“The truth about false confessions”

by Walter Olson on May 31, 2006

They’re a lot more common than you might think, according to this website. See Apr. 6.

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{ 2 comments }

1 J.T. Wenting 05.31.06 at 12:24 am

So what’s a judge to do? Consider someone automatically innocent if they confess in order to prevent convicting someone who comitted fraud by confessing to something he didn’t do?

2 E-Bell 05.31.06 at 8:44 am

I don’t know if false confessions are as common as the web site claims, but there needs to be a better accounting by police departments of the tactics that they use when interviewing suspects. Perhaps require each interrogation session to be videotaped?

The drawback is, if we start second-guessing every interrogation tactic the cops use, there will be grounds to throw out EVERY confession. I wonder if psychiatrists could come up with some kind of standard protocol that would be kind of a “safe harbor” for interrogations, one not likely to result in a false confession.

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