Would you confess to a crime you did not commit? You may say you would never falsely confess to a crime under any circumstance (especially those with great penalties), but the truth is, false confessions happen more often than you realize.
For instance, take the case of Eddie Lowery. Although Eddie Lowery deep now knew he was innocent of rape, he inevitably confessed and consequently spent 10 years of his life in prison until DNA evidence and the help of the Innocence Project exonerated him.
False confessions can occur for numerous reasons and some people may be more susceptible to falsely confess. For example, the mentally ill and children are highly influenced by police during interrogation and subsequently confess more often than individuals who are not mentally ill or are adults. Other circumstances, such as being deprived of food, water, and the restroom, being interrogated for hours on end (which happened in Lowery's case - he was interrogated for more than 7 hours), and in some instances being beaten, also lead to more false confessions.
Interrogations can also plant false memories in the suspect's head to the extent to which they become real (much like the lost in the mall study described in class). According to Professor Garrett who studies cases such as Lowery's, facts about the case can be intentionally or accidentally brought up in interrogation which plants a seed in the suspect's memory. With constant contamination to the suspect's memory, these "seeds" can grow into evidence that one would think only the person responsible for the crime would know.
Much like you and me, Garrett was shocked by the amount of contamination that had occurred in the cases he studied. Interestingly, more than half of the cases he studied, the suspect was "mentally ill, under the age of 18, or both." Along with that, most of the interrogations were lengthy and held in a pressuring environment. Even more interesting, none of the cases Garrett studied had a lawyer present during interrogation.
Although in some cases evidence that is leaked during interrogations in accidentally, Eddie Lowery felt that the police intentionally contaminated his memories. According to Lowery, after he confessed, the police insisted he recall the process of the crime and corrected him when he got key facts incorrect. For example, Lowery recalled this from his interrogation: "How did he get in (police asking Lowery how the rapist got into the house)" "I kicked in the front door" - Lowery, "But the rapist had used the back door" - Police. Consequently, Lowery changed his story and admitted to going through the back door.
Why are false confessions so important? -- because juries are highly influenced by them when deciding on a verdict. Despite being cleared by DNA evidence prior to going on trial, 8 of the individuals in Garrett's study were still found guilty and sent to jail. Because juries are mostly interested in the details of the case and because false memories have been implanted in the suspect's brain, jury members tend to ignore other facts in the case and focus on the highly detailed confession.
If false confession are so common, what can be done to prevent them? Some police departments have started videotaping interrogations, especially ones that could result in severe punishments (death penalty). Ten states require videotaping and many supreme courts are encouraging tapings of interrogations.
Keeping the case of Eddie Lowery and many others in mind, how do you feel about videotaping interrogations? Do you feel it is necessary for all interrogations (even those where the consequence if found convicted is not severe) or just crimes that could possibly cause someone to serve the rest of their life in prison or even be put to death? Are there better ways to reduce the occurrence of false confessions? What do you feel can and/or needs to be done to free the dozens of innocent people currently serving time behind bars?
Here is a link to the article and more about Eddie's case.
(Thank you Alyssa for sharing!)
For starters false confessions are something that have interested me immensely since I first began learning about them and for a number of different reasons. For one it exploits the human mind. We want to believe that are memories and our thoughts are safe and ours solely, but this just isn't true. As you pointed out it is quite simple to plant memories, to change memories we already have, and to convince us of things we never thought we'd agree with or believe. It also points out how much error exists in our ability to predict our own behavior. Many people, myself included, would like to say that there is no way that they would confess, but evidence shows it happens relatively often. Finally, but most importantly, it exposes problems that exist within our criminal justice system. As we have learned in class memories and the witnesses themselves are things that needed to be treated with great care as to not contaminate them. Unfortunately this is not something we excel at. Police, partially due to the pressure we as society put on them to produce results, resort to extreme measures to get answers. They will take part in the type of behaviors mentioned above. (Using cruel tactics, depriving the suspect of certain things like food and water, and trying to confuse the supsect extensively) I do believe that interroagations should be videotaped. This is for the safety of the supsect as well as that of the police department or other authorities involved. This way there is visual proof of what is happening behind the scenes. Documention may not only help put a stop to the illegal behavior of the CJS, but if viewed later by the authorities involved it may bring a new sense of awareness. I can't say for certain, but it is a possibility that some people in the CJS may not be aware of how much damage they are doing. In very intense cases of wrongful treatment it is rather obvious they do, but in lesser cases this cannot be said with certainty. These tapes could also be used later in training as an example of things to avoid. It makes me sick to think of all the people who are in prison now due to false confessions produced out of fear, confusion, or even a type of surrender. I think confessions shouldn't be taken so seriously by authorities. With all this information on their frequence I think we need to also treat confession cases very carefully and look for ways to test the possibility the suspect is telling the truth. Instead of just looking ways to support that they actually did do it, we must also look at support of them NOT doing the crime. This should help shield us from existing biases about those who confess. For those who are already in jail based on confessions their cases could be reviewed more extensively. This would be reserved for cases that did little to no investigation after the confession was made, of course.