Dr.
RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL
LAW UNIVERSITY
ACADEMIC SESSION:2021-2022
PSYCHOLOGY-III
FALSE CONFESSIONS
Submitted to: Submitted by:
Ms. Isha Yadav Saddhvi Nayak
Psychology 200101114
RMNLU 3 rd semester (Section B)
B.A.L.L.B(Hons.)
CONTENTS
S.NO. Topic Pg.NO.
1. Declaration 3
2. Acknowledgement 4
3. Introduction to false confessions 5-6
4. Causes of false confessions 7-9
5. Types of false confessions 9-12
6. Conclusion 11-12
7. References 12-13
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the project work entitled “False
confessions” submitted to the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya
National Law University, Lucknow is a record of an original
work done by me under the guidance of Ms. Isha Yadav, faculty
of psychology, the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law
University and this project is submitted in the partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of B.A.L.L.B
(Hons.). The results embodied in this have not been submitted to
any other University or Institute for the award of any degree or
diploma.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research paper would not have been accomplished without the
generous contributions of individuals. First of all, I express my gratitude
to the Almighty, who aided me with his strength, wisdom and patience to
complete this project as a term paper.
Additionally, I express my gratitude and deep regards to my teacher Ms.
Isha Yadav for giving me the freedom to work on “False confessions”
and also for her exemplary guidance, monitoring and constant
encouragement throughout the course of this research paper.
I would also like to thank the authorities of Dr. Madhu Limaye Library
who provided the remote access of the library to provide the research
material.
Moreover, I also thank all my batchmates and seniors who aided me
along the way, and my family and friends for their constant
encouragement without which this assignment would not have been
possible.
I know that despite my best effort some discrepancies might have crept
in which I believe my humble professor would forgive.
THANKING YOU ALL.
Saddhvi Nayak.
INTRODUCTION TO FALSE CONFESSIONS
False confession is an involuntary statement of guilt made under duress, or as the
result of coercion. Jurors, judges, and prosecutors must be willing to accept that
fact that under the right circumstances just about anyone naïve to the criminal
justice system can be victimized into a false confession. Wrongful conviction has
been increased lately and has gained media attention in the whole world. A variety
of factors may be responsible for such wrongful convictions, including mistaken
eyewitness identification, use of junk forensic science, prosecutorial misconduct,
or ineffective defence counsel representation. In addition, instances of false
confession have been identified as a contributing factor in some wrongful
convictions. In the past two decades, hundreds of convicted prisoners have been
exonerated by DNA and non-DNA evidence, revealing that police-induced false
confessions are a leading cause of wrongful conviction of the innocent. The
incidence of false confessions in practice is, of course, difficult to assess. However,
there exist a disturbing number of documented cases in which defendants
confessed (and even were convicted and sentenced to death) but were later
exonerated by irrefutable evidence. A false confession is a narrative admission to
a crime that is made, orally or in writing, by an innocent person. Research shows
that innocent people may confess in different ways and for different reasons. False
confessions are an important problem in forensic psychology, especially when
viewed in the context of their consequences within the criminal justice system.
Historically, confession evidence is considered the most incriminating form of
evidence that can be presented at trial, a belief that is supported by its effects on
jury decision making. Even when disputed, uncorroborated, and contradicted by
other evidence, confessions are a driving force for conviction. According to the
National Registry of Exonerations, there have been over 2,500 exonerations since
1989, representing more than 23,950 years that innocent Americans spent in
prison. Surprisingly, approximately 12% of these defendants had falsely confessed
to committing the crime. This indicates not only that false confessions happen, but
that hundreds of people have falsely confessed to crimes that they did not commit.
To date, more than 220 individuals have been exonerated by post conviction DNA
testing and released from prison, some from death row. Nevertheless, the DNA
exonerations provide a window into the causes of erroneous prosecution and
wrongful conviction. A disturbing number of these cases involved false
confessions given by innocent defendants during a psychologically coercive police
interrogation. Social science research on wrongful convictions, however, has
demonstrated that there are four ways to prove a confession is false when:
(1)It can be objectively established that the suspect confessed to a crime that did
not happen (e.g., the presumed murder victim is found alive)
(2)It can be objectively established that the defendant could not have committed
the crime because it would have been physically impossible to have done so (e.g.,
he was in another location at the time of the crime)
(3)The true perpetrator of a crime is identified and his guilt can be objectively
established
(4)Scientific evidence, in recent years most commonly DNA evidence,
conclusively establishes the confessor's innocence.
CAUSES OF FALSE CONFESSIONS
There is no single cause of false confession, and there is no single logic or type of
false confession. Police-induced false confessions result from a multistep process
and sequence of influence, persuasion, and compliance and usually involve
psychological coercion. Police are more likely to elicit false confessions under
certain conditions of interrogation, however, and individuals with certain
personality traits and dispositions are more easily pressured into giving false
confessions. Once investigators have elicited a false admission, they pressure the
suspect to provide a post admission narrative that they jointly shape, often
supplying the innocent suspect with the (public and nonpublic) facts of the crime.
Once they have elicited a false admission, they pressure the suspect to provide a
post admission narrative that they jointly shape, often supplying the innocent
suspect with the (public and nonpublic) facts of the crime.
1. Misclassification Error: The first mistake occurs when detectives erroneously
decide that an innocent person is guilty. As Davis and Leo point out, “the path
to false confession begins, as it must, when police target an innocent
suspect…. Once specific suspects are targeted, police interviews and
interrogations are thereafter guided by the presumption of guilt”1. If police
1
Davis D, Leo R: Strategies for preventing false confessions and their consequences, in Practical Psychology for
Forensic Investigations and Prosecutions. Edited by Kebbell M, Davies G. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2006,
pp 121–49
did not erroneously interrogate innocent people, they would never elicit false
confessions. Because misclassifying innocent suspects is a necessary condition
for all false confessions and wrongful convictions, it is both the first and the
most consequential error that police make. There are many cognitive errors that
lead police to classify an innocent person mistakenly as a guilty suspect.
Perhaps the most prominent stems from poor and erroneous investigation
training. American police are taught, falsely, that they can become human lie
detectors capable of distinguishing truth from deception at high, if not near
perfect, rates of accuracy. As Kassin and Gudjonsson note, police detectives
and other professional lie-catchers are accurate only 45 to 60 percent of the
time.
2. Coercion Error: Once detectives misclassify an innocent person as a guilty
suspect, they often subject him to an accusatorial interrogation. Getting a
confession becomes particularly important when there is no other evidence
against the suspect, especially in high-profile cases in which there is great
pressure on police detectives to solve the crime, there is no other source of
potential evidence to be discovered, and typically there is no credible evidence
against an innocent but misclassified suspect. Once interrogation commences,
the primary cause of police-induced false confession is psychologically
coercive police methods. Psychological coercion can be defined in two ways:
first, police use of interrogation techniques that are regarded as inherently
coercive in psychology and law, it include some examples of the old third
degree, such as deprivations (of food, sleep, water, or access to bathroom
facilities, for example), incommunicado interrogation, and induction of extreme
exhaustion and fatigue. In the modern era, however, these techniques are rare in
domestic police interrogations. Instead, when today's police interrogators
employ psychologically coercive techniques, they usually consist of (implicit or
express) promises of leniency and threats of harsher treatment. Second, police
use of interrogation techniques that, cumulatively, cause a suspect to perceive
that he has no choice but to comply with the interrogators’
demands. Interrogation techniques are meant to cause the suspect to perceive
that his guilt has been established beyond any conceivable doubt, that no one
will believe his claims of innocence, and that by continuing to deny the
detectives’ accusations he will only make his situation (and the ultimate
outcome of the case against him) much worse.
3. Contamination Error: Psychologically coercive police methods may explain
how and why a suspect is moved, often painstakingly, from denial to admission,
but a confession is more than an “I did it” statement. It also consists of a
subsequent narrative that researchers have referred to as the post admission
narrative. Police detectives understand the importance of the post admission
phase of interrogation. They use it to influence, shape, and sometimes even
script the suspect's narrative. The detective's goal is to elicit a persuasive
account that successfully incriminates the suspect and leads to his conviction.
Interrogators help create the false confession by pressuring the suspect to accept
a particular account and by suggesting facts of the crime to him, thereby
contaminating the suspect's post admission narrative. Unless he has learned the
details of the crime scene from community gossip or the media, an innocent
person would not know either the mundane or the dramatic details of the crime.
TYPES OF FALSE CONFESSIONS
According to social psychologist Dr. Saul Kassin, false confessions can be
categorized into three general types:
1. Voluntary false confessions
Voluntary false confessions are explained by the internal psychological states or
needs of the confessor or by external pressure brought to bear on the confessor by
someone other than the police or someone in authority. Voluntary false confessions
are frequently attributed to underlying psychological
or psychiatric disorders. However, voluntary false confessions may also arise from
completely rational motives: for example, out of a desire to protect the true
perpetrator.
2. Persuaded false confessions
Persuaded (or internalized) false confessions occur when interrogation tactics
cause an innocent suspect to doubt his memory and he genuinely becomes
persuaded—whether temporarily or permanently—that it is more likely than not
that he committed the crime, despite having no memory of committing it. Studies
have shown that we may be much more susceptible to making a persuaded false
confession than we realize. One such experiment, conducted by Kassin, involved
having students typing on keyboards. He told the students beforehand that the
system had a glitch and told them not to hit the “Alt” key, because doing so would
crash the computer. What the students did not know was that each computer was
already pre-programmed to crash, without the “Alt” key being pressed. After each
computer crashed, the student was then accused of pressing the “Alt” key. At first,
all of the students denied hitting the “Alt” key. However, once Kassin introduced a
few variables (based on actual police interrogation tactics), the students began to
(falsely) confess. For example, when students were told that a witness saw them hit
the “Alt” key, those students confessed at more than double the rate of students
paired with witnesses that said they had not seen anything. Some students
internalized their (false) guilt so deeply that they even came up with excuses for
hitting the “Alt” key, such as “I hit the wrong key with the side of my hand.”
3. Compliant false confessions
Compliant false confessions are given to escape a stressful situation,
avoid punishment, or gain a promised or implied reward. The most notable thing
about a compliant false confession is that it is made knowingly: the suspect admits
guilt with the knowledge that he is innocent and that what he says is false.
Compliant false confessions may be obtained through physical pressure (for
example, torture) but can also be elicited through psychological pressure. Another
interesting possibility is that sometimes compliant false confessions may be given,
ironically, due to the suspect’s confidence in his or her innocence, coupled with his
or her faith in the criminal justice system. In Kassin’s “Alt” key study discussed
above, students who were told that every keystroke had been recorded were much
more likely to falsely confess. This is interesting because, if anything, each student
should have been less likely to confess given that none of them actually hit the
“Alt” key. However, it is possible that these students confessed just to get out of
the conversation, persuaded that once the server records were examined, that they
would be receiving an apology.
CONCLUSION
In recent years, researchers have sought to examine various aspects of false
confessions using an array of methods—including aggregated case studies,
naturalistic observations of live and videotaped interrogations, self-reports from
the police and suspects, and laboratory and field experiments designed for
hypothesis-testing purposes. The consequences of these false confessions are
disastrous for innocent individuals who are wrongfully convicted and incarcerated.
As a result, empirical researchers have also suggested ways to minimize both the
number of false confessions that police elicit and the number of false confessions
that, once elicited, lead to wrongful convictions. Mandatory electronic recording of
police interrogations in their entirety is the single most important policy reform
available because it creates an objective, comprehensive, and reviewable record of
the interrogation that all parties—police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges,
juries, and even the public in high-profile cases—can review. In light of the
numerous wrongful convictions involving false confessions, as well as recent
research, the time is ripe for law enforcement professionals, attorneys, judges,
social scientists, and policymakers to evaluate current practices and seek the kinds
of reforms that would not only secure confessions from criminals but also protect
the innocent in the process. Researchers have proposed other reforms as well,
including improved police training about false confessions, pretrial reliability
hearings to exclude false-confession evidence, putting time limits on
interrogations, prohibiting certain interrogation techniques, greater provision of
expert witness testimony and cautionary jury instructions at trial, and providing
additional safeguards for vulnerable populations such as the developmentally
disabled and juveniles. Until the misconception that innocent suspects do not
confess in response to psychological interrogation is dispelled, police detectives
will continue to elicit false confessions that lead to wrongful convictions. As a
result, social scientists and mental health professionals must continue to conduct
empirical research and educate the public about the increasing documentation of
false confessions and the interrogative influences that promote them and ultimately
lead to the conviction of the innocent. Not only should we abandon the idea that no
innocent person in their right mind would confess to a crime, but that in some
situations, it is rational—or at least extremely understandable—to falsely confess.
REFERNCES
1. Kassin, S. M. (2005). On the psychology of confessions: Does innocence put innocents at
risk? American Psychologist, 60, 215-228.
2. Kassin, S. M., & Gudjonsson, G. (2004). The psychology of confessions: A review of the
literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 33-67.
3. Leo R: Police Interrogation and American Justice. Harvard University Press, 2008.
4. Services, C., Paper, H., Topics, R., Examples, R., Justice, C. and Psychology, F., 2021. False
Confessions (Forensic Psychology) - iResearchNet. [online] Criminal Justice. Available at:
http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/forensic-psychology/false-confessions/ [Accessed
12 November 2021].
5. Psychology Today. 2021. The Psychology of False Confessions. [online] Available at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/so-sue-me/202009/the-psychology-false-
confessions [Accessed 12 November 2021].
6. Leo, R., 2021. False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications. [online] Journal
of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Available at:
http://jaapl.org/content/37/3/332#ref-14 [Accessed 12 November 2021].
