations following the guidelines established by the courts
• Do not make any promises of leniency or threats of harm or inevitable consequences
• Do not conduct interrogations for an excessively lengthy period
• Do not deny the subject any of their rights
• Do not deny the subject the opportunity to satisfy their physical needs
• Exercise special cautions when questioning socially immature juveniles or individuals with mental or psychological impairments