Coerced Internalized False Confessions and Police Interrogations: The Power of Coercion (original) (raw)
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Coerced-Reactive Confessions: The Case of Thomas Quick
Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice
Thomas Quick of Sweden confessed to over thirty murders between 1993 and 2000, and was convicted of eight of them over the course of six trials in Sweden. All the convictions relied on his blurred confessions. He has sincebetween 2011 and 2013been exonerated for all of them. This case report will provide a detailed account of a real life case where the psychiatric patient has kept notes and documents from his period in the psychiatric hospital, uniquely demonstrating the gradual and subtle development of false confessions. In addition to Saul Kassin and Lawrence Wrightsman´s three major types of false confessions, (voluntary, coerced-compliant, coerced-internalized) Quick´s confessions are an example of a fourth type of false confessions coerced-reactive confessions, a subcategory of coerced confessions in that way, as they are not police induced. The confessor has reacted to external pressures outside of the police interrogation setting. Joseph McCann ends his paper with the call for more research on how various sources of coercion impact on the interrogation and confession process and this paper attempts to provide a contribution to that end. However, the Quick story is not only a story of injustice, but also a psychiatric care scandal. As the therapists, more or less unwittingly brought Quick to false confessions it illustrates how confirmation bias in psychiatric health care can poison the subsequent police investigation and result in wrongful convictions. The Quick case teaches us that coercedreactive false confessions in a therapy room can lead to miscarriage of justice in the courtroom.
In October of 1988. 20-year-old Nancy DePriest was tied up, rapcd. and murdered at the Pizza Hut where she workcd in Austin, Texas. Two weeks later, 22-year-old Christopher Ochoa, who worked at anothcr Pizza Hut. and his friend, 18-year-old Richard Danziger, ordcred a beer at the Pizza Hut where DePriest had been murdered. They spoke to the security guard about the killing. asked where DePriest's body had been found. and said they had come to drink a beer in her memory. Suspicious employees thcn called the police. Two days later, police picked up Ochoa, a former high school honor Student with no criminal record. and Danziger for qucstioning. For over 2 days. Austin police detectives interrogated Ochoa offtape. As later events proved, he was not actually involved in the crime. In Ochoa's recounting. the detectives yelled at, harassed, and threatened him for hours; denied his requests for an attomey; told him. lalsely. that he failed three separate polygraph tests; claimed that a codefendant was in the next room and about to implicate him; threatened to throw the book at him if he did not cooperate; thrcw a chair that missed him; threatened him with more violence if he continued
From false confession to wrongful conviction: Seven psychological processes
A steadily increasing tide of literature has documented the existence and causes of false confession as well as the link between false confession and wrongful conviction of the innocent. This literature has primarily addressed three issues: the manner in which false confessions are generated by police interrogation, individual differences in susceptibility to interrogative influence, and the role false confessions have played in documented wrongful convictions of the innocent. Although the specific mechanisms through which interrogation tactics can induce false confessions, and through which they can exert enhanced influence on vulnerable individuals have been widely addressed in this literature, the processes through which false confessions, once obtained by police, may lead to wrongful conviction have remained largely unaddressed. This article addresses this gap in the literature, examining seven psychological processes linking false confession to wrongful conviction and failures of post-conviction relief: (1) powerful biasing effects of the confession itself, including incorporated “misleading specialized knowledge” (inside crime- relevant knowledge displayed by the suspect in the false confession, but acquired through outside sources (such as the interrogator) rather than in the course of the commission of the crime); (2) tunnel vision and confirmation biases, (3) motivational biases, (4) emotional influences on thinking and behavior; (5) institutional influences on evidence production and decision making; and inadequate context for evaluation of claims of innocence, including (6) inadequate or incorrect relevant knowledge, and (7) progressively constricting relevant evidence. We discuss reciprocal influences of these mechanisms and their biasing impact on the perceptions and behaviors of suspects, investigators, prosecution and defense attorneys, juries, and trial and appellate judges.
The "truth" about false confessions
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1971
One of the few experimental studies to focus upon variables which might play a role in police interrogation is Bem's "false confession" research. He showed that subjects com to believe that their false statements are true when emitted In the presence of a discriminative truth stimulus. In an attempted replication, the present study found evidence to support an alternative explanation of this finding, based upon decreased vigilance induced by the truth stimulus. In contrast, the lie stimulus was shown to promote more cautious responding as evidenced by better recall, greater confidence, slower reaction time, and a different pattern of physiological responsivity. rHE "TRUT1'" ABOUT FALSE CONFE3SIONS 1 Christina Maslach Stanford University '.)ne of the clearest examples of behavior control is found in the police interrogation room, where a suspect can often be induced to confess to a crime which he may or may not have committed. Th rtagnitude of this control becomes particularly impressive when we rcealize that the consequences of such behavior are usually imprisonment or death. The manner in which confessions are obtained has imiortant legal implications, since the presence of psychological co:rcion could influence their admissibility as trial evidence. Zimbardo's (1967) analysis of the various psychological techniques used to elicit confessions hi,,,hlights the problems such methods pose for our system of justice.
The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 1998
Because a confession is universally treated as damning and compelling evidence of guilt, 1 , it is likely to dominate all other case evidence and lead a trier of fact to convict the defendant. 2 A false confession is therefore an exceptionally dangerous piece of evidence to put before anyone adjudicating a case. In a criminal justice system whose formal rules are designed to minimize the frequency of unwarranted arrest, unjustified prosecution, and wrongful conviction, police-induced false confessions rank amongst the most fateful of all official errors.. We thank Robert Perske and Michael L. Radelet for providing case materials, and we thank David T.Johnson, Gary Marx and Welsh White for helpful comments. .
Police-induced confessions, risk factors, and recommendations: Looking ahead
Law and Human Behavior, 2010
Reviewing the literature on police-induced confessions, we identified suspect characteristics and interrogation tactics that influence confessions and their effects on juries. We concluded with a call for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and a consideration of other possible reforms. The preceding commentaries make important substantive points that can lead us forward-on the effects of videotaping of interrogations on case dispositions; on the study of non-custodial methods, such as the controversial Mr. Big technique; and on an analysis of why confessions, once withdrawn, elicit such intractable responses compared to statements given by child and adult victims. Toward these ends, we hope that this issue provides a platform for future research aimed at improving the diagnostic value of confession evidence.
Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and Practice, 2020
In the present study, we have taken a novel approach in confession research to investigate and compare situational as well as individual risk factors among false confessors and true deniers among imprisoned offenders who all had been falsely accused by the police. Furthermore, we report first data on selfreported false confession rates among German prison inmates. A semi-structured interview was conducted in four northern German prisons focusing on the interrogation situations in which the participants were falsely accused of a crime they had not committed. Of all respondents, 32% reported to have made a false confession, which is consistent with prior findings in the field. In line with the literature, prison inmates indicated fear of negative consequences and beliefs that the truth will come out as frequent reasons for false confessions. Notably, also strategic/instrumental purposes of their false confessions aimed at minimizing legal or personal repercussions due to the false accusations were revealedalthough to a lesser degree. Implications from this preliminary alternative explanation based on strategic considerations for false confessions will be discussed in light of the common theoretical framework that focuses on psychological distress and deficits of false confessors.
False Confessions and the Use of Incriminating Evidence
Linguistic Evidence in Security, Law and Intelligence, 2013
To date, few experimental studies have looked at the factors that influence people’s willingness to confess to something they did not do. One widely cited experiment on the topic (i.e., Kassin & Kiechel, 1996) has suggested that false confessions are easy to obtain and that the use of false incriminating evidence increases the likelihood of obtaining one. The present research attempted to replicate Kassin and Kiechel’s (1996) work using a different experimental task. In the present experiment, unlike Kassin and Kiechel’s (1996) study, the participants were completely certain that they were not responsible for what had happened, thereby providing a different context for testing the idea that false incriminating evidence increases the likelihood of obtaining a false confession. The results are discussed with respect to factors that may or may not increase individuals’ willingness to offer a false admission of guilt.
Inside interrogation: The lie, the bluff, and false confessions
Law and Human Behavior, 2011
Using a less deceptive variant of the false evidence ploy, interrogators often use the bluff tactic, whereby they pretend to have evidence to be tested without further claiming that it necessarily implicates the suspect. Three experiments were conducted to assess the impact of the bluff on confession rates. Using the Kassin and Kiechel (Psychol Sci 7:125-128, 1996) computer crash paradigm, Experiment 1 indicated that bluffing increases false confessions comparable to the effect produced by the presentation of false evidence. Experiment 2 replicated the bluff effect and provided self-reports indicating that innocent participants saw the bluff as a promise of future exoneration which, paradoxically, made it easier to confess. Using a variant of the Russano et al. (Psychol Sci 16:481-486, 2005) cheating paradigm, Experiment 3 replicated the bluff effect on innocent suspects once again, though a ceiling effect was obtained in the guilty condition. Results suggest that the phenomenology of innocence can lead innocents to confess even in response to relatively benign interrogation tactics.
Hastings LJ, 2010
Nearly all confessions obtained by interrogators nationwide are inadmissible, but nonetheless admitted. In the process, police arrest the wrong suspect and allow the guilty to go free. An unshakeable addiction to pseudo-scientific interrogation methods - initially created in the 1940s- is to blame. The so-called 'Reid technique' of interrogation was initially a welcome and revolutionary change from the violent 'third degree' method it replaced. But, we no longer live in the 1940s and, not surprisingly, we no longer drive 1940s automobiles, practice early twentieth century medicine, or dial rotary phones. Why, then, are police still using 1940s methods of interrogation? Moreover, the outdated Reid technique was premised on the very same principles that underlie the lie detector. At the time of its creation, then, the Reid technique was crafted from a 'science' already discredited by nearly every court in the nation. From a policy standpoint, continued reliance on the Reid technique does a disservice to our justice system and unnecessarily risks obtaining inherently unreliable confessions. From an evidentiary standpoint, the methodology underlying the Reid technique fails every aspect of the Supreme Court’s standards governing the admission of expert evidence. This Article therefore contends that all confessions obtained pursuant to the Reid method are - and were - absolutely inadmissible.