False confession
Encyclopedia
A false confession is an admission of guilt
in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion
or by the mental disorder or incompetency of the accused. Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and unlikely event, they occur on a regular basis in case law
, which is one of the reasons why jurisprudence
has established a series of rules to detect, and subsequently reject, false confessions. These are called the "confession rules." Plea agreements typically require the defendant to stipulate to a set of facts establishing he is guilty of the offense; in the United States federal system, before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea.
techniques such as the Reid technique
try to suggest to the suspect that he will experience a feeling of moral appeasement if he chooses to confess. Material rewards, like coffee
, the cessation of the interrogation and a warm bed
are also used to the same effect. In Canada, courts of law have also 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. It is then understandable that the high pressure generated may push innocent individuals to produce a confession. People who are easily coerced score high on the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale
.
Sometimes sacrificial false confessions may be used to divert attention from the actual person who committed the crime. For instance, a parent might confess to save their child from jail. People may also confess to a crime, or plead guilty to a crime they did not commit, as a form of plea bargaining to avoid a harsher sentence. In some cases, people have falsely confessed to having committed notorious crimes simply for the attention that they receive from such a confession.
False confessions can be categorized into three general types, as outlined by Saul M. Kassin in an article for Current Directions in Psychological Science. Voluntary confessions are those that are given freely, without police prompting. Compliant confessions are given in return for a reward, as mentioned above. Internalized false confessions are those in which the person genuinely believes that they have committed the crime, as a result of highly suggestive interrogation techniques. False confessions greatly undermine the due process rights of the individual who has confessed. As Justice Brennan noted in his dissent in Colorado v. Connelly, 49 U.S. 157 (1986), "Our distrust for reliance on confessions is due, in part, to their decisive impact upon the adversarial process. Triers of fact accord confessions such heavy weight in their determinations that "the introduction of a confession makes the other aspects of a trial in court superfluous, and the real trial, for all practical purposes, occurs when the confession is obtained." No other class of evidence is so profoundly prejudicial. 'Thus the decision to confess before trial amounts in effect to a waiver of the right to require the state at trial to meet its heavy burden of proof.'
Coerced false confessions have been used for directly political purposes. The systematic use of coerced confessions of political prisoners to extract public recantations for propaganda purposes has occurred in the twentieth (and twenty first) century in Stalin's Soviet Union
, Maoist China, and most recently the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matches that found at the scene, and his confession states that he committed the crime by himself, with none of the other men involved. Forensic evidence is consistent with his story that there were no other participants.
, the 1936 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Mississippi
established conclusively that confessions extracted through the use of physical brutality violate the Due Process Clause. In the case, three defendants had been sentenced to death for the murder of Raymond Stewart on March 30, 1934. The convictions had been based solely on confessions obtained through violence:
The Supreme Court concluded: "It would be difficult to conceive of methods more revolting to the sense of justice than those taken to procure the confessions of these petitioners, and the use of the confessions thus obtained as the basis for conviction and sentence was a clear denial of due process.... In the instant case, the trial court was fully advised by the undisputed evidence of the way in which the confessions had been procured.... The court thus denied a federal right fully established and specially set up and claimed, and the judgment must be reversed."
obtained from the crime scene matched Reyes. New York state justice Charles J. Tejada vacated the convictions of five defendants on December 19, 2002. Yusef Salaam served six and a half years in prison. Kharey Wise was imprisoned until summer 2002, which was when his sentence was completed.
where she worked in Austin, Texas
. A coworker, Chris Ochoa, pled guilty to the murder. His friend, Richard Danziger, was convicted of the rape
. Ochoa confessed to the murder, as well as implicating Danziger in the rape. It was later discovered that the confession had been coerced. The only forensic evidence
linking Danziger to the crime scene was a single pubic hair found in the restaurant said to be consistent with his pubic hair type. Although semen
evidence had been collected, no DNA analysis was performed at this time. Both men received life sentences. Years later a man by the name of Achim Marino began writing letters from prison claiming he was the actual murderer. The DNA
was now finally tested and it did indeed match with Marino. In 2001 Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger were exonerated and released from prison after 12 years of incarceration.
prosecutors were required to videotape murder confessions, but not interrogations, starting in August 1999. Corethian Bell, who has a diagnosis of mental retardation, said he confessed to the murder of his mother, Netta Bell, because police hit him so hard he was knocked off his chair and because he grew tired and hopeless after being in police custody for more than 50 hours. He said he thought that if he confessed, the interrogations would stop, then he could explain himself to a judge and be set free. With a confession on tape, he was then prosecuted and sent to jail. When the DNA
at the crime scene was tested, it matched a serial rapist, who already was in prison for three other violent sexual assaults, all in the same neighborhood as the Netta Bell murder.
Joshua Treadway, a friend of Michael's, was questioned and also confessed after many hours of interrogation, while Aaron Houser, a mutual friend of the boys, was questioned and did not actually confess but presented a “hypothetical” and incriminating account of the crime under prompting by police interrogators using the Reid Technique. All three boys subsequently recanted their statements claiming coercion.
Michael Crowe’s confession and Aaron Hosuer’s statements to police were later thrown out as coerced by a judge, while part of Josh Treadway’s confession was as well. The parts upheld of Treadway’s confession later became moot when all charges were dropped against all three boys. This did however present difficulties for prosecutors later charging an unrelated party with the crime whose defense team argued that the boys had been responsible.
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.
farm in April 1993. He was interrogated for over 21 hours and gave the police a hypothetical statement, and they took it as a confession. His conviction was overturned in 1996 and freed. He was pardoned in 2002. Two motorcycle gang members were later convicted of Morris and Ruth Gauger's murders.
police before confessing to the 2004 murder of his 3-year old daughter, Riley, which later turned out to be coerced. The real killer turned out to be Scott Eby, a neighbor living a few miles from the Fox family who was serving a 14-year sentence for sex crimes, thanks to DNA results that had not been tested before.
West Memphis Three
Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys. One month after the murders, police interrogated Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72, for 16 hours before confessing to the murders and implicating Echols and Baldwin. Misskelley immediately recanted and said he was coerced to confess. Despite that the confession was different from the police reports, Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life without parole and Echols was sentenced to death. For the next 17 years, they maintained their innocence. In August 2011, DNA evidence exonerated them, but prosecutors refused to throw out the convictions and offered them a deal that they plead guilty in exchange for time served. They accepted, but said that they will continue to clear their names and find the real murderer(s).
for buying votes in an election. Six confessed to buying votes with liquor, cash and catered parties. All were acquitted in 2007 in a local district court, which found that the confessions had been entirely fabricated. The presiding judge said the defendants had "made confessions in despair while going through marathon questioning."
s known as the Moscow Show Trials, were orchestrated by Joseph Stalin
during the Great Purge
of the late 1930s, and sent 40+ high level political prisoners either to the firing squad or to labor camps. The trials are today universally acknowledged to have used forced confessions, obtained through torture
and threats against the defendants' families, to eliminate any potential political challengers to Stalin's authority.
has systematically used false confessions extracted by torture. They have been used on a much larger scale than in Stalin's Soviet Union because the confessions could be videotaped and broadcast for purposes of propaganda. During the 1980s, television "recantation" shows were common on Iranian state television.
confessed to starting the Great Fire of London
by throwing a fire bomb
through a bakery window. It was proven during his trial that he had not been in the country until two days after the start of the fire, he was never at any point near the bakery in question, the bakery did not actually have windows, and he was crippled and unable to throw a bomb. Nevertheless, as a foreigner, a Frenchman, and a Catholic, Hubert was a perfect scapegoat. Ever maintaining his guilt, Hubert was brought to trial, found guilty, and duly executed by hanging.
in 1990. 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.
confessed to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey
. He had become obsessed with the every detail 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
where the murder occurred.
Guilt
Guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion
Coercion
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
or by the mental disorder or incompetency of the accused. Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and unlikely event, they occur on a regular basis in case law
Case law
In law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...
, which is one of the reasons why jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
has established a series of rules to detect, and subsequently reject, false confessions. These are called the "confession rules." Plea agreements typically require the defendant to stipulate to a set of facts establishing he is guilty of the offense; in the United States federal system, before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea.
Causes
InterrogationInterrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
techniques such as the Reid technique
Reid technique
The Reid technique is a method of questioning subjects and assessing their credibility. The technique consists of a non-accusatory interview combining both investigative and behavior-provoking questions...
try to suggest to the suspect that he will experience a feeling of moral appeasement if he chooses to confess. Material rewards, like coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, the cessation of the interrogation and a warm bed
Bed
A bed is a large piece of furniture used as a place to sleep, relax, or engage in sexual relations.Most modern beds consist of a mattress on a bed frame, with the mattress resting either on a solid base, often wooden slats, or a sprung base...
are also used to the same effect. In Canada, courts of law have also 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. It is then understandable that the high pressure generated may push innocent individuals to produce a confession. People who are easily coerced score high on the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale
Gudjonsson suggestibility scale
The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale is a test that tries to measure how susceptible a person is to coercive interrogation.-History:It was created by Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. It relies on two different aspects of interrogative suggestibility: It measures how much an interrogated person yields to...
.
Sometimes sacrificial false confessions may be used to divert attention from the actual person who committed the crime. For instance, a parent might confess to save their child from jail. People may also confess to a crime, or plead guilty to a crime they did not commit, as a form of plea bargaining to avoid a harsher sentence. In some cases, people have falsely confessed to having committed notorious crimes simply for the attention that they receive from such a confession.
False confessions can be categorized into three general types, as outlined by Saul M. Kassin in an article for Current Directions in Psychological Science. Voluntary confessions are those that are given freely, without police prompting. Compliant confessions are given in return for a reward, as mentioned above. Internalized false confessions are those in which the person genuinely believes that they have committed the crime, as a result of highly suggestive interrogation techniques. False confessions greatly undermine the due process rights of the individual who has confessed. As Justice Brennan noted in his dissent in Colorado v. Connelly, 49 U.S. 157 (1986), "Our distrust for reliance on confessions is due, in part, to their decisive impact upon the adversarial process. Triers of fact accord confessions such heavy weight in their determinations that "the introduction of a confession makes the other aspects of a trial in court superfluous, and the real trial, for all practical purposes, occurs when the confession is obtained." No other class of evidence is so profoundly prejudicial. 'Thus the decision to confess before trial amounts in effect to a waiver of the right to require the state at trial to meet its heavy burden of proof.'
Coerced false confessions have been used for directly political purposes. The systematic use of coerced confessions of political prisoners to extract public recantations for propaganda purposes has occurred in the twentieth (and twenty first) century in Stalin's Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Maoist China, and most recently the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Norfolk Four
The Norfolk Four are Derek Tice, Danial Williams, Joseph J. Dick Jr. and Eric C. Wilson. They are four of the five men convicted in the brutal rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in 1997 in Norfolk, Virginia. The convictions of the four were largely based on confessions made by the men, which they maintain were coerced. The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project considers this a miscarriage of justice.[1] Moore-Bosko's parents, however, continue to believe that all those convicted were participants in the crime.[2] Tice, Williams and Dick either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of the murder, and were sentenced to one or more life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. Wilson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8½ years in prison. Three other men, Geoffrey A. Farris, John E. Danser and Richard D. Pauley, Jr., were also initially charged with the crime, but their charges were later dropped. The supporters of the Norfolk Four have offered evidence that purports to prove they are innocent, with no known involvement or connections to the incident.[3]The fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matches that found at the scene, and his confession states that he committed the crime by himself, with none of the other men involved. Forensic evidence is consistent with his story that there were no other participants.
Brown v. Mississippi
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the 1936 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Mississippi
Brown v. Mississippi
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, , was a United States Supreme Court case that ruled that a defendant's involuntary confession that is extracted by police violence cannot be entered as evidence and violates the Due Process Clause....
established conclusively that confessions extracted through the use of physical brutality violate the Due Process Clause. In the case, three defendants had been sentenced to death for the murder of Raymond Stewart on March 30, 1934. The convictions had been based solely on confessions obtained through violence:
- "... defendants were made to strip and they were laid over chairs and their backs were cut to pieces with a leather strap with buckles on it, and they were likewise made by the said deputy definitely to understand that the whipping would be continued unless and until they confessed, and not only confessed, but confessed in every matter of detail as demanded by those present; and in this manner the defendants confessed the crime, and, as the whippings progressed and were repeated, they changed or adjusted their confession in all particulars of detail so as to conform to the demands of their torturers. When the confessions had been obtained in the exact form and contents as desired by the mob, they left with the parting admonition and warning that, if the defendants changed their story at any time in any respect from that last stated, the perpetrators of the outrage would administer the same or equally effective treatment.
- "Further details of the brutal treatment to which these helpless prisoners were subjected need not be pursued. It is sufficient to say that in pertinent respects the transcript reads more like pages torn from some medieval account than a record made within the confines of a modern civilization which aspires to an enlightened constitutional government."
The Supreme Court concluded: "It would be difficult to conceive of methods more revolting to the sense of justice than those taken to procure the confessions of these petitioners, and the use of the confessions thus obtained as the basis for conviction and sentence was a clear denial of due process.... In the instant case, the trial court was fully advised by the undisputed evidence of the way in which the confessions had been procured.... The court thus denied a federal right fully established and specially set up and claimed, and the judgment must be reversed."
Central Park jogger
In the Central Park jogger case, on April 19, 1989, five teens aged from 14 to 16 were arrested and each confessed on videotape to the crime of attacking and raping a jogger and implicated each other. They later repudiated these confessions and maintained their innocence. The five were: Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise. In 1989, the police were aware that an unidentified sixth person had left semen on the victim's body. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and rapist, admitted that he was responsible for the rape and attack of the jogger. The DNADNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
obtained from the crime scene matched Reyes. New York state justice Charles J. Tejada vacated the convictions of five defendants on December 19, 2002. Yusef Salaam served six and a half years in prison. Kharey Wise was imprisoned until summer 2002, which was when his sentence was completed.
Pizza Hut murder
In 1988 Nancy DePriest was raped and murdered at the Pizza HutPizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....
where she worked in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
. A coworker, Chris Ochoa, pled guilty to the murder. His friend, Richard Danziger, was convicted of the rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
. Ochoa confessed to the murder, as well as implicating Danziger in the rape. It was later discovered that the confession had been coerced. The only forensic evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
linking Danziger to the crime scene was a single pubic hair found in the restaurant said to be consistent with his pubic hair type. Although semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
evidence had been collected, no DNA analysis was performed at this time. Both men received life sentences. Years later a man by the name of Achim Marino began writing letters from prison claiming he was the actual murderer. The DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
was now finally tested and it did indeed match with Marino. In 2001 Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger were exonerated and released from prison after 12 years of incarceration.
Corethian Bell
Cook County, IllinoisCook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
prosecutors were required to videotape murder confessions, but not interrogations, starting in August 1999. Corethian Bell, who has a diagnosis of mental retardation, said he confessed to the murder of his mother, Netta Bell, because police hit him so hard he was knocked off his chair and because he grew tired and hopeless after being in police custody for more than 50 hours. He said he thought that if he confessed, the interrogations would stop, then he could explain himself to a judge and be set free. With a confession on tape, he was then prosecuted and sent to jail. When the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
at the crime scene was tested, it matched a serial rapist, who already was in prison for three other violent sexual assaults, all in the same neighborhood as the Netta Bell murder.
Simon Marshall
Simon Marshall was a Canadian rape suspect who was imprisoned for 5 years before genetic evidence found him innocent. Mental retardation was a factor in his confession.Stephen Downing
Stephen Downing spent 27 years in prison. The main piece of evidence used against him was a confession he signed, but only after an 8-hour interrogation which left him confused, and his poor literacy skills meant he did not fully understand what he was signing.Jeffrey Mark Deskovic
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic, was convicted in 1990 at age 16, of raping, beating and strangling a high school classmate, even though jurors were told the DNA evidence in the case did not point to him. He was incarcerated for 15 years. He confessed to the crime after hours of an interrogation without being given an opportunity to seek legal counsel.Michael Crowe
Michael Crowe confessed to the murder of his younger sister Stephanie Crowe in 1998. 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."Joshua Treadway, a friend of Michael's, was questioned and also confessed after many hours of interrogation, while Aaron Houser, a mutual friend of the boys, was questioned and did not actually confess but presented a “hypothetical” and incriminating account of the crime under prompting by police interrogators using the Reid Technique. All three boys subsequently recanted their statements claiming coercion.
Michael Crowe’s confession and Aaron Hosuer’s statements to police were later thrown out as coerced by a judge, while part of Josh Treadway’s confession was as well. The parts upheld of Treadway’s confession later became moot when all charges were dropped against all three boys. This did however present difficulties for prosecutors later charging an unrelated party with the crime whose defense team argued that the boys had been responsible.
The charges were dropped after DNA testing linked a neighborhood transient to her blood. A TV movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
was made out of the story called The Interrogation of Michael Crowe in 2002.
Gary Gauger
Gary Gauger was sentenced to death for the murders of his parents Morris, 74, and Ruth, 70, at their McHenry County, IllinoisMcHenry County, Illinois
McHenry County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 308,760, which is an increase of 18.7% from 260,077 in 2000. Its county seat is Woodstock. This county is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest county, in...
farm in April 1993. He was interrogated for over 21 hours and gave the police a hypothetical statement, and they took it as a confession. His conviction was overturned in 1996 and freed. He was pardoned in 2002. Two motorcycle gang members were later convicted of Morris and Ruth Gauger's murders.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox was interrogated for 14 hours by Will County, IllinoisWill County, Illinois
As of the census of 2000, there were 502,266 people, 167,542 households, and 131,017 families residing in the county. The population density was 600 people per square mile . There were 175,524 housing units at an average density of 210 per square mile...
police before confessing to the 2004 murder of his 3-year old daughter, Riley, which later turned out to be coerced. The real killer turned out to be Scott Eby, a neighbor living a few miles from the Fox family who was serving a 14-year sentence for sex crimes, thanks to DNA results that had not been tested before.
West Memphis Three
Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted for the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys. One month after the murders, police interrogated Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72, for 16 hours before confessing to the murders and implicating Echols and Baldwin. Misskelley immediately recanted and said he was coerced to confess. Despite that the confession was different from the police reports, Misskelley and Baldwin were sentenced to life without parole and Echols was sentenced to death. For the next 17 years, they maintained their innocence. In August 2011, DNA evidence exonerated them, but prosecutors refused to throw out the convictions and offered them a deal that they plead guilty in exchange for time served. They accepted, but said that they will continue to clear their names and find the real murderer(s).
Japan
13 men and women, ranging in age from their early 50s to mid-70s, were arrested and indicted in JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
for buying votes in an election. Six confessed to buying votes with liquor, cash and catered parties. All were acquitted in 2007 in a local district court, which found that the confessions had been entirely fabricated. The presiding judge said the defendants had "made confessions in despair while going through marathon questioning."
Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union a series of show trialShow trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
s known as the Moscow Show Trials, were orchestrated by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
of the late 1930s, and sent 40+ high level political prisoners either to the firing squad or to labor camps. The trials are today universally acknowledged to have used forced confessions, obtained through torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and threats against the defendants' families, to eliminate any potential political challengers to Stalin's authority.
Islamic Republic of Iran
According to at least two observers, the government of the Islamic Republic of IranHistory of the Islamic Republic of Iran
One of the most dramatic changes in government in Iran's history was seen with the 1979 Iranian Revolution where Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...
has systematically used false confessions extracted by torture. They have been used on a much larger scale than in Stalin's Soviet Union because the confessions could be videotaped and broadcast for purposes of propaganda. During the 1980s, television "recantation" shows were common on Iranian state television.
Robert Hubert
In 1666, Robert HubertRobert Hubert
Robert Hubert was a watchmaker from Rouen, France, who was executed following his false confession of starting the Great Fire of London.-Great Fire of London:...
confessed to starting the Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
by throwing a fire bomb
Incendiary device
Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus....
through a bakery window. It was proven during his trial that he had not been in the country until two days after the start of the fire, he was never at any point near the bakery in question, the bakery did not actually have windows, and he was crippled and unable to throw a bomb. Nevertheless, as a foreigner, a Frenchman, and a Catholic, Hubert was a perfect scapegoat. Ever maintaining his guilt, Hubert was brought to trial, found guilty, and duly executed by hanging.
Laverne Pavlinac
Laverne Pavlinac confessed that she and her boyfriend murdered a woman in OregonOregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
in 1990. They were convicted, then released five years later when Keith Hunter Jesperson
Keith Hunter Jesperson
Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-born American serial killer known as the "Happy Face Killer" for the smiley face he drew on his many letters to the media and prosecutors. He had a violent and troubled childhood under a domineering, alcoholic father...
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
John Mark KarrJohn Mark Karr
Alexis Valoran Reich is an American male-to-female transgender person formerly known as John Mark Karr who in 2006 falsely confessed to the unsolved murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. She has, on other occasions, faced a number of other criminal charges.-Childhood:Karr was born in Conyers,...
confessed to the murder of JonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty pageant contestant who was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. The six-year-old's body was found in the basement of the family home nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. She had been struck on the head and strangled...
. He had become obsessed with the every detail of her murder and was extradited from Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. His story did not match details of the case, and his DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
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
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
where the murder occurred.
Others
- Over 100 people claimed to have abducted the child in the Lindbergh kidnappingLindbergh kidnappingThe kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was the abduction of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The toddler, 18 months old at the time, was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of...
. - Over 500 people claimed to have been involved with the Black DahliaBlack Dahlia"The Black Dahlia" was a nickname given to Elizabeth Short is an American woman and the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder. She acquired the moniker posthumously by newspapers in the habit of nicknaming crimes they found particularly colorful...
murder.
Taping interrogations and confessions
Most jurisdictions do not require a confession to be videotaped, and fewer still require the audiotaping of interrogations.See also
- Trisha MeiliTrisha MeiliThe Central Park Jogger case involved an assault and rape that took place in New York City's Central Park on April 19, 1989. The victim was Trisha Meili. Five juvenile males were tried and convicted for the crime...
- Gudjonsson suggestibility scaleGudjonsson suggestibility scaleThe Gudjonsson suggestibility scale is a test that tries to measure how susceptible a person is to coercive interrogation.-History:It was created by Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson. It relies on two different aspects of interrogative suggestibility: It measures how much an interrogated person yields to...
- False memory syndrome
- False evidence
- FingerprintFingerprintA fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
- Miscarriage of justiceMiscarriage of justiceA miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
- Police misconductPolice misconductPolice misconduct refers to inappropriate actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Police misconduct can lead to a miscarriage of justice and sometimes involves discrimination...
- Reid techniqueReid techniqueThe Reid technique is a method of questioning subjects and assessing their credibility. The technique consists of a non-accusatory interview combining both investigative and behavior-provoking questions...
- Timothy EvansTimothy EvansTimothy John Evans was a Welshman accused of murdering his wife and daughter at their residence in Notting Hill, London in November 1949. In January 1950 Evans was tried and convicted of the murder of his daughter, and he was sentenced to death by hanging...
- Martin TankleffMartin TankleffMartin Tankleff is a Long Island, New York resident who was convicted of murdering his wealthy parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, on September 7, 1988...
- IatrogenesisIatrogenesisIatrogenesis, or an iatrogenic artifact is an inadvertent adverse effect or complication resulting from medical treatment or advice, including that of psychologists, therapists, pharmacists, nurses, physicians and dentists...
- Forced confessionForced confessionA forced confession is a confession obtained by a suspect or a prisoner under means of torture, enhanced interrogation technique or duress.Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession may or may not be valid in revealing the truth...
External links
- The Confessions at Frontline
- Misskelley's statements analyzed
- NPR: False Confession
- Slate: Why make a false confession?
- Psychology Today: False Confession
- Innocence Project: False Confession
- Chicago Tribune: Cops urged to tape their interrogations