False confessions
economist.com
economist.com
Essentially, the story involves these sailors individually confessing to a crime (and allegedly tailoring their confessions to the investigator's words) when they were implicated by someone already being interrogated. With each additional person being interrogated, more people were implicated (who were previously unnamed), and previous confessions were amended accordingly.
Quite saddening indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_Three
Who were jailed partly because of a police-coerced confession from one of the three. They are still in prison, but apparently close to getting a re-trial.
The case was made famous by the excellent HBO documentary 'Paradise Lost' - which is a must see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost:_The_Child_Murder...
They are lucky because their case has a high-profile because of the film - but there must be many, many other innocent people in prisons because of false confessions.
For example, many people believe that Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in Texas, was also innocent (he was also the subject of a Frontline story:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1618590505/
and a feature in the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Satan-Tragic-Recovered-Mem...
> They are lucky because their case has a high-profile because of the film - but there must be many, many other innocent people in prisons because of false confessions.
This is exactly what concerns me–so much effort and attention went into these few cases that achieved a high profile, but I'm certain that many just like it–with inconclusive or completely unmatched DNA and police hasty to close an investigation–exist, and it worries and saddens me to think how many other people are innocently sitting in prison or on death row as a result.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
You're better off taking the beating.
By not talking you prevent this problem entirely because no one will accidentally forget or take out of context that fact that you never said anything at all.
To the cop, stating that you touched someone means that you've opened the door -- it's a thread connecting your story to the plaintiff's. Since you are probably not routinely interrogated, your body language may reinforce that thought process as well.
To me, the words of a cop and a plaintiff are "reasonably doubtful," but I guess not. Anyway, my point is that in this example, the cop lied about what the defendant said.
It's easier to just "slip" something in a conversation if you're talking to him in the first place.
It's easier because, when you fabricate an entire conversation rather than one sentence, you have to make up more things.
That's the purely technical argument. There are also psychological considerations on the part of the officer, people are more likely to rationalize making up one little thing than making up an entire conversation.
Say nothing and you can truthfully say repeatedly that you said nothing. You'll be able to consistently tell the truth on the stand without having to explain any of your statements, statements that the prosecution will attempt to twist into incriminating statements.
Of course, if you do the same to the prosecutor before trial, the chances of you making it to trial go down. Prosecutors like to win their cases.
Anyway yes it's easier to change a conversation than to fabricate one; because "changing" can mean many things - intentionally lying is the least common occurrence, simple "neural" errors happen a lot more often.
Maybe they'll lie (probably not that common), or maybe what you said will somehow implicate you in a crime, or maybe...? That's why it's important. It's not after the fact knowing the police lied but beforehand when you don't know how things will play out that remaining silent is important.
You still communicate. You speak through your lawyer.
(from reading discussions like this one on computer-oriented websites I have come to believe that nerds are especially easy to frame by a police man who recognizes a nerds innate desire to outsmart others, and to show it off. Look at where it got Hans Reiser).
I though framing someone means making it look like they did something when they didn't. As far as I know, Hans Reiser showed the police where he buried the body; how can you say he was framed?
What I meant was - Hans Reiser had a whole story pre-fabricated that, I assume, was internally consistent, but he relied a bit too much on that abstract property of the story in his defense (not that I know details of the case, just what I read about and remember from the news reportings on the case and the trial - I'm sure there is more nuance to that story than what I'm presenting here).
"Do you now how fast you were going?"
"What do you have me as officer?"
"15 over, but since you were wearing your seatbelt I'll
let you off with a warning"
They reach the intersection, where you get a good look at the men as they turn the corner. The drive halfway down the block, and turn into a driveway, pull into the garage at that house, and close the garage door, and then come out with the baby, and get into a car that was waiting in the driveway, and leave nonchalantly. You recognize the make and model of the car and are even able to read the license plate and memorize it.
You are the only witness to this part of their getaway.
The police quickly come, and ask you if you saw them men and were they went.
Are you REALLY going to say nothing? Or tell them you won't say anything without your lawyer present?
Most of the time you'll talk to the police and tell them everything you saw and that's that. It's not likely the police will target you, but that's cold comfort if you somehow end up on the wrong end of a police investigation, which is the point of the video.
You sound smart, what are possible alternatives here? Call in an anonymous tip maybe, or describe exactly what you saw, then refuse further communication without counsel present.
"Which direction did they go?!?" "Which house is on fire?!" "Does he have a gun?!" are very different questions (with different moral obligations) than "What are you doing in this neighborhood so late at night?" "Do you live around here?" "Is this your car?"
Non-urgent questions and statements should be given in the presence of an attorney, recorded, and preferably on the condition of immunity :)
Look, I'll admit I'm biased (I'm a criminal defense attorney.) That said, you never know which good, wholesome, moral conversation that you have with the police will turn you from a heroic savior into a criminal suspect.
(For what it's worth, I'd speak to the police in your scenario. That said, I wouldn't fault anyone for not doing so.)
But this reminds me of the malleability of memory and also herd-like mentality. I think it was on Tv or somewhere where the experiment involved flooding a room with participants with fake smoke but confederates were set to deny it was smoke. The effect was that the fake smoke was ignored. Had it been a real fire, they'd all have perished.
My friend, Bill, was in charge of construction projects at a real estate development. One night, he gets a phone call at 3 in the morning to let him know that one of the homes under construction is on fire. He jumps out of bed, grabs his camera and rushes out to scene of the fire. Once he gets there, he starts taking pictures in order to get a jump start on the insurance paperwork. Unfortunately, the firemen trying to put out the fire start to get suspicious. From their perspective, here's a strange guy taking pictures of burning homes at 3 in the morning (it's a development so there were no other occupied homes in the vicinity). They get to thinking maybe he is a pyromaniac who is now collecting trophy photos of his handiwork. They call the cops, Bill gets arrested and ends up in the interrogation room. Now, Bill is a pretty tough guy. Remember, he worked his way up in the construction business to become a manager so he is not a weakling by any means. However, after a couple hours of being grilled by the cops, he said he was just about ready to confess just to make it stop. They didn't beat him or anything, just the relentless application of all manner of psychological techniques (badgering, cajoling, threats of long sentences, good-bad cop, etc) completely wore him out. He was only saved when his boss found out that he had been arrested and called the station to back up his story.
From that time on, I realized that under the right circumstances, it is possible for a mentally stable, reasonable person to confess to a crime they did not commit.
More importantly, I realized that because I can't imagine something happening, does not mean it can not happen.
Then again, my coping mechanism of becoming flippant/sarcastic could flip on and I'd confess to murdering JFK, Michael Jackson and Biggie using my mind/time machine.
(In the UK there is no such thing as the right to remain silent, unless you are in a situation in which you are denied access to legal advice (rare). In all other situations your solicitor will instruct you to say 'no comment' to any question the police asks you. Funny how it differs.)
Isn't that effectively the same thing?
Here's someone who said 18 times that he didn't want to talk to the police and asserted his right to silence. Appeal denied. Convicted of murder. 2007 Supreme Court of Canada case (R. v. Singh, 2007 SCC 48, http://canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=interrogation+sil...).
"Whenever the discussion turned to the incident in question, however, Mr. Singh was less forthcoming. Although he provided some information regarding his presence at the pub on the night of the shooting, he repeatedly denied his involvement and asserted his right to silence. He indicated that he did not want to talk to the police, that he had nothing to say, that he knew nothing about the shooting, or that he wanted to return to his cell. Before Mr. Singh was shown the photographs in question and made the impugned admissions, he asserted his right to silence 18 times. Each time, the interviewing officer would either affirm that Mr. Singh did not have to say anything, or would explain to Mr. Singh that he had a duty or desire to place the evidence before him and he continued the interview."
If someone is consistently upset with what you are saying and makes your life miserable you try behaving differently especially in such stressful situation.
It's useful to listen to people suspected of crimes but you should treat their "confessions" as a clues where to finds evidence of what actually happened.
The lying's not uncommon in TV dramas, but the unreliability of eyewitnesses accounts certainly is.
The question is: did they cheat and get it past the software? Or were they, as suggested in this article, admitting to something they did not do?
I suspect that there are similar factors involved in other false confessions. It's an asymmetric knowledge game. The only winning move for the person being questioned is not to play, but they may not be aware of that - and worse, they may trust the other player. With further intimidation, privation, and humiliation, it's not hard to imagine why people could break down.
Never underestimate the stress caused when in a room with people aggressively questioning you. Even if they do no physical harm, This is VERY stressful.
In the US - "Am I free to go?" and "I want a lawyer" should be at the top of your 2 item list when in this situation. Remember, the Police care about solving crimes certainly - they care more about clearing cases quickly.
Here's a 2008 case (from the highest court in a major Canadian province) I found pretty quickly that's about a four and a half hour interrogation where the police lie about having DNA evidence that pins the crime on the person: http://canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=%22The+interview+...
Here's a 2000 Supreme Court of Canada case about an approximately eight hour interrogation (at which point the guy confessed): http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2000/2000scc38/2000scc38.... There are plenty more of these. There's no hard and fast limit to how long Canadian police can interrogate you for.
Watch The Wire to get an idea of what kind of pressures the police face to "solve" crimes.
It was worth doing the experiments though, so good on him.