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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

"An American acquitted of spying for the Soviets–even after he confessed to it"

I am not sure why the word "even" is necessary in this title -- forced confessions happen all of the time, even in America.

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Unless confessing suspects (forced or otherwise) regularly get acquitted in espionage cases I'd say the "even" is appropriate.

>Unless confessing suspects (forced or otherwise) regularly get acquitted in espionage cases I'd say the "even" is appropriate

I don't know about espionage, but over 25% of folks exonerated due to DNA evidence had confessed.

But how many of those people were acquitted at trial as opposed to having the verdict overturned later?

None of them. These were people who were convicted and later exonerated.

Especially in America

Source?

http://www.newsweek.com/why-people-confess-crimes-didnt-comm...

After watching the whole documentary, I can't see how this confession can be considered "forced" - best claim defense attorney had was that the boy was so mentally challenged he didn't understand what he was confessing to. Meanwhile, in non-first world countries, torturing and beating subjects on the usual, even non-vioent crimes is a routine. US justice had problems, but your "especially" is unwarranted.

That we've identified how this human behavior yields improper enforcement of law and try to take measures to guard against it is a good sign. Never-ending fight I imagine though.

Don't act like torture isn't happening in the us. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray

How does this have anything to do with OP? The circumstances are completely different.

They took a guy, put him in a van, tortured him, before they were going to process, and potentially charge him. This was torture by the police who also do interrogations. This is not some isolated incident. This is normal police procedure. Intimidate. Arrest. Torture. Prosecute.

I don't. My point was about relative stats, not absolute. Is the difference between these two concepts such a complicated thing?

Not sure where I see you mention anything at all about stats? It's hard to make statistical arguments for things that are difficult to quantify because they are so underreported.

Plea bargain is often forced confession - so many plead guilty out of fear

I've heard they're incredibly common in Japan as well.

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