AlterNet: What Makes Criminal Suspects Give a False Confession?

[marmar]

What Makes Criminal Suspects Give a False Confession?

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted October 2, 2007.


The confession makes a guilty verdict almost automatic. So why are many "suspects" making false confessions?


When 16-year old Kharey Wise entered the Central Park Police Precinct at 102nd St on April 20, 1989, he didn't realize what he was walking into. It was the day after one of the most grisly crimes in official New York memory-the brutal sexual assault of a woman who would become known as the Central Park Jogger-and Wise had been asked to come in along with other black and Latino youths who had allegedly been in the park the night before. Wise was taken to the scene of the crime and shown graphic pictures of the woman's injuries, which included a fractured skull. Eventually, his visit to the police station would lead to an interrogation and, after nine hours of questioning, a videotaped confession that was confusing, convoluted, and chilling.

"Oh man, blood was scattered all over the place. I couldn't look at it no more," Wise told his interrogators. "…We went to the park for trouble and got trouble, a lot of trouble. That's what they wanted and I guess that's what I wanted. When I was doing it, that's what I wanted too. I can't apologize because it's too late. Now we got to pay up for what we did."

The confession was as good as a conviction. By the time it was shown in court, the jury, the city, and the country were convinced Wise and his four co-defendants-who had also confessed-were guilty as sin. But at the trial a problem arose. Despite his taped confession, Kharey Wise now insisted he was innocent. His confession, he said, had been forced out of him by the police.

A few days after Thanksgiving 1990, a dramatic exchange took place on the stand between the prosecutor and Wise. The New York Times ran it:


"Did the police tell you to say, "It was my first rape?'" said, her arms folded tightly around her waist.
"Yes," he said.

"Did they ever tell you to say you had never done it before and would never do it again?"

"Yes."

"Did they tell you to say, "We went to the park for trouble and that's what we got?"

"Yes," he said.

"Did the police make you say 'We got to pay for what we did?'"

"Yes."

"Did they make you demonstrate how she was beaten and raped?"

"Yes."

"How she was punched?"

"Probably."

With that answer, Ms. Lederer shot back: "The police never told you any of those things, did they?"

"I just wanted to go home," he replied.

The jury was not convinced. Unlike his co-defendants, Wise was sent to an adult prison, where he spent 11-and-a-half years behind bars. Then, in 2002, following a confession by another convict (and a conclusive DNA match), he and the other young men - now known as the Central Park Five - were exonerated .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/64113/

[Az]

1. Because modern interrogation techiniques bring it out of people

whether they did it or not. We are dealing with a system using modern psychology and developed methods of overwhelming a person's personality. If the detectives are personally convinced that an individual is guilty they can often coerce them into "remembering" the crime including adding details that the detectives feed them during the interrogation. Like recovered memory of the not to distant past it is a case of the victim being fed false memories by those questioning them in a way that they take into their own memory.

[mrcheerful]

2. Because people are taught to trust and comply with police.

Also most people think that talking to the police without a lawyer they have a chance to get their side of what happened without having to pay for a lawyer or sit in jail until a judge appoints them a lawyer to represent them during questioning. What people don't realize is that the police are not their trusted friends nor do police want the truth they want to solve the "crime" and get convictions. Police are not out for truth or justice, in fact most police are after closing the case as soon and as fast as they can, thats why they resort to the tactics they use to get people to "confess" to crimes even if they know that person is innocent. Then theres also guilt by association, if you have contact with a shady person you have a greater chance of being questioned by police.

[fasttense]

3. If simply interrogating people for hours on end

elicits false information, why does everyone from bush and cheney, to CIA and FBI agents, to at least 30 percent of the public, believe torture elicits accurate information from suspects?

That stupid little scenario, where a suspect has a nuclear bomb hidden in the city, ticking away, and you are asked would you torture him to save millions of people, is implausible to the extreme. You would, never, ever illicit accurate information if you tortured the suspect. In fact, I honestly believe that once you started torturing, you are very, very likely to illicit totally false information.

No the only reason people torture or conduct extreme interrogations is to punish a suspect they believe is guilty. It is about retribution and punishment and not about obtaining information and justice.