Abstract

Claims of false confessions lead to individualized case assessment embedded in often-elusive understandings of the potential causes of false confessions. Details from undisputed false confessions are the source of empirical knowledge about what leads to false confessions, be they interrogation-driven or suspect-generated. Suspect vulnerabilities, events and features of the interrogation, and the context of questioning together converge and lead, sometimes in synergy, to false confessions. This chapter reviews the salient data and methodological approach needed to maximize relevant, reliable, and valid findings by qualified forensic examiners.

Research of confessors identifies three contributors to the decision to confess (1) perception of proof (2) external pressures, and (3) internal pressures. Perception of proof refers to a suspect’s appraisal of the strength of evidence against him (Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson, 1999). This includes the belief that strong evidence was already established to demonstrate one’s guilt, that police ultimately would prove one’s involvement anyway, or that there was no point denying guilt.

External pressure refers to pressure from police, or even one’s family, to confess. In more extreme interrogations, that pressure may be coercive (Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson, 1999).

Internal pressure refers to one’s own emotions, such as shame or guilt, that may drive a decision to confess. In major crimes, especially sex offenses, shame also contributes to pressures not to confess, as does fear of consequences in jail and fear of reprisals against family (Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson, 1999).

The importance of perception of proof has been demonstrated in a number of studies of inmates who confessed in interrogation

Types of False Confessions

There are four different types of false confessions, each with different causes and associated features.

Coerced Compliant False Confessions These confessions arise in interrogations in which police were either assaultive or menacing to the end that the suspect was so afraid of what was to come that he confessed to end an intolerable experience, or to escape acute threat (Kassin and Wrightsman, 1985). The confession puts an immediate end to the interrogation, which is so intolerable that the suspect discounts the outcome of legal consequences to save life, welfare, or to eliminate a threat deemed credible.

Internalized False Confessions. This type of false confession is more a reflection of the suspect’s distinct qualities than the overt police misconduct as seen in the coerced compliant confession. It is for this reason that internalized false confessions may not be readily appreciated until well into the disposition of justice. Internalized false confessions were originally known as coerced

internalized confessions. However, the term “coerced” is a misnomer, because the qualities of such false confessions do not leave the suspect feeling coerced as they occur. Rather, the suspect is persuaded of one’s guilt and eventually internalizes the idea of guilt over the course of interrogation.

Leverage False Confessions These false confessions may arise within customary and uncontroversial interrogation technique. In multiple suspect cases, when different suspects and witnesses are interviewed in succession, suspects’ statements are leveraged against one another. An officer can tell one suspect that another suspect has been interviewed and has identified this suspect as a prime actor in the crime. This creates pressure within the interrogation for a suspect to then provide a statement that best exculpates himself and incriminates another. And so on.

Voluntary False Confessions. Unlike the other types of false confessions, voluntary false confessions are not driven by interrogation. Instead, the engine for the false confession is the person who turns himself or herself into a suspect. There are several vectors by which voluntary false confessions occur.

Suspect Vulnerability

As a group, adolescents are more likely to be compliant and/or suggestible. For this reason, additional protections to adolescents who would otherwise appear alone in interrogation are

in place in many jurisdictions around the world.

Intellectual disability is overly represented among cases of false confessions. The naivete of those with intellectual disability or very low intelligence is naivete for the criminal justice system in particular. This population is additionally vulnerable because the intellectually disabled are more likely to be highly suggestible and/or complaint.

Length of Interrogation

One suggested risk to false confessions that remains inadequately understood is length of interrogations. In 2004, a law review on false confessions included findings from 48 reported cases that claimed that interrogations were typically 6 h or more (Drizin and Leo, 2004). However, the authors did not distinguish interrogation time from overall time in custody. Empirical research has demonstrated that the suspect’s experience of interrogation and its tension and stakes are qualitatively very different from a suspect’smsolitude in custody, waiting for the next steps of interrogation or the investigation (Cleary, 2014). Therefore, that case sample is

unable to establish the significance of interrogation length as a risk factor for false confessions. No other empirical study of interrogation length and any association with false confessions has been done. Despite a lack of underlying empirical research, police organizations are sensitive to the argument that extended interrogations create a risk for false confessions. Police interrogation training counsels against interrogations longer than 4 h without a confession

except in unusual circumstances (Inbau et al., 2012). The training explains that longer interrogations tie up resources where otherwise needed on questioning that is not likely to yield a confession or useful information.