Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #165 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Coerced Confession Evidence

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#165 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Coerced Confession Evidence · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: Hi everyone. In our feed you've probably heard the podcast
0:05
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions, hosted by Laura and I Wrider
0:09
Speaker 1: and Steve Drizzen, where they dive into the stories of
0:12
Speaker 1: innocent people who have been subject to tactics that elicit
0:15
Speaker 1: false confessions. As it turns out, these tactics are actually
0:21
Speaker 1: rooted in junk science, just like bitemark evidence, bloodstain pattern analysis,
0:27
Speaker 1: and so many others that we have covered in this show,
0:30
Speaker 1: we want to make it clear that false confessions are
0:34
Speaker 1: another link in this chain of the junk science epidemic.
0:38
Speaker 1: For some of our more avid listeners, this will be
0:40
Speaker 1: something of a refresher for what you've already heard about
0:43
Speaker 1: how twenty five percent of wrongful convictions are based on
0:47
Speaker 1: false confessions. But in today's episode, we're going to unpack
0:52
Speaker 1: the story not of an individual case, but the story
0:56
Speaker 1: of how the junk science that's behind false confessions is
1:00
Speaker 1: employed in the interrogation room. Here's our show. It's a
1:08
Speaker 1: crisp fall morning and you're on your way to the
1:11
Speaker 1: first class of the day, psychology one on one. Just
1:15
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, you started as a freshman at
1:18
Speaker 1: this small college in Massachusetts, and so far, psych is
1:22
Speaker 1: your favorite class. You walk into your classroom and start
1:25
Speaker 1: taking off your jacket while your teacher makes some announcements.
1:29
Speaker 1: He says, the psychology department is conducting an experiment. Participation
1:34
Speaker 1: is completely optional, but anyone who decides to participate will
1:38
Speaker 1: receive extra credit. You're already doing really well in this class,
1:43
Speaker 1: so the extra credit doesn't matter to you that much.
1:46
Speaker 1: But you're curious to see what a psychological experiment will
1:49
Speaker 1: be like, so you sign up. The next week, you
1:54
Speaker 1: show up to the room where the experiment will be conducted.
1:57
Speaker 1: When you get there, there's already another student waiting outside
2:02
Speaker 1: who says she's also here for the experiment. It's not
2:06
Speaker 1: long before a professor comes out into the hall to
2:08
Speaker 1: greet you, and he's well, very professor looking. He wears
2:13
Speaker 1: a tweed jacket and his hair slightly gray. The professor
2:17
Speaker 1: tells you in a very authoritative tone, to sit in
2:21
Speaker 1: front of the computer. He then motions for the other
2:23
Speaker 1: student to sit in the chair next to you. On
2:26
Speaker 1: the table in front of her, there's a piece of
2:29
Speaker 1: paper with letters printed on it. Then the professor takes
2:33
Speaker 1: his seat across from you. Both. He says welcome, Thanks,
2:38
Speaker 1: for joining us today. This experiment will test reaction times.
2:43
Speaker 1: One student will read from a list of letters well
2:46
Speaker 1: the other will type out the letters that she calls out.
2:49
Speaker 1: It's actually a very simple experiment. He pauses for a moment,
2:54
Speaker 1: then looks you in the eye. Just one thing before
2:57
Speaker 1: we begin, be very careful not to hit the alt key.
3:03
Speaker 1: You see, it's right there next to the space bar.
3:06
Speaker 1: The computer program we are using today is a little
3:09
Speaker 1: bit finicky, and hitting that alt key will cause the
3:12
Speaker 1: computer to crash. And if that happens, we'll lose all
3:15
Speaker 1: of our data, and we wouldn't want that to happen.
3:19
Speaker 1: It's not quite the experiment you were expecting, but it
3:23
Speaker 1: sounds like it'll be, I guess, kind of fun. You
3:26
Speaker 1: sit up straight, fingers hovering over the keyboard. The professor says,
3:32
Speaker 1: let's get ready and begin. The student next to you
3:38
Speaker 1: starts reading off letters B, A, J, B, T, S K.
3:46
Speaker 1: The letters come quickly, but you keep up. You think
3:49
Speaker 1: of this as a game, and you want to win.
3:52
Speaker 1: You're laser focused on the task in front of you.
3:56
Speaker 1: But then the screen suddenly glitches and then it goes black.
4:14
Speaker 1: You sit there, frozen, staring at the blank screen. The
4:19
Speaker 1: professor running the experiment sees the confused look on your
4:22
Speaker 1: face and jumps up from his seat. He looks pissed.
4:26
Speaker 1: He walks over to your side of the table, looks
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Speaker 1: at the blank screen, and says, did you hit the
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Speaker 1: alt key?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't know why this happened. I'm going
4:37
Speaker 1: to ask you one more time. The professor says, did
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Speaker 1: you hit the alt key? I said no, I really
4:47
Speaker 1: don't think I did. You're getting flustered, and the professor
4:51
Speaker 1: is clearly angry. What a strange reaction. He stands over
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Speaker 1: you and picks up the keyboard and clicks some keys
4:59
Speaker 1: and nothing happens. You did hit the alt key. I
5:04
Speaker 1: know you did. He turns to the student who is
5:07
Speaker 1: reading the letters and asked her if she saw what happened.
5:12
Speaker 1: She says, hate to say it, but I did see
5:15
Speaker 1: you hit the alt key. The professor storms over to
5:20
Speaker 1: his seat and starts writing furiously on his pad of paper.
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Speaker 1: You're confused, and you feel really bad like you've messed
5:29
Speaker 1: up the whole experiment. You didn't mean to. You thought
5:33
Speaker 1: it was going well. But if the other student said
5:35
Speaker 1: you did it, I mean the computer did crash. You
5:38
Speaker 1: must have hit it by accident. The professor rips off
5:42
Speaker 1: the top page of his writing pad and pushes it
5:45
Speaker 1: toward you. Sign this, he says. You read what the
5:50
Speaker 1: professor has scribbled down. It says, I hit the alt
5:55
Speaker 1: key and cause the computer program to crash. Data was lost.
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Speaker 1: I really don't think I hit it, professor, you say.
6:05
Speaker 1: The professor is now fuming. He practically slams the pen
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Speaker 1: down on the table in front of you. Sign it.
6:14
Speaker 1: The leader of this experiment will call you later today.
6:18
Speaker 1: You think this guy's pretty pissed. I'll just talk it
6:22
Speaker 1: through the organizer of the experiment. When he calls, you,
6:26
Speaker 1: pick up the pen and sign the paper. Just then,
6:31
Speaker 1: another student walks into the room. The professor says to her,
6:35
Speaker 1: we'll have to reschedule our appointment. As he leaves the
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Speaker 1: room to get his appointment book, mumbling something angry to himself,
6:42
Speaker 1: the new student in the room raises her eyebrows at you.
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Speaker 1: She whispers, Hey, what happened? She must have heard all
6:50
Speaker 1: of the yelling. I hit a key on the computer
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Speaker 1: that I wasn't supposed to, and I guess I crashed
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Speaker 1: the computer, you say. The professor comes back, he books
7:01
Speaker 1: a new appointment with the girl who walks in. When
7:05
Speaker 1: she leaves, he sits down and takes a deep breath
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Speaker 1: and says, it's okay, I didn't mean to get so upset.
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Speaker 1: Show me exactly what happened when you hit the alt key.
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Speaker 1: You put your hands on the keyboard, and you say, well,
7:21
Speaker 1: when I was going to hit the A button, I
7:24
Speaker 1: hit the alt key with the side of my hand
7:27
Speaker 1: by accident. The professor writes down a note on a
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Speaker 1: pad of paper, then looks up. Okay, great, His demeanor
7:35
Speaker 1: totally changed. He suddenly calm and seems to be even cheery.
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Speaker 1: That's the end of the experiment. Thank you so much
7:45
Speaker 1: for participating, and let me explain everything. He tells you
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Speaker 1: that the experiment was really not for testing reaction times,
7:54
Speaker 1: but to study whether presenting someone with phony evidence and
7:58
Speaker 1: then accusing them can lead that person to admit to
8:02
Speaker 1: doing something that they did not do. Turns out, everyone
8:07
Speaker 1: else that was in that room with you, the student
8:10
Speaker 1: reading out the letters, the one that later asked you
8:13
Speaker 1: what happened, they were all in on the experiment. The
8:17
Speaker 1: professor tells you that you did not, in fact hit
8:20
Speaker 1: the ald key, but you certainly aren't the only person
8:24
Speaker 1: to falsely admit that you did. The story you just
8:30
Speaker 1: heard is based on an experiment that was conducted by
8:33
Speaker 1: psychology professor Saulcasten at Williams College in nineteen ninety six.
8:38
Speaker 1: Now he did the experiment to better understand why people
8:43
Speaker 1: confess to crimes they did not commit. You might be thinking, well,
8:47
Speaker 1: admitting to hitting an ald key sounds like a sort
8:50
Speaker 1: of low stake scenario. It's nothing like admitting to a
8:54
Speaker 1: rape or a murder, and that's precisely the point. In
8:59
Speaker 1: the state scenario of Casson's experiment. It seems like there
9:03
Speaker 1: would be less of a reason to lie. So the
9:06
Speaker 1: experiment actually underscores how a combination of applying pressure and
9:12
Speaker 1: false inculpatory evidence can cause someone to doubt themselves to
9:17
Speaker 1: the point of admitting to something they did not do,
9:20
Speaker 1: even in a low stress situation. So it logically follows
9:25
Speaker 1: that when the stakes are as high as being accused
9:27
Speaker 1: of something like rape or murder, the stress and vulnerability increases,
9:33
Speaker 1: as does the likelihood that someone will falsely confess. Often
9:39
Speaker 1: when I tell people about Chorus confessions, they say I
9:42
Speaker 1: would never confess to something I didn't do. But if
9:46
Speaker 1: you were able to relate to the student in this experiment,
9:49
Speaker 1: if you could just imagine yourself second guessing your own
9:53
Speaker 1: actions in that scenario, then it's likely that you too
9:57
Speaker 1: are susceptible to the tactics that are often employed by
10:01
Speaker 1: law enforcement to obtain a confession, regardless of whether you
10:05
Speaker 1: are innocent or guilty. I'm Josh Dubens, civil rights and
10:12
Speaker 1: criminal defense attorney, an innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project
10:16
Speaker 1: in New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science, we
10:21
Speaker 1: examine the psychology behind coerce confessions. Interrogation techniques that detectives
10:28
Speaker 1: use when questioning a suspect are in fact, very efficient
10:32
Speaker 1: and extremely effective. They routinely result in getting people to
10:37
Speaker 1: confess to committing crimes, and that presents a really unique
10:41
Speaker 1: dilemma for detectives investigating those crimes. They know that once
10:46
Speaker 1: they get someone in that windowless room of a police precinct,
10:50
Speaker 1: they will oftentimes be able to get them to confess,
10:54
Speaker 1: which means those detectives better have real evidence, not merely
10:59
Speaker 1: a gut feeling or a hunch, real proof tying a
11:03
Speaker 1: suspect to a crime before subjecting them to the crucible
11:07
Speaker 1: of an interrogation, because while this process is great at
11:11
Speaker 1: getting guilty people to confess the crimes they committed, it
11:15
Speaker 1: is also great for getting innocent people to confess the
11:20
Speaker 1: crimes they did not commit.
11:26
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12:30
Speaker 1: Course, confessions have been a part of our criminal justice
12:32
Speaker 1: system for a long time. Take, for example, the case
12:36
Speaker 1: of Stephen Born in eighteen nineteen, detectives found three big
12:41
Speaker 1: bones in Stephen's backyard in Vermont. The police alleged that
12:45
Speaker 1: the bones belonged to his brother in law, who had
12:47
Speaker 1: gone missing and was presumed to have been murdered. The
12:51
Speaker 1: police told Stephen, the only way you're going to avoid
12:54
Speaker 1: the death penalty is to confess and stand trial, and
12:58
Speaker 1: so Stephen confessed. He put his fate in the hands
13:02
Speaker 1: of a jury who declared him guilty of murdering his
13:05
Speaker 1: brother in law. Stephen was convicted and sentenced to death.
13:09
Speaker 1: Luckily for him, before his execution date, his brother in
13:13
Speaker 1: law was found alive and well hanging out in New Jersey,
13:17
Speaker 1: and those bones they found in Stephen's backyard turns out
13:21
Speaker 1: they were animal bones all along. He was lucky to
13:25
Speaker 1: escape the gallows. And still, even after so many false confessions,
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Speaker 1: just like Stephen Bourne's, the confession of a suspect continues
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Speaker 1: to be seen as the gold standard and evidence of
13:39
Speaker 1: a person's guilt. Jurors can never seem to wrap their
13:43
Speaker 1: heads around the fact that someone might confess to a
13:46
Speaker 1: crime they didn't commit, and the tactic for obtaining a
13:51
Speaker 1: confession from a suspect only got better. In nineteen forty seven,
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Speaker 1: a detective named John Reid began to still the methods
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Speaker 1: and principles of interrogations into a scientific procedure designed to
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Speaker 1: increase the likelihood that a suspect would confess. John Reid
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Speaker 1: was a polygraph expert for the Chicago Police when he
14:17
Speaker 1: began to develop his nine step process, called the Read technique.
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Speaker 1: He claimed that his technique could diagnose truth and deception.
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Speaker 1: The Reed technique spread throughout the country and is still
14:30
Speaker 1: popular today. According to the Red and Associate's website, over
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Speaker 1: half a million law enforcement and security officers have attended
14:39
Speaker 1: their training programs. And while John Reid's technique indeed increased
14:44
Speaker 1: the likelihood of securing a confession from crime suspects, not
14:49
Speaker 1: much had been done to understand whether these tactics produced
14:52
Speaker 1: confessions that were actually accurate and truthful. That is until
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Speaker 1: Saul Cassen began conducting his computer crash experiments at Williams College.
15:04
Speaker 1: Doctor Casson's experiment tested for some of the variables that
15:08
Speaker 1: are often used during the red technique. The first variable
15:12
Speaker 1: is vulnerability. Cassen made his test subjects feel vulnerable by
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Speaker 1: putting them in the mildly stressful situation of having them
15:21
Speaker 1: type letters at a rapid pace. Another variable was false
15:26
Speaker 1: incriminating evidence. When students in the experiment were told that
15:31
Speaker 1: someone saw them hit the alt key, they were much
15:34
Speaker 1: more likely to sign a confession. In fact, of the
15:38
Speaker 1: students who were asked to type at a fast pace
15:41
Speaker 1: and then were told that someone saw them hit the
15:43
Speaker 1: alt key, one hundred percent of them confessed. Although none
15:49
Speaker 1: of them actually hit the alt key, they all admitted
15:52
Speaker 1: to the crime when presented with false incriminating evidence. On
15:57
Speaker 1: top of that, sixty five percent of student udens who
16:00
Speaker 1: were presented with false incriminating evidence actually believed in their
16:04
Speaker 1: own guilt. This was measured by how many of the
16:07
Speaker 1: students said, I hit the key When that third student,
16:11
Speaker 1: remember the one that enters the room for their quote
16:13
Speaker 1: unquote appointment, A seemingly more neutral party comes into the
16:17
Speaker 1: room and says, hey, what happened. Finally, thirty five percent
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Speaker 1: of the students actually internalize their guilt to such a
16:26
Speaker 1: degree that they made up details about it by saying,
16:29
Speaker 1: for example, oh, I hit the alt key with the
16:31
Speaker 1: side of my hand. The fact is that none of
16:35
Speaker 1: these students had hit the alt key, yet under these
16:38
Speaker 1: controlled conditions, they confessed to something they didn't do. Inducing
16:44
Speaker 1: vulnerability and presenting false, incriminating evidence are the cornerstones of
16:48
Speaker 1: the red technique. What doctor Casson's experiment shows is that
16:53
Speaker 1: interrogation techniques like John Reid's are a recipe for causing
16:58
Speaker 1: innocent people to admit to things that they did not do.
17:06
Speaker 3: You can flip a coin and be as accurate in
17:09
Speaker 3: determining whether somebody is telling the truth or not as
17:13
Speaker 3: a trained police officer, and trained police officers are no
17:17
Speaker 3: more effective at that than your average person. And in fact,
17:21
Speaker 3: there have been numerous psychological studies and nothing correlates to
17:27
Speaker 3: being able to do that to any degree of scientific validity.
17:32
Speaker 3: And that's really where the junk science of this technique
17:36
Speaker 3: comes in, because the reality is you can't tell whether
17:41
Speaker 3: or not somebody is lying by verbal and nonverbal behavior.
17:47
Speaker 1: So with us today we have the amazing David Rudolph.
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Speaker 1: David is a phenomenal, phenomenal criminal defense attorney, civil rights attorney,
17:58
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform, AVAC. The list goes on and on.
18:02
Speaker 1: He is a friend of mine, a personal hero of mine,
18:05
Speaker 1: and many of you have probably seen him in the
18:09
Speaker 1: Netflix series The Staircase, which followed the trials of his
18:15
Speaker 1: client Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife. Now,
18:20
Speaker 1: David has worked on countless wrongful conviction cases and cases
18:24
Speaker 1: in which people have found themselves sitting in an interrogation
18:28
Speaker 1: room getting broken down by detectives. And he is someone
18:32
Speaker 1: who has studied course confessions and really dug into how
18:36
Speaker 1: the psychological techniques used by these interrogators can result in
18:41
Speaker 1: a wrongful conviction. So, David, I want to dive right
18:45
Speaker 1: into the read technique. What is it and how is
18:49
Speaker 1: it different than say standard police interview.
18:53
Speaker 3: When you're trying to elicit information, What you're really doing
18:56
Speaker 3: is interviewing, not interrogating. You're asking open ended questions, You're
19:01
Speaker 3: following up on things, not for the purpose of confronting
19:05
Speaker 3: the person, but rather for the purpose of finding out
19:08
Speaker 3: what actually happened, And that's not designed to get a confession.
19:14
Speaker 3: The retechnique is simply a protocol for how to interrogate someone.
19:21
Speaker 3: And this is important. Who you already believe is guilty.
19:25
Speaker 3: You don't use the retechnique in order to elicit information.
19:29
Speaker 3: You only use the retechnique in order to secure admissions
19:34
Speaker 3: and then ultimately a confession.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about that for a second, because
19:39
Speaker 1: you said something interesting, and that is that the interrogator
19:45
Speaker 1: will actually use this technique on the person they believe
19:48
Speaker 1: to be the guilty suspect. They might not have any
19:52
Speaker 1: physical evidence to prove that, but they have a hunch,
19:56
Speaker 1: or they're zeroing in on someone because of tunnel vision,
19:59
Speaker 1: whatever the case, maybe they think this is their guy,
20:03
Speaker 1: and they bring that person in for questioning. And they're
20:06
Speaker 1: not simply trying to find out the truth, right, They're
20:10
Speaker 1: sole objective when they employ this technique is to get
20:14
Speaker 1: a confession.
20:15
Speaker 3: Absolutely. It's intuition plus arrogance. You know, that's my recipe
20:21
Speaker 3: for how this all starts. You have a police officer
20:23
Speaker 3: who's done one hundred five hundred, one thousand investigations and
20:28
Speaker 3: they know who they like for the crime. You know,
20:31
Speaker 3: if it's a wife who's dead, they like the husband immediately.
20:35
Speaker 3: If the husband has a mistress, well that's the clincher.
20:39
Speaker 3: So there's all these sort of preconceptions, and then the
20:43
Speaker 3: arrogance is that they know because they've done it so
20:46
Speaker 3: many times. And you know, part of what we ought
20:49
Speaker 3: to recognize here is that when you're doing that, you're
20:52
Speaker 3: obviously already thinking the person's guilty, and so confirmation bias
20:56
Speaker 3: is going to start leaking in. And this is especially
20:59
Speaker 3: true and it's ironic where there's not much other evidence.
21:04
Speaker 3: Picture this situation. So there's a vicious crime, just an
21:08
Speaker 3: awful uproar in the community, and this police officer believes,
21:14
Speaker 3: legitimately believes that this other person is the purp, but
21:18
Speaker 3: there's no evidence. The pressure to get that person to
21:21
Speaker 3: confess becomes enormous because if you don't, then there's no case.
21:28
Speaker 3: And so ironically enough, there's much more pressure to get
21:33
Speaker 3: a false confession when there's no evidence. So that means
21:37
Speaker 3: there's much more pressure to get a false confession when
21:41
Speaker 3: the person is innocent.
21:44
Speaker 1: So David walk us through this technique. Let's say you
21:46
Speaker 1: have a husband suspected of killing his wife. Police ask
21:52
Speaker 1: him to come down to the station. What's the first
21:55
Speaker 1: thing that happens.
21:56
Speaker 3: What you do in the retechnique is first you isolate
21:59
Speaker 3: the person. You put the person in an uncomfortable position,
22:04
Speaker 3: you shut them off from any support system, and you
22:08
Speaker 3: make them anxious so that they're more susceptible to the
22:13
Speaker 3: other techniques that are going to follow. And so the
22:16
Speaker 3: person is feeling vulnerable. And when you feel vulnerable, you're
22:21
Speaker 3: much more likely to give in to pressure, particularly if
22:27
Speaker 3: you're all alone in a strange place, surrounded by imposing
22:31
Speaker 3: authority figures who have guns. I don't think there's very
22:35
Speaker 3: many people who wouldn't feel a bit of panic at
22:40
Speaker 3: that situation, just psychological panic. So it's a whole notion
22:45
Speaker 3: of creating a situation where you are uncomfortable that you
22:49
Speaker 3: want to get out of, and then creating a situation
22:53
Speaker 3: where the only way out is to say what those
22:56
Speaker 3: bullies want you to say.
23:07
Speaker 1: You know, I'm imagining the guy in our hypothetical who
23:10
Speaker 1: is probably just overcome with grief from having just lost
23:16
Speaker 1: his wife, and then the last place he wants to
23:20
Speaker 1: be is where he ends up, you know, in some
23:23
Speaker 1: dank room at a police station, and it's you know,
23:28
Speaker 1: got no windows, it's always got those uncomfortable chairs and
23:33
Speaker 1: they leave them to cool as heels, right, and he
23:37
Speaker 1: sits there by himself for a while, and then the
23:39
Speaker 1: detectives come in and the questions start and tell our
23:45
Speaker 1: listeners what techniques the interrogators use to sort of capitalize
23:51
Speaker 1: on his vulnerability.
23:53
Speaker 3: What you do during the interview phase is you ask
23:56
Speaker 3: a series of questions, some of which are called behavior
24:00
Speaker 3: provoking questions, and there are questions that are designed, at
24:04
Speaker 3: least in the officer's mind, to provoke responses that they
24:08
Speaker 3: can then use to determine whether the person is telling
24:12
Speaker 3: the truth or not. So, you know, it might be
24:14
Speaker 3: questions like why would somebody be saying that you were
24:17
Speaker 3: at the crime scene if you really weren't, Or what
24:21
Speaker 3: do you think should happen to the person who did this?
24:25
Speaker 3: You know, when you ask a husband, why would your
24:29
Speaker 3: own friends be saying that they think that you might
24:33
Speaker 3: have done this? And you're thinking to yourself, well, you know,
24:38
Speaker 3: maybe some of my friends saw that time when you know,
24:42
Speaker 3: my wife and I got into an argument over the
24:44
Speaker 3: car or whatever it is. And so you're just trying
24:48
Speaker 3: to come up with some explanation because the officer is
24:52
Speaker 3: asking you for one, and you minimize it because it
24:55
Speaker 3: wasn't a big deal, and so you talk about it
24:58
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden that then becomes the
25:01
Speaker 3: takeoff point. Well, that wasn't the only time that you
25:04
Speaker 3: had an argument, wasn't. No, it wasn't the only time
25:07
Speaker 3: we had an argument. Well, let's talk about some of
25:09
Speaker 3: the other times you had arguments. And the idea is
25:13
Speaker 3: that if you ask enough of these behavior inducing questions,
25:17
Speaker 3: you as a trained police officer looking at verbal and
25:21
Speaker 3: nonverbal cues, you know, hesitation, how their eyes are looking,
25:26
Speaker 3: that you can tell if they're lying or not.
25:29
Speaker 1: A lot of us have this notion that investigators have
25:31
Speaker 1: this heightened ability to tell if someone is lying or not,
25:35
Speaker 1: and that's just not the case. We know that there's
25:37
Speaker 1: no science to back up that an officer can tell
25:41
Speaker 1: if you are or are not telling the truth. But
25:44
Speaker 1: that doesn't help the person sitting in that interrogation chair.
25:47
Speaker 3: Any answer you give is subject to confirmation, bias, and interpretation.
25:53
Speaker 3: And that's why this whole thing is junk science. There's
25:58
Speaker 3: no logic to it. No, there's no basis for it.
26:02
Speaker 3: It's simply, let me ask a couple of hard questions
26:05
Speaker 3: and see if the person is getting nervous or more nervous.
26:08
Speaker 1: Okay, so now the cop is certain at least in
26:12
Speaker 1: his or her mind that the person in front of
26:14
Speaker 1: them committed the crime, even though there's no proof to
26:18
Speaker 1: back that hunch up. So what's the next step.
26:22
Speaker 3: Now? The goal is to get the confession, especially, as
26:27
Speaker 3: I said earlier, when there's no other evidence. So the
26:31
Speaker 3: tone of the whole conversation changes. It now turns sharp,
26:35
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, the officer says, listen, you know,
26:39
Speaker 3: we've been talking for a while and I just have
26:41
Speaker 3: to tell you. We know you're guilty. The person says, well, no,
26:44
Speaker 3: I'm not, and the officer says, well, don't bother lying
26:48
Speaker 3: to me about it. So the person says, no, I
26:52
Speaker 3: didn't do it. Well, then can you explain why your
26:55
Speaker 3: DNA is on the knife? The officer says, you know,
27:00
Speaker 3: maybe it was so horrible that you've blotted it out
27:03
Speaker 3: of your memory. You know, maybe that's why you don't
27:05
Speaker 3: remember it. But how do you explain that that DNA
27:09
Speaker 3: is on that knife? And there is no DNA on
27:12
Speaker 3: the knife. But the officer is now aligning to the
27:16
Speaker 3: person in order to induce the person to be sort
27:21
Speaker 3: of incredulous about his own guilt or innocence. And so
27:28
Speaker 3: there are cases where people actually become convinced people are innocent,
27:33
Speaker 3: become convinced that, yeah, maybe I actually did this, or
27:38
Speaker 3: yeah I did this, and the person knows they didn't,
27:42
Speaker 3: but yet if they're told that they did, at some
27:45
Speaker 3: point they become convinced that they must have done it.
27:50
Speaker 3: Why else would this person be saying that.
27:53
Speaker 1: And I think the most important point here is that
27:56
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that the police can't lie.
28:00
Speaker 3: To them, and in fact, in most countries they can't.
28:03
Speaker 3: In the Great Britain, the cops cannot lie to you
28:06
Speaker 3: about the evidence. But our Supreme Court has said, oh no,
28:10
Speaker 3: it's fine for you to lie to a suspect about
28:12
Speaker 3: the evidence, because after all, he or she knows if
28:15
Speaker 3: he's innocent that it can't be true. Well, that ignores
28:19
Speaker 3: the psychology of it. The truth of the matter is
28:22
Speaker 3: that cops are allowed to lie during interrogations everywhere in
28:26
Speaker 3: the United States, because the United States Supreme Court has
28:30
Speaker 3: said that's not a violation of due process and it's outrageous.
28:35
Speaker 3: Why should they be able to lie to you about
28:39
Speaker 3: something as serious as a crime and the evidence of
28:42
Speaker 3: a crime. I'm not aware of any other English speaking
28:45
Speaker 3: country where that's okay. It's not okay in Canada, it's
28:49
Speaker 3: not okay in Great Britain, it's not okay in Australia
28:53
Speaker 3: or New Zealand. We are the only country I'm aware
28:56
Speaker 3: of where that's permissible. And that's there's a big, big
29:01
Speaker 3: problem that needs to be corrected.
29:04
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I try to put myself in these
29:08
Speaker 1: people's shoes all the time, and I think about what
29:11
Speaker 1: it would be like if an officer said to me
29:15
Speaker 1: that my friend claimed that I murdered someone when I didn't,
29:20
Speaker 1: and that there's DNA evidence against me. I mean, I
29:24
Speaker 1: would feel just totally screwed, you know, scared alone. And
29:30
Speaker 1: you know, after these interrogators confront the suspect, they say
29:34
Speaker 1: we have this evidence. They might even tell them that
29:37
Speaker 1: they have witnesses that have identified them at the scene.
29:40
Speaker 1: They give all of this false, incriminating evidence. This is
29:45
Speaker 1: constant psychological pressure being applied to a suspect and it
29:50
Speaker 1: is increasing their vulnerability. Okay, The suspect gets more and
29:55
Speaker 1: more scared, more upset, and the detective starts talking about
30:01
Speaker 1: the serious consequences, and the suspect is starting to get
30:06
Speaker 1: convinced that you know, they're going to go to prison
30:10
Speaker 1: for something they didn't do, so tell us what typically
30:14
Speaker 1: happens next.
30:15
Speaker 3: What happens is the police go into minimization, moral justifications
30:21
Speaker 3: excuses for the potential behavior. So they say things like, well,
30:26
Speaker 3: you know, we can understand how this might have happened.
30:28
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you may have been provoked, maybe
30:33
Speaker 3: this was in self defense. From the minimization, they go
30:37
Speaker 3: to two other techniques, and I'll call them active encouragement
30:42
Speaker 3: and alternative theories. So active encouragement is they're trying to
30:47
Speaker 3: sort of say, you know, we're just trying to help
30:50
Speaker 3: you here. It's going to look a lot better for
30:53
Speaker 3: you if you explain that this was just because your
30:57
Speaker 3: uncle made you do it than if the DA and
31:01
Speaker 3: the jury thinks you did this because you're a monster.
31:04
Speaker 3: You're telling them that he's going to do You're going
31:06
Speaker 3: to be charged based on this evidence, and now you're
31:09
Speaker 3: providing this lifeline if you will. I've had situations where
31:14
Speaker 3: people have been told if you don't confess, you're going
31:17
Speaker 3: to get life. If you do confess, we'll treat you
31:21
Speaker 3: as a juvenile offender.
31:23
Speaker 1: So what's happening here is that the person is told
31:27
Speaker 1: you don't really have any good or attractive options. Right,
31:31
Speaker 1: they're often told, as you said, you're going to get
31:33
Speaker 1: life in prison or even the death sentence if you
31:37
Speaker 1: don't confess, And the interrogators tell them that confessing will
31:42
Speaker 1: at least get them the better of two horrible options. Right,
31:45
Speaker 1: You'll get life instead of the death penalty. It doesn't
31:48
Speaker 1: really leave the innocent person with much of a choice,
31:51
Speaker 1: does it.
31:52
Speaker 3: To top it all off, Josh, if you're innocent and
31:57
Speaker 3: all you want to do is get out of that room,
31:59
Speaker 3: you know you've now been in there for two hours,
32:02
Speaker 3: three hours, four hours, they haven't accepted any of your denials,
32:07
Speaker 3: and now you just wanted to stop. And what you
32:11
Speaker 3: think to yourself if you're innocent, is if I just
32:15
Speaker 3: agree with what they're saying, If I just agree with
32:18
Speaker 3: what they're saying, this is going to stop. And when
32:21
Speaker 3: I get out of here, you know, I can explain
32:24
Speaker 3: why this happened, and everyone's going to understand that I'm innocent,
32:27
Speaker 3: because that's what the evidence is going to show, and
32:32
Speaker 3: you know, it just becomes the path of least resistance.
32:35
Speaker 3: The other piece you need to understand is it's not
32:37
Speaker 3: just a person saying I'm guilty, because that's just the
32:41
Speaker 3: first step.
32:42
Speaker 1: Right, because a jury's got to be able to believe it.
32:45
Speaker 1: The confession has to sound convincing.
32:48
Speaker 2: You know.
32:49
Speaker 3: If all it was was the person said, yeah, I
32:51
Speaker 3: did it, I don't think a jury is going to
32:53
Speaker 3: give that a whole lot of weight. But when the
32:56
Speaker 3: person's confession includes details that own only the perpetrator could know, well,
33:02
Speaker 3: the perpetrator and the police. Once it has those details,
33:08
Speaker 3: it becomes persuasive evidence. It's not just why would an
33:12
Speaker 3: innocent person confess? It's how would an innocent person know
33:16
Speaker 3: these things? And that's where the power comes in, you know.
33:20
Speaker 3: It's the details about where the attack occurred, how it occurred,
33:25
Speaker 3: what weapon was used, how long it took, what time
33:29
Speaker 3: it occurred. All of these are fed into the person,
33:32
Speaker 3: you know, with leading questions. So do you remember it
33:36
Speaker 3: was about nine pm when you finally entered the house,
33:39
Speaker 3: you know? And when you went into the house, do
33:42
Speaker 3: you remember that the first place you went was into
33:44
Speaker 3: the kitchen and that's where you found the knife? Right,
33:48
Speaker 3: So there's all these leading questions that if you're innocent
33:54
Speaker 3: and you're trying to get out of there, you're accepting
33:57
Speaker 3: you don't even have to say it. You just say
34:00
Speaker 3: yeah or mm hm, and those then get incorporated into
34:05
Speaker 3: a written statement. And you've already gone so far as
34:09
Speaker 3: to say all this, so you figure, what the hell,
34:11
Speaker 3: I'll sign it, and then your life is over.
34:14
Speaker 1: So, David, what can we do here? The system keeps
34:18
Speaker 1: on churning out false confessions? How do we get this
34:22
Speaker 1: to stop?
34:24
Speaker 3: Stop using this particular technique. It's an enormously effective technique
34:29
Speaker 3: to get guilty people to confess. We can all agree
34:33
Speaker 3: on that. The problem is it's also an enormously effective
34:37
Speaker 3: technique to get innocent people to confess.
34:41
Speaker 1: I think certain law enforcement officials in this country might
34:45
Speaker 1: resist that because they'll think, well, if we don't use this,
34:48
Speaker 1: then we are losing this critical tool for getting suspects
34:53
Speaker 1: to confess. And if we don't have this, then we're
34:57
Speaker 1: not going to be able to convict someone who who
35:00
Speaker 1: committed a crime. But that's not really the case, right
35:03
Speaker 1: because there are other more reliable techniques out there. So
35:07
Speaker 1: tell us about some other ways that detectives can obtain
35:12
Speaker 1: a confession that doesn't employ or doesn't include employing the
35:18
Speaker 1: read technique.
35:20
Speaker 3: In Great Britain, they use a completely different method, and
35:24
Speaker 3: it's called the piece method peacee And you don't try
35:29
Speaker 3: to force the conversation in any particular way. You're simply
35:34
Speaker 3: conducting a really thorough interrogation or interview that has been
35:38
Speaker 3: planned out in advance. You know exactly what you're going
35:41
Speaker 3: to ask, you know what you want to talk about,
35:44
Speaker 3: you know what you want to ask questions about, you
35:46
Speaker 3: know what evidence there is, and so you can judge
35:49
Speaker 3: the validity of what the person's saying by the actual evidence,
35:52
Speaker 3: not by false evidence. And it's a completely different technique,
35:58
Speaker 3: and it is not something that results in the kinds
36:02
Speaker 3: of false confessions that you see in the United States.
36:06
Speaker 3: If there's other evidence, then you don't necessarily need the confession.
36:13
Speaker 3: All you may need are some inconsistencies in the person's
36:17
Speaker 3: statement to sort of nail the case down. And if
36:21
Speaker 3: there is no other evidence, why would you try to
36:25
Speaker 3: get a confession where the confession may very well not
36:29
Speaker 3: be accurate.
36:31
Speaker 1: Now, another part of the problem here that we touched
36:34
Speaker 1: on a bit is not just the false confession, but
36:37
Speaker 1: also how convincing it ends up being when it is
36:42
Speaker 1: presented to a jury. Is there any insight into what
36:45
Speaker 1: other countries do in that regard.
36:48
Speaker 3: You know, in the United States, a jury has to
36:51
Speaker 3: come back with either guilty or not guilty, and not
36:54
Speaker 3: guilty sort of implies innocence. In Scotland there's a vertict
37:00
Speaker 3: called not proven, and I think the verdicts in every
37:06
Speaker 3: country should be either proven or not proven, because if
37:10
Speaker 3: that was the verdict, the presumption of innocence becomes less
37:16
Speaker 3: important in a sense, because the focuses on did the
37:20
Speaker 3: state prove its case right?
37:23
Speaker 1: Because a journam might be thinking shit, if I say
37:26
Speaker 1: not guilty, what I'm really saying is that the person
37:29
Speaker 1: absolutely didn't do it. And what I really want to
37:32
Speaker 1: say is that who knows. The person may have done it,
37:36
Speaker 1: but the prosecution just did improve their case. So if
37:40
Speaker 1: you include this other sort of line item or this
37:43
Speaker 1: notion that they have in Scotland not proven on the
37:47
Speaker 1: verdict form, it would actually be a way to protect
37:51
Speaker 1: the presumption of innocence exactly.
37:54
Speaker 3: I think that that would go a long way towards
37:58
Speaker 3: focusing jurors attention on the actual question.
38:02
Speaker 1: These seem to be really big changes that are going
38:05
Speaker 1: to take a lot of time and effort to accomplish.
38:08
Speaker 1: We like to be able to provide our listeners with
38:11
Speaker 1: some insight into what they can be doing to help
38:14
Speaker 1: change the system. So what would you tell our listeners
38:18
Speaker 1: they can be doing to help effectuate change, especially when
38:22
Speaker 1: it comes to wrongful confessions or coerce confessions.
38:28
Speaker 3: Please go sit on juris to talk to your fellow
38:32
Speaker 3: jurors and talk to your friends and neighbors and co
38:35
Speaker 3: workers about these issues. When you hear somebody's confess to
38:40
Speaker 3: a crime, go and talk with other people and explain
38:45
Speaker 3: that it may not be what it seems, because that's
38:48
Speaker 3: how this changes. It changes from the bottom up, not
38:51
Speaker 3: from the top down.
38:54
Speaker 1: What I want for all of you to take away
38:56
Speaker 1: from today's episode is some practical advice. Now you might
39:00
Speaker 1: be thinking, I'll never be in this situation. This would
39:04
Speaker 1: never happen to me. I'm sure that most people that
39:08
Speaker 1: have ended up being interrogated by the police thought the
39:11
Speaker 1: exact same thing. It's not going to happen to me
39:15
Speaker 1: until it does. Unfortunately, your innocence is not a safeguard
39:22
Speaker 1: against being incarcerated. As we discussed in this episode, innocent
39:27
Speaker 1: people are often more likely to falsely confess than the
39:31
Speaker 1: actual perpetrator of a crime. For a few reasons. First,
39:36
Speaker 1: they think that because they're innocent, they don't need a lawyer.
39:40
Speaker 1: They'll just go in there, speak to the cops, tell
39:43
Speaker 1: them the truth, and that'll be that. The problem is
39:48
Speaker 1: that interrogators who are following the read technique don't take
39:52
Speaker 1: the words you say at face value. Instead, they look
39:56
Speaker 1: behind the words and look for reasons why those words
40:00
Speaker 1: port your guilt. Remember, most of the time, they have
40:03
Speaker 1: decided that you were probably involved before you even get
40:07
Speaker 1: in that room. That is why you were being interrogated
40:10
Speaker 1: in the first place. Another reason why many innocent people
40:14
Speaker 1: confess is because none of us are immune from the
40:18
Speaker 1: effects of the psychological warfare administered under conditions that are
40:22
Speaker 1: simply the perfect storm for vulnerability. And believe me, it
40:27
Speaker 1: happens to the toughest among us I have seen it.
40:30
Speaker 1: It is simply too difficult to withstand that type of
40:33
Speaker 1: pressure until the day comes when we are able to
40:37
Speaker 1: enact the type of reform that David talked about, things
40:41
Speaker 1: like preventing law enforcement from lying to suspects about the
40:45
Speaker 1: existence of evidence tying them to the crime. The reality
40:48
Speaker 1: is that we all need to protect ourselves. Preventing false
40:53
Speaker 1: confessions starts with an understanding of the tactics investigators use.
40:59
Speaker 1: You are now armed with that knowledge, and it should
41:02
Speaker 1: always end with if God forbid you ever find yourself
41:06
Speaker 1: being interrogated, is my name is Christopher Ochoa, John Restivo,
41:14
Speaker 1: Sante Tribble, Clementia Geary, and I want a lawyer, and
41:20
Speaker 1: you don't answer a single question after that. Next week
41:30
Speaker 1: we'll explore the junk signs of roadside drug testing with
41:33
Speaker 1: Greg Glaud. Wrongful Conviction Junk Science is a production of
41:39
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number One.
41:43
Speaker 1: Thanks to our executive producer Jason Flam and the team
41:46
Speaker 1: at Signal Company Number One executive producer Kevin Wardis and
41:50
Speaker 1: senior producers Karen Kornhaber and Britz Spangler. Our music was
41:55
Speaker 1: composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram
41:58
Speaker 1: at dubin Josh. Follow the Wrongful Conviction podcast on Facebook
42:03
Speaker 1: and on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at
42:06
Speaker 1: wrong Conviction