False Confession
CU R RE N T D I R E CT I O NS IN P SYC H OL OGI C AL SC I EN C E
False Confessions
Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform
Saul M. Kassin John Jay College of Criminal Justice
ABSTRACT—Despite
the commonsense belief that people do not confess to crimes they did not commit, 20 to 25% of all DNA exonerations involve innocent prisoners who confessed. After distinguishing between voluntary, compliant, and internalized false confessions, this article suggests that a sequence of three processes is responsible for false confessions and their adverse consequences. First, police sometimes target innocent people for interrogation because of erroneous judgments of truth and deception. Second, innocent people sometimes confess as a function of certain interrogation tactics, dispositional suspect vulnerabilities, and the phenomenology of innocence. Third, jurors fail to discount even those confessions they see as coerced. At present, researchers are seeking ways to improve the accuracy of confession evidence and its evaluation in the courtroom. interrogation; confessions; evidence
KEYWORDS—police
In criminal law, confession evidence is highly persuasive—yet fallible. Despite the pervasive myth that people do not confess to crimes they did not commit, the pages of American history, beginning with the Salem witch trials of 1692, bear witness to all the men and women who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, often because of false confessions. Although the prevalence rate is unknown, recent analyses reveal that 20 to 25% of prisoners exonerated by DNA had confessed to police, that the percentage is far higher in capital murder cases (White, 2003), and that these discovered instances represent the tip of an iceberg (Drizin & Leo, 2004). After reviewing a number of cases throughout history, and drawing on theories of social influence, Wrightsman and I proposed a taxonomy that distinguished three types of false confessions: voluntary, compliant, and internalized.
False Confessions
Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform
Saul M. Kassin John Jay College of Criminal Justice
ABSTRACT—Despite
the commonsense belief that people do not confess to crimes they did not commit, 20 to 25% of all DNA exonerations involve innocent prisoners who confessed. After distinguishing between voluntary, compliant, and internalized false confessions, this article suggests that a sequence of three processes is responsible for false confessions and their adverse consequences. First, police sometimes target innocent people for interrogation because of erroneous judgments of truth and deception. Second, innocent people sometimes confess as a function of certain interrogation tactics, dispositional suspect vulnerabilities, and the phenomenology of innocence. Third, jurors fail to discount even those confessions they see as coerced. At present, researchers are seeking ways to improve the accuracy of confession evidence and its evaluation in the courtroom. interrogation; confessions; evidence
KEYWORDS—police
In criminal law, confession evidence is highly persuasive—yet fallible. Despite the pervasive myth that people do not confess to crimes they did not commit, the pages of American history, beginning with the Salem witch trials of 1692, bear witness to all the men and women who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, often because of false confessions. Although the prevalence rate is unknown, recent analyses reveal that 20 to 25% of prisoners exonerated by DNA had confessed to police, that the percentage is far higher in capital murder cases (White, 2003), and that these discovered instances represent the tip of an iceberg (Drizin & Leo, 2004). After reviewing a number of cases throughout history, and drawing on theories of social influence, Wrightsman and I proposed a taxonomy that distinguished three types of false confessions: voluntary, compliant, and internalized.
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Tales from the juvenile confessions front. In G.D. Lassiter (Ed.), Interrogations, confessions, and entrapment (pp. 127–162). New York: Kluwer Academic. Drizin, S.A., & Leo, R.A. (2004). The problem of false confessions in the post-DNA world. North Carolina Law Review, 82, 891–1007. Gudjonsson, G.H. (2003). The science of interrogations and confessions: A handbook. Chichester, England: Wiley. ¨ Hartwig, M., Granhag, P.A., Stromwall, L., & Vrij, A. (2005). Detecting deception via strategic closure of evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 469–484. Inbau, F.E., Reid, J.E., Buckley, J.P., & Jayne, B.C. (2001). Criminal interrogation and confessions (4th ed.). Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen. Kassin, S.M. (2005). On the psychology of confessions: Does innocence put innocents at risk? American Psychologist, 60, 215–228. Kassin, S.M., & Fong, C.T. (1999). ‘‘I’m innocent!’’ Effects of training on judgments of truth and deception in the interrogation room. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 499–516. 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Kassin interrogation: A self-report survey of police practices and beliefs. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 381–400. Kassin, S.M., Meissner, C.A., & Norwick, R.J. (2005). ‘‘I’d know a false confession if I saw one’’: A comparative study of college students and police investigators. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 211–227. Kassin, S.M., & Norwick, R.J. (2004). Why suspects waive their Miranda rights: The power of innocence. Law and Human Behavior, 28, 211–221. Kassin, S.M., & Sukel, H. (1997). Coerced confessions and the jury: An experimental test of the ‘‘harmless error’’ rule. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 27–46. Kassin, S.M., & Wrightsman, L.S. (1985). Confession evidence. In S. Kassin & L. Wrightsman (Eds.), The psychology of evidence and trial procedure (pp. 67–94). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Leo, R.A. (1996). Inside the interrogation room. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 86, 266–303. Meissner, C.A., & Kassin, S.M. (2002). ‘‘He’s guilty!’’: Investigator bias in judgments of truth and deception. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 469–480. Oberlander, L.B., & Goldstein, N.E. (2001). A review and update on the practice of evaluating Miranda comprehension. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 19, 453–471. Owen-Kostelnik, J., Reppucci, N.D., & Meyer, J.R. (2006). Testimony and interrogation of minors: Assumptions about maturity and morality. American Psychologist, 61, 286–304. Redlich, A.D. (2007). Double jeopardy in the interrogation room: Young age and mental illness. American Psychologist, 62, 609–611. Russano, M.B., Meissner, C.A., Narchet, F.M., & Kassin, S.M. (2005). Investigating true and false confessions within a novel experimental paradigm. Psychological Science, 16, 481–486. Santos, F. (2006). DNA evidence frees a man imprisoned for half his life. The New York Times, September 20, 2006, p. A1. Vrij, A., Fisher, R., Mann, S., & Leal, S. (2006). Detecting deception by manipulating cognitive load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 141–142. White, W.S. (2003). Confessions in capital cases. University of Illinois Law Review, 2003, 979–1036. Volume 17—Number 4 253