I recently listened to a podcast about the West Memphis 3 and it left me in shock at how three young boys were falsely accused of a brutal murder in their home town. While reading this chapter in our book “Applied Social Psychology” especially the section of “The Investigative Interview” the story of these three boys popped in my head immediately. I’ll briefly explain what happened with these young boys and some of the strategies police investigators used to basically trick one of the boys into confessing about himself and blaming the other two young men for a murder the did not commit.
“In August 2011, the three teenagers who had been convicted of the grisly killings, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr., were released from prison after being incarcerated for 18 years. Echols had received a death sentence, and Baldwin and Misskelley were each given life sentences despite an arguably botched police investigation and questionable evidence.” Three 8 year old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas and since Damien, Jason and Jessie were known as the “outcasts” of their area, fingers were immediately pointed at them. Eventually, the police got a confession out of Jessie, by basically telling him if he said exactly what they told him to, he would be released to his father. The cops then tricked him into confessing to being a part of the murder and making up a story about Jason and Damien’s act in the murders.
In our text, it states “False and possibly incriminating information may be elicited from a suspect in an improperly conducted interviews, particularly if the suspect is vulnerable in some way (e.g., due to young age, low intelligence, or anxious mental state.) It is obvious Jessie was young as he was a teenager at the time of these murders and it was also found that he was of low intelligence. It obviously shows that police fully took advantage of a vulnerable person. They also used the Reid technique on him which includes “repeated accusations and statements of the certainty of the suspect’s guilt; not letting the suspect speak and repeatedly shutting down his or her denials; telling the suspect that there is irrefutable evidence against him or her.” If you read the link below of the interrogation with Jessie and the police, the police basically feed Jessie a story and have him repeat it so that the words come out of his mouth.
This situation isn’t the first and probably won’t be the last. It’s very sad to see three young boys spend a huge chunk of their life in prison due to a hunch that police had. It also leaves a murderer on the loose which is very unsettling. Hopefully in the future there will be stricter laws set in place where these types of things cannot happen.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., and Coutts, L. M. (Eds.) (2017). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4833-6973-0
Gilligan, Matt. “The West Memphis Three Case: An Evolving Story of Doubt & Misinformation.” Investigation Discovery, www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/the-west-memphis-three-case-an-evolving-story-of-doubt-misinformation.
Note: This Is a Transcription of the Taped Confession of Jessie Misskelley, Jr, www.dpdlaw.com/JessieFirstStatement.htm.
It always breaks my heart when documentaries or podcasts do a story on adolescence who got falsely convicted. There are a few that make me sick to my stomach that I had trouble finishing. When they share the interrogation videos or transcript and see the tactics they use, it’s disheartening. Especially when these kids are stripped of their rights of having to have an adult or lawyer present. It’s also not the first time kids with low intelligence were targetted for a false confession. Your summary reminds me of The Central Park Five, where the boys were pinned against each other (BBC 2019). They were coerced into naming each other as the perpetrator and forced to sign a confession. This chapter shines a light on how this ended up is happening and why it happens so often. There needs to be more awareness of how adolescences are treated after a crime has been committed. There can’t be a rush to blame someone and solve the case. These kids were vulnerable, one with low intelligence, and lived in poverty too. Just like in your summary, it seems the Reid technique was also used. It’s saddening when you realize just how many kids, especially with low intelligence, are blamed for crimes they did not commit. That is why the Innocence Project is a great organization that helps those falsely accused become exonerated, just like how the West Memphis 3 were (Innocence Staff 2018). As time goes on, I hope there will be more checks and balances put in, so this stops happening like it has many times over.
I highly recommend watching “When They See Us” on Netflix that showcases what the Central Park Five went through.
BBC. (2019, June 12). Central Park Five: The true story behind When They See Us. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-48609693
Innocence Staff. (2018, July 12). Ava DuVernay’s “Central Park Five” Netflix Miniseries Announces All-Star Cast. Retrieved from https://www.innocenceproject.org/central-park-five-netflix-miniseries-announces-cast/