False Confessions by Defendants and the Interrogation Process - Essay Example

? False Confessions by Defendants and the Interrogation Process False Confessions by Defendants and the Interrogation ProcessFalse confession refers to a situation in which an individual admits to a crime which they did not commit. False confession can be induced through mental disorder, coercion, or incompetency of the accused. As much as the use of false confession might seem legally unacceptable, it is a very common scenario in law. False confession can be of a serious negative impact to a judge or justice process. This explains why jurisprudence has come up with ways in which false confessions can be detected and rejected in legal processes. This paper seeks to discuss false confessions by defendants and the interrogation process. False confessions can be categorized into three main categories namely: voluntary false confessions, compliant false confession, and internalized false confession. Voluntary false confession is a result of the individual’s free will without interference by the police. In some cases, this is always done with the aim of diverting attention away from the real criminal. Compliant false confessions refer to false confessions that are given due to some pressure, mostly to avoid implied punishments or promised rewards. Internalized false confessions refer to those that individuals give voluntarily as a result of being made to believe that they committed the crime by use of certain interrogation techniques. There are some techniques that the police use during interrogation and interviews that might lead to acquisition of false confessions. The most common ones are deception and the Reid technique. The Reid technique refers to a method of questioning individuals that involve trying to determine their credibility and to get confessions from them. Those who are in support for this technique argues that it can be very useful in the acquisition of confessions from suspects who are not willing to confess to a crime they committed. However, the use of this technique during police interrogation can lead to the acquisition of highly flawed information from crime suspects. The Reid technique of interrogation involves interrogators telling a suspect that they are sure that the suspect committed the crime. This technique of interrogation is always characterized by the interrogator’s monologue rather than the usual question and answer sessions. The main aim of this technique, therefore, is gradually getting a suspect to acknowledge that presumed truth about the allegations made against the suspect (Nbau, 2013). This assertion can lead to suspects making either compliant false confessions or internalized false confessions. Such situations can lead to cases where interrogation serves injustice instead of giving justice to both the suspect and the victim. Deception is a technique frequently applied and accepted in police interrogations. Deception techniques are always employed with the aim of getting evidence from suspects. There does not exist any regulation or law that forbids the police and investigators from making misleading statements, deceiving the suspects on the strength of their case, or lying that they have a witness who saw the suspect committing the crime (Lassiter, 2006). All these are always aimed at getting suspects to confess to a crime. It can be productive only if the suspect being interrogated is indeed guilty. Deception techniques used in police interrogations are widely different. The main aim of interrogating or interviewing a suspect is always to get factual information relating to a crime, or getting the suspect to confess to a crime they committed. The various deception techniques used during police interrogation include: distorting the meaning or denying Miranda rules that are always guaranteed to all suspects, distorting the seriousness of the implications of the crime, threats, promises about less jail sentence in the case of collaboration, and claims of the existence of a valid witness. All of these forms of deception are considered to be legal. Despite the fact that using deception might be a positive value to the interrogation process, it can also yield negative outcomes. Deception can lead to false confessions. False confessions can be categorized into two types. Coerced-complaint confessions refer to the false confession that a suspect can give voluntarily with the aim of obtaining a certain goal of evading a stressful situation. For instance, a suspect may give a false confession with the hopes of being given a lighter penalty. Coerced-internalized false confessions take place when deception is used to interfere with a suspect’s mental condition to an extent that an innocent suspect believes in his/her own guilt. In such scenarios, deception during the interrogation process results in injustice to the innocent suspects (Gudjonsson, 2003). False confessions that result from police deception can lead to persecution, arrest, incarceration, and conviction of innocent citizens. False confessions can be as a result of misclassification of an innocent suspect as guilty. This is always a result of innocent people being suspected of a crime that they never committed. The truth is that police officers would never get false confessions if they never targeted innocent citizens. However, determining the innocence of an individual is not as easy task. Given the nature of the interrogation process, which involves using various techniques to get confessions, innocent suspects might get to a psychological state in which they see giving a false confession as the best option in the situation they are in (Leo, 2009). This is always a result of psychological coercion. This will only mean that the interrogation process managed to serve injustice instead of serving justice. Studies have proved that individuals have a variance in their ability to withstand the pressure that is always common during police interrogations. Compliant or suggestible people are likely to give false confessions as a result of this pressure. Suggestible individuals can be said to have low self-esteem, high levels of anxiety, low assertiveness, and poor memories. These characteristics make them vulnerable to the pressure that is always involved in police interrogations (Gudjonsson, 2003). This will definitely lead to them giving false confessions as a result of not being able to stand the pressure. This will mean that the judicial process that will make use of such a confession will be highly flawed The police highly use maximization during police interrogations. Maximization refers to an interrogation technique in which an interrogator initiates the interrogation by stating that the suspect is guilty. The interrogator then comes up with a theory of the crime, which in some instances are always accompanied by false evidence. The interrogators always make sure that they ignore any claims of innocence from the suspect. This technique works with the mere assertion that the suspect is guilty and that they should stop wasting everybody’s time by simply confessing to the crime. Such a situation might lead to confession of suspects regardless of whether they are innocent or not. The maximization process is always followed by the minimization process. In this process, the interrogator tries to make the suspect think that the interrogator understands why the suspect had to commit the crime and that the interrogator is very sympathetic with the suspect’s situation. The interrogators even go ahead and makes the suspect believe that despite the fact that the crime had been committed, the suspect had undoubtable reasons to commit the crime and that everyone will definitely be able to understand and empathize with the suspect. This process also involves giving promises to the suspect on good things that might happen if in any case they decide to confess to the crime (Lassiter, 2006). The suspect is also made aware of the consequences of not admitting to the crime. This can definitely lead almost everyone to giving false confessions especially because of the fear of the consequences or attractiveness of the promise given to them by the interrogator. There are various social science researches pertaining to wrongful convictions that aim at finding out ways in which the false value of a confession can be determined. Currently, there are mainly four ways in which false confessions can be determined. When it can be objectively proved that the suspect confessed to a crime that did take place. For instance, if a presumed murder victim reappears alive. A confession can also be said to have been false when it can be objectively proved that the accused could not have committed the crime because of the physical impossibility to have done so. For instance, the suspect being in a different geographical location at the time the crime was committed. When the true criminal is identified, and his/her guilt can be objectively proved it would mean that whoever had confessed to the crime had done so falsely. When there is scientific evidence, most commonly DNA evidence, conclusively proving the confessor's innocence. It is clearly evident that false confession is a common occurrence in law. In most cases, it is always a result of interrogation techniques applied by the police. The paper has clearly shown ways in which police officers might knowingly or unknowingly lead suspects into giving false confessions. However, the admissibility of false confession in legal processes can be highly reduced of scientific techniques for identifying false confessions were developed or used. This is mainly because of the high rate in which wrong convictions are resulting from false confessions. References Gudjonsson, G. H. (2003). The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Lassiter, G. D. (2006). Interrogations, confessions and entrapment. New York: Springer. Leo, R. A. (2009). False confessions: causes, consequences, and implications. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 37(3), 332-343. Nbau, F. E. (2013). Criminal interrogation and confessions. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Read More