False confessions: Taping interrogations won't protect suspects from thems

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Jul. 17, 2005

False confessions: Taping interrogations won't protect suspects from themselves

CHRISTOPHER WILLS
Associated Press

CHICAGO - When the interrogation starts, the man is emphatic: He had nothing to do with his girlfriend's death in a hit-and-run. By the end, he's whimpering as he describes hitting her with his car and driving away.

Case closed. The police had their videotaped confession.

The only problem is, physical evidence showed Raymond Wood did not commit the crime. After a year in jail, the Maine courts threw out his confession and set him free.

It may be hard to imagine people confessing to crimes they didn't commit, but experts say police interrogation tactics - even perfectly legal tactics that don't involve violence - can be so powerful they trap the innocent as well as the guilty.
(snip/...)

http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/12156242.htm

[mainer]

1. Interesting phenomenon. More common than we think.

There's documented case after case of people who were either delusional or coerced into making false confessions. All our old ideas of "absolute proof of guilt" are falling by the wayside. For instance, we now know that eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. Physical evidence, if properly processed, is the only thing we can really count on.

[wli]

2. when are the torturegate hearings?

[OKthatsIT]

3. Check out the case - West Memphis 3

3 boys in prison, one expected to be executed...because a 17 yr old with a 70 IQ confessed to the heinous murders of 3 10yr old boys in West Memphis. The authorities corrupted evidence and mishandled the whole investigation to the point of public embarrassment...even to this day the court judge and prosecutors will not acknowledge, nor allow, the case to be reopened with the results of DNA evidence.

These 3 boys have been in jail, in the for over 10 yrs now.

http://www.wm3.org/

[Judi Lynn]

4. Can't believe there hasn't been a lot more attention paid to this case.

Looks like there's been a deliberate effort to keep it out of the national limelight. It'd be good to see someone like Barry Scheck or Peter Neufeld coming forward to examine the details of this situation.

From the link:

For over 11 years, The West Memphis Three have been imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. Echols waits in solitary confinement for the lethal injection our tax dollars will pay for. They were all condemned by their poverty, incompetent defense, satanic panic and a rush to judgment.