1. Police Investigations, Interrogations, and Confessions
Chapter 6
Police Investigations, Interrogations, and Confessions
Tony Ford update:

2. Innocence Project
Innocenceproject.org

3. False Confessions
Many documented cases of false confessions resulting in conviction (e.g., Eddie Joe Lloyd; Central Park Jogger case)
Estimated rates vary from 60 to >600 per year in US
Rates difficult to estimate - only hard evidence for false confession is DNA testing
Innocence Project tracks cases in which convicted individuals have been exonerated

4. All three identified by eyewitnesses, and all later exonerated.
One-third of those convicted and later exonerated by DNA were They served a combined total of 947 years in prison.

5. Overview Police interrogations and confessions
Interrogation techniques
Detecting deceptions
False Confessions

6. Detecting Lying
Unlike Pinocchio, most of the time people do not give telltale signs that they are being dishonest. In lieu of a growing nose, is there a way to distinguish people who are telling the truth from those who aren't? A new report by Aldert Vrij (University of Portsmouth), Anders Granhag (University of Gothenburg), and Stephen Porter (University of British Columbia) discusses some of the common misconceptions about lying (for example, the belief that people telling lies are more nervous), reviews the shortcomings of commonly used lie-detection techniques, and presents new empirically supported methods for recognizing lies with greater accuracy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest Volume 11, Number 3 Research reveals that verbal methods of deception detection are better than nonverbal methods, despite the common belief that nonverbal methods are more effective. Additionally, there are psychological differences between a person who lies and a person who tells the truth--differences that can be exploited. Conducting an information-gathering interview (e.g., asking suspects to provide detailed statements about their activities) and asking specific types of questions, such as questions that the suspect does not anticipate, may be very effective. Lying is also more cognitively demanding than truth-telling--it requires more brain power to come up with a lie and keep track of it than it does to tell the truth. Imposing cognitive load on interviewees--for example, by asking them to recall the events in reverse order--may also be useful for detecting deception. This research has important implications in a variety of settings, including the courtroom, police interviews, and screening individuals with criminal intent, such as identifying potential terrorists.

7. Polygraph is not admissible in court in Canada, but is used as an interrogation tactic. Tell suspect they failed the lie detector test and use that to try to get them to confess.

8. Peter Reilly
Peter: The polygraph test is giving me some doubts right now. Disregarding the test, I don’t think I hurt my mother.
Det.: You’re so damned ashamed of last night that you’re trying to just block it out of your mind.
Peter: I’m not purposely denying it. If I did it, I wish I knew I’d done it. I’d be more than happy to admit it if I knew it. But I don’t remember it…Have you ever been proven totally wrong? A person, just from nervousness responds that way?
Det.: No, the polygraph can never be wrong because it is just a recording device, recording from you.
Peter: But if I did it, and I didn’t realize it, there’s got to be some clue in the house.
Det.: I’ve got this clue here, the polygraph charts. This is a recording of your mind.
Peter: Would it definitely be me? Could it be someone else?
Det.: No way, not from these reactions.
Peter Reilly was 18 years old when his mother was found murdered in their home. Said he came home and found her bloodied and near death. Called but she died by the time ambulance arrived.
Took polygraph and police told him he failed and that he must have beaten and killed his mother.
After eight hours of interrogation by Connecticut police, he confessed to brutally murdering her. A jury convicted him of first-degree manslaughter based on his confession, and he served three years in prison before a judge set him free in the face of new evidence indicating someone else committed the crime.
The Peter Reilly case, in which Reilly "confessed" to killing his mother, but was saved when it was revealed that prosecutors had withheld evidence placing Reilly far from the scene of the crime when it occurred.

9. Police Interrogations & Confessions
Confessions compelling evidence at trial
Even retracted confessions influence jury verdicts (Kassin & Sukel, 1997)
Jurors view confessions as accurate
Majority are valid, but some are false
Personal vs. situational risk factors (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004)
Personal: compliance, suggestibility, age, etc.
Situational: techniques, time of day, etc.
False Confession organization:

10. Police Interrogations & Confessions
Fundamental attribution error: Tendency to overemphasize dispositional explanations for individual’s behavior while minimizing situational causes
Most people believe they would never falsely confess to a crime
Jurors interpret confession as reflection of actual guilt, discount external causes such as coercion.
Hugo Munsterberg was first psychologist to write about false confession .

11. Review of Legal Cases Canadian Charter; Miranda v. Arizona (1966):
Police must inform suspects of their legal rights before interrogation
Warnings strengthen protection against self-incrimination during interrogation
Right to remain silent
Anything they say can be used against them
Presence of attorney & free counsel if required

12. Review of Legal Cases
Interrogation must cease if suspect invokes right to counsel before or during questioning. This is explicitly worded in Miranda forms but not in Charter wording as we will see later.
Miranda specifically notes that rights must be waived “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently” for confession to be valid.

13. Review of Legal Cases 1/5 suspects exercise rights – Why? (Leo. 1996)
Detectives de-emphasize warnings
Innocent suspects want to show they have nothing to hide
Guilty suspects don’t want to appear uncooperative
Suspects may not fully appreciate they are waiving rights (Costanzo, 2004)
Warnings may not protect those who need it most: those falsely accused (Kassin & Norwick, 2004)

14. Review of Legal Cases Issue of appreciation central to valid warning:
Must recognize nature of police questioning
Must perceive defense attorney as advocate
Must appreciate right to silence
Suspect must understand Charter language
Vocabulary may exceed suspects’ reading level (Rogers et al., 2007)
Mental illness or mental retardation may impact ability to make knowing & voluntary waiver (e.g., Gudjonsson, 2003; Rogers et al., 2007)

16. Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Rights
Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights (Grisso, ; see course text, pp for details)
Assist mental health professionals in evaluating intelligent/valid waiver of rights at time of interrogation
Comprehension of Miranda Rights
Comprehension of Miranda Rights- Recognition
Comprehension of Miranda Vocabulary
Function of Rights in Interrogation

17. The Coercive Nature of Police Interrogations
History of coercive measures:
Mid-1900s: whipping suspects to get a confession was common practice
1980s: stun guns used by the NYPD to extract confessions
More recently: psychological methods such as trickery and deceit (e.g., lying about evidence).
In Canada, courts have recognized as valid confessions that were acquired, even though the interrogators lied, by suggesting they had substantial evidence against a given suspect when in fact they did not. (R. v. Oickle, 2000 SCC 38)
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18. Why would someone confess to a crime one didn’t commit?
Innocence Project: One-quarter of the over 225 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence in the U.S. have involved some form of a false confession.
The following factors contribute to or cause false confessions:
• Real or perceived intimidation of the suspect by law enforcement
• Use of force by law enforcement during the interrogation, or perceived threat of force
• Compromised reasoning ability of the suspect, due to exhaustion, stress, hunger, substance use, and, in some cases, mental limitations, or limited education
• Devious interrogation techniques, such as untrue statements about the presence of incriminating evidence
• Fear, on the part of the suspect, that failure to confess will yield a harsher punishment
• A morbid desire for notoriety. "They're basically drawing attention to themselves,
although they may not be mentally ill," Gudjonsson said. More than 600 people
voluntarily confessed to being the person who kidnapped and murdered the baby of
famed aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1932, Kassin said. Bruno Hauptmann, a Bronx
carpenter who did not confess, was ultimately convicted and put to death in the electric
chair.
• To protect someone. "They're doing their mates a favour," said Gudjonsson, adding the
pattern is more common among young people questioned over less serious crimes. But in
a 1996 study of 509 inmates in his native Iceland, Gudjonsson and another researcher
found women significantly more likely to report falsely confessing to protect a fiancé or
spouse. No woman said she falsely confessed to escape the interrogation room, although
48 per cent of the men did.
• To screw-up an investigation, throw police off-guard or get even with officers who
arrested them in the past.

19. The Reid Model of Interrogation
The Reid model is the most common interrogation method used in Canada
Involves 3 stages:
1. Gather evidence
2. Conduct a non-accusatorial interview to assess guilt
3. Conduct an accusatorial interrogation to obtain a confession
“Nine-step’” model of systematic and unfolding pressure, persuasion, deception and manipulation.
The “Nine-step” method is designed to elicit a confession by breaking down a suspect’s resistance, causing him to feel trapped and hopeless, and offering him inducements (i.e., reasons to confess) that appear to improve his situation by minimizing his culpability if he complies with the interrogator’s demand for confession and, conversely, make his situation worse if he holds to denial .

20. Detecting Deception
Assumption detectives can distinguish truthful suspects by relying on verbal or non- verbal cues not supported by evidence
77% of interrogators reported they could detect deception
Police no more accurate than lay people in detecting lies, but are more confident
Even with training, accuracy is only slightly better than chance

21. Detecting Deception
Ekman & O’Sullivan (1991): Only Secret Service agents performed better than chance
Mann et al. (2004): Police in England detected truth rate better than chance (65%)
More experienced officers performed better
Judgments still frequently wrong
Investigative Bias: presumption of guilt can affect manner in which interrogation/investigation proceeds

22. The Reid Model of Interrogation
Stage 3 involves 9 steps that are used to break down the suspect’s resistance to telling the truth.
The psychology behind this technique is to make the anxiety associated with not confessing to the crime greater than the anxiety related to the consequences of confessing
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23. Reid Technique of Interrogation
“Nine-step’” model of systematic and unfolding pressure, persuasion, deception and manipulation.
The “Nine-step” method is designed to elicit a confession by:
breaking down a suspect’s resistance, causing him to feel trapped and hopeless, and
offering him inducements (i.e., reasons to confess) that appear to improve his situation by minimizing his culpability if he complies with the interrogator’s demand for confession and, conversely, make his situation worse if he holds to denial .

24. Typical Interrogation Room
To begin with, Inbau et al. (1986) advised interrogators to dress in civilian clothing and to set aside a small, completely bare, soundproof room far removed from familiar sights and sounds--without people, telephones, ornaments, or other sources of distraction.
To heighten the tension and diminish the suspect's sense of control, the interrogator is advised to furnish the room with two or three armless, straight-backed chairs and a desk; to keep all light switches, thermostats, and other control devices out of reach; and to invade the suspect's personal space. If possible, the room should contain a one-way mirror, enabling a fellow detective to observe the suspect for signs of fatigue, weakness, anxiety, and withdrawal.
By design, the interrogation room is the most private space in an American police station.
Against the backdrop of a physical environment that promotes feelings of social isolation, sensory deprivation, and a lack of control, Inbau et al. (1986) described in vivid detail a nine-step procedure designed to overcome the resistance of reluctant suspects.
According to Jayne (1986), this technique leads many suspects to incriminate themselves by reducing the perceived negative consequences of confessing while increasing the anxiety associated with deception.

25. Reid Technique 1. Interrogator confronts suspect with guilt
Stated confidently, even in absence of clear evidence, repeatedly
2. Develop “themes” that justify the crime
Interrogator displays sympathy to get trust; themes aim to minimize guilt/provide excuses
3. Interrupt all statements of denial
Denials thought to give suspect psychological advantage; thought to be differences in denials between guilty and innocent suspects

26. Reid Technique 4. Overcome suspect’s objections to charges
Factual, moral, and emotional objections
5. Ensure suspect does not tune out
Suspect increasingly passive, interrogator moves closer, touches, maintains eye contact
6. Show sympathy, urge suspect to tell truth
Display understanding and urge suspect to tell truth

27. Reid Technique 7. Offer suspect face-saving alternative
Interrogator presents two possible alternatives to explain crime: one is face-saving; second more callous/repulsive motivation
8. Get suspect to recount details of crime
Following up on step. 7, ask suspect to orally recount details of crime
9. Convert statement into written confession
Get suspect to sign a confession

28. Interrogation techniques
Maximization: interrogator uses “scare tactics” to intimidate suspect to confess
Emphasize seriousness of offense/magnitude of charges
Make false/exaggerated claims about evidence
Minimization: interrogator provides false sense of security
Offer face-saving excuses, moral justification
Blame victim or accomplice, downplay seriousness of charges

29. False Confessions Voluntary false confessions
A false confession occurs when an individual confesses to a crime they did not commit or exaggerates their involvement in a crime they did commit.
There are three types of false confessions:
Voluntary false confessions
Coerced-compliant false confessions
Coerced-internalized false confessions
To measure the actual validity of confession evidence, one would have to assess the combined frequency with which truly guilty people confess and truly innocent people do not.
Two types of erroneous outcomes are thus possible: false negatives (when guilty suspects fail to confess) and false positives (when suspects who are innocent confess).
In the context of a legal system founded on the ideal that it is better to acquit 10 guilty people than to convict 1 person who is innocent, and in light of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the false positive error--although less frequent than the false negative--presents the more serious problem. Thus, it is important to know what factors increase the risk of a false confession.
It could be argued that the use of trickery and deception does not pose a serious problem because innocent people never confess to crimes they did not commit. This assumption is incorrect. To be sure, nobody knows the rate of false confessions or has devised an adequate method for calculating their prevalence.
Thus, estimates range from less than 35 per year (Cassell, 1996a) to 600 per year in the United States alone (Huff, Rattner, & Sagarin, 1986). Identifying such cases is difficult for two reasons: (a) A confession may be true even if it is coerced and even if the accused retracts the statement and proceeds to trial, and (b) a confession may be false even if the defendant is convicted, imprisoned, and never heard from again. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a criterion by which a confession is deemed false only if independent evidence suggests that the accused is innocent.

30. Voluntary False Confessions
A voluntary false confession occurs without being prompted by the police
Can be the result of a desire for notoriety, an inability to distinguish fact from fantasy, an attempt to protect the real offender, a need to be punished.
Radelet et al. (1992), described one case in which an innocent man confessed to murder to impress his girlfriend and another case in which a woman pleaded guilty just to cover up the fact that she was actually having extramarital sex at the time.
Cases from Kassin 1997 article.
There are several possible reasons. Sometimes the goal is to protect a friend or a relative -- a problem that is
often revealed in interviews with juvenile offenders (Gudjonsson, 1992). Other possible motives, perhaps more
familiar to the clinical psychologist than to the experimental psychologist, include a pathological need for
fame, acceptance, recognition, or self-punishment.
Radelet et al. (1992), for example, described one case in which an innocent man confessed to murder to impress his girlfriend
and another case in which a woman pleaded guilty just to cover up the fact that she was actually having extramarital sex at the time.
In a case Kassin was involved in, a young Wisconsin woman had falsely implicated herself
and a group of motorcyclists in a local murder. She later explained in a long, heart-wrenching letter to the police
sergeant that she lied for the same reason she had previously used drugs and attempted suicide--she craved
attention.
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31. Voluntary confession cases
Laverne Pavlinac confessed that she and her boyfriend murdered a woman in Oregon in They were convicted, then released five years later when Keith Hunter Jesperson confessed to a series of murders. She had become obsessed with details of the crime. Her boyfriend confessed to avoid the death penalty. She later said she confessed to get out of an abusive relationship.
John Mark Karr confessed to the murder of  JonBenet Ramsey. He had become obsessed with the details of her murder and was extradited from  Thailand. His story did not match details of the case, and his DNA did not match that found at the crime scene. His wife and brother said he was home in another state at the time of the murder, and had never been to Colorado .
In January 1990, the battered and raped corpse of Taunja Bennet was found in a ravine in Portland, Oregon. Within a month, the police had a confession, but not from the killer.
A fifty-seven-year old grandmother, Laverne Pavlinac, with no criminal history, reported her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, 43, to the police as the killer. After hours of interrogation, he denied being involved, but Laverne insisted he had boasted about the murder, so he was arrested.
A few weeks later, Laverne had another story. She said that John hadforced her to help him dump the body. But then she changed her story again. She said that she and John were arguing. They had the girl in the car and she died as they had sex with her. Laverne was tearful as she told the tale and expressed remorse over the incident. The police put her in jail as an accomplice.
As Laverne prepared to accept a plea offer for a ten-year sentence, she suddenly claimed that she'd been lying all along. She had confessed because she wanted John jailed to get him out of her life. However, the case was going to trial and a jury gave Laverne 10 years and John pled no contest in exchange for a life sentence.
When Keith Jesperson heard there were two people in custody for his crime, he decided that he wanted credit for his murders. He started leaving messages in truck stop restrooms claiming that he was the real killer and signing them with smiley faces. Finally, he sent an anonymous letter to the newspaper in Portland, Oregon. He provided proof, but he always stopped short of revealing his identity.
In 1995, he was finally identified as being seen with a victim. He readily confessed to six murders, including that of the young woman for whom Laverne and John were serving time, so they were released. 

32. Coerced-Compliant False Confessions
A coerced-compliant false confession occurs in response to a desire to escape further interrogation or to gain a promised reward
The confessor knows that they did not commit the crime
CASE: Four innocent young men confessed independently to the shooting massacre
of six Thai Buddhist monks in a Phoenix, Arizona, temple.
In that case, a psychiatric inpatient called the police,
volunteered a confession, and implicated three other men.
His "accomplices" were then immediately seized and
put under intense late-night pressure. One was interrogated
nonstop for 21 hours; another was told that his
brothers would be arrested. All of the men eventually
confessed and spent 70 days in jail until the real murderers
were discovered (Parloff, 1993).
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33. Coerced-Compliant cases
Michael Crowe confessed to the murder of his younger sister Stephanie Crowe in Michael, 14 at the time, was targeted by police when he seemed "distant and preoccupied" after Stephanie's body was discovered and the rest of the family grieved.
After two days of intense questioning, Michael admitted to killing Stephanie. The confession was videotaped by police, and appeared to be coerced, at times Michael saying things to the effect of, "I'm only saying this because it's what you want to hear.“ The charges were dropped after DNA testing linked a neighborhood transient to her blood. A TV movie was made out of the story called The Interrogation of Michael Crowe in 2002.
Then 14-year-old Michael Crowe was suspected of murdering his 12-year-old sister, Stephanie Crowe, on January 20, 1998 and even confessed to the crime, but was later found to be innocent and released from custody. Crowe's confession had been coerced during a 10-hour set of interrogation over a period of two days. Crowe had repeatedly sworn his innocence until cops began to lie to him about scientific evidence which did not exist. Charges were dropped a year following Stephanie Crowe's death.
A local homeless schizophrenic, Richard Tuite, was convicted of the crime after a shirt of his was found to hold a spot of Stephanie Crowe's blood. Witnesses allege Tuite had been seen in the area on the night of her murder. Tuite was found guilty of manslaughter in 2004.

34. In 1989 a female jogger was beaten senseless, raped and left for dead in New York City's Central Park. Her skull had multiple fractures, her eye socket was crushed, and she lost three quarters of her blood. She survived, but she cannot remember anything about the incident.
Within 48 hours of the attack, solely on the basis of confessions obtained by police, five African- and Hispanic-American boys, 14 to 16 years old, were arrested. The crime scene had shown a horrific act but carried no physical traces at all of the defendants.
Four of the confessions were videotaped and later presented at trial. The tapes were compelling, with each of the defendants describing in vivid--though, in many ways, erroneous--detail how the jogger was attacked and what role he had played.
13 years later, Matias Reyes, who was in jail for three rapes and a murder committed after the jogger attack, volunteered that he was the Central Park assailant and that he had acted alone.
Thirteen years later Matias Reyes, who was in jail for three rapes and a murder committed after the jogger attack, stepped forward of his own initiative. He volunteered that he was the Central Park assailant and that he had acted alone. The Manhattan district attorney's office questioned Reyes and discovered that he had accurate, privileged and independently corroborated knowledge of the crime and crime scene. DNA testing further revealed that the semen samples recovered from the victim--which had conclusively excluded the boys as donors--belonged to Reyes. (Prosecutors had argued at trial that just because police did not capture all the alleged perpetrators did not mean they did not get some of them.) In December 2002 the five teenagers' convictions were vacated.

35. Coerced-Internalized False Confession
A coerced-internalized false confession results from highly suggestive interrogations
The confessor comes to believe that they did commit the crime
Some people are more susceptible to this type of confession (e.g., those with learning disabilities) (Gudjonsson, 1992)
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36. Marty Tankleff
On September 7, 1988, Martin Tankleff discovered the brutally beaten and stabbed bodies of his mother and father in their home in Belle Terre, New York. Although it was Marty who called 911 to report the discovery and who tried to save his father's life (Seymour Tankleff was still barely alive), Marty quickly became the police's prime suspect.

37. Marty Tankleff was convicted of murdering his wealthy parents in 1988
His confession was admitted into evidence despite Tankleff's claims that it was improperly coerced.
Lead detective informed Tankleff during questioning that his father had come out of his coma and named Marty as his attacker. He thought “my father never lied to me.” Tankleff wondered whether he could have "blacked out" and, with the encouragement of the detective, confessed to the murders. Recanted right after release.
After 17 years of imprisonment, his conviction was vacated and he was released from prison.
Though Mr. Tankleff has accused others of being the culprits, and the state conceded that “there is some evidence that others may have committed the killings,” it concluded that the evidence was too shaky to prosecute them.
What type of confession applied to Brenton Butler’s case?

38. The role of compliance and suggestibility
Distinction between compliance and suggestibility is important:
Compliance: tendency to go along with people in authority
Factor in coerced-compliant false confessions
Suggestibility: tendency to internalize information communicated during questioning
Related to coerced-internalized confessions

39. The role of compliance and suggestibility
Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS)
20 true-false items measure:
Tendency to comply with requests/obey instructions for instrumental gain
Susceptibility to pressure from others to commit an offense
Gudjonsson’s Suggestibility Scales
Measures 2 facets of interrogative suggestibility:
Tendency to yield to misleading questions
Tendency to shift answers after receiving negative feedback

40. The role of compliance and suggestibility
Children more suggestible than adolescents and adults; suggestibility decreases as age increases (Warren et al., 1991)
Suggestibility possibly related to likelihood of false confession (Gudjonsson, 2003)
e.g., Redlich & Goodman (2003) computer crash paradigm. Adolescents more likely than adults to take responsibility for computer crash.
Suggestibility related to rights comprehension, as those more susceptible to waive rights also at increased risk for false confession (Redlich et al., 2003).

41. Recommendations for reducing false confessions
Innocence Project recommends video taping entire custodial interrogation
Current practice in over 500 US jurisdictions
Investigators should evaluate suspect’s post-admission narrative to determine consistency with case facts (Leo & Ofshe, 1998)
Coercive techniques forbidden in England & Wales (Bull & Milne, 2004)
Allow expert testimony about research on false confessions
Jurors believe interrogation tactics are not likely to elicit false confessions: will expert witness testimony inform them otherwise?
Authors: Iris Blandón-Gitlin; Katheryn Sperry; Richard Leo
Transcripts read by actual jurors. Ask to give verdict, then also read expert tesimonty.
Study 2’s results showed that before expert witness testimony the majority of mock-jurors found the defendant guilty, primarily due to the influence of
the confession evidence. Despite this, the confession was not viewed by many mock jurors as fully truthful and voluntary. Except for one interrogation tactic, all others
tactics in this case were rated as mildly or somewhat coercive. Most mock-jurors also perceived the interrogation procedures as relatively fair, and noted a great deal of
pressure and implied promises of leniency in those procedures. Most believed the suspect had a choice on whether or not to confess. All of these data suggest that
Mock-jurors experienced some doubts as to the reliability of the confession and perceived a certain level of coercion in the interrogation tactics used, but voted guilty
anyway. After the expert witness testimony there was a 13% decrease in guilty verdicts and an overall increase in coerciveness ratings in the tactics used, indicating
that the testimony influenced mock-jurors perceptions of the case.

42. The Admissibility of Confessions
For confessions to be admitted into court they must:
Be given voluntarily
Be given by a person who is competent
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43. The Admissibility of Confessions (Continued)
Confessions that are obtained by overtly coercive tactics (e.g., denying the suspect food) will not be admissible in court
More subtle forms of coercion (e.g., exaggerating evidence) are acceptable in Canada (R v. Oickle, 2000)
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