Would you ever confess to doing something you didn’t actually do? Sure, maybe there are a few specific situations where you might falsely confess to something, like if you are trying to cover for a friend or you just want to move on from a situation. But what if the confession leads to years in prison? Surely no one would make a false confession when it has lifelong consequences, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. As discussed by Leo (2009), despite the difficulty of definitively proving a criminal confession was false, previous research has found about 300 proven cases of false confessions. However, there are likely many more unproven false confessions that plague our criminal justice system. On the surface, false confessions seem to make no logical sense. After all, why would anyone confess to a crime they didn’t commit?
It may help to consider what the experience of being interrogated is like. Interrogations are not like friendly conversations you have with friends and acquaintances. It can be terrifying to have police officers ask you so many questions at once, especially if you are innocent and have no idea what is going on. The Innocence Project (2021) lists several factors that lead to false confessions, including intimidation or use of force by law enforcement, fear, stress, exhaustion, and even downright devious interrogation techniques. The interrogation process puts a lot of pressure on people, regardless of whether they are innocent or not. Most people do not want to go to prison for a crime they did not commit, but if the interrogation pushes them far beyond their breaking point, they may just falsely confess to finally get it over with. Unfortunately, these false confessions can bias the entire process against an innocent person.
Some may argue that false confessions would be corrected by the process. After all, if a confession is truly false, the evidence would reveal that during a trial, wouldn’t it? Given that the investigation, analysis of evidence, and trial were done very carefully, they may be able to weed out a false confession. However, as discussed by Gruman, Schneider, & Coutts (2017), confessions often cause forensic confirmation biases in the investigation process as people tend to look for or provide evidence consistent with the confession while ignoring or “discouraging” contradictory evidence (pg. 301). To investigators, the confession may serve as the narrative of how the crime happened. They may search for evidence that helps them reconstruct the scene as it was described in the confession. This does not bode well for an innocent person falsely confessing to a crime, as investigators may find new evidence and interpret it in a way that seems to prove that the innocent person did the crime. Even if they wanted to retract their false confession later, the “evidence” of that confession would still put them at a serious disadvantage in the final trial.
Could juries see through false confessions and spare an innocent life from prison or worse? They could if they were cognizant of the possibility that a confession was not genuine and carefully examined the conditions of the confession. Unfortunately, people tend to have trouble looking at the external factors of behavior. As discussed by Gruman et al. (2017), juries are prone to the fundamental attribution error, the human tendency to attribute behaviors more to internal factors and not enough external influences, when a confession is presented during a trial. (pg. 301) When someone confesses, jurors only focus on the suspect and assume that they were the sole factor in their own decision to confess. They may visualize the confession as the image viewed above this paragraph. Jurors may fail to consider the context of the interrogation environment or the possibility of the suspect being coerced into a confession, as visualized below. If a jury is unaware of the possibility of false confessions, then there is very little chance, if any, of them being able to save an innocent life from their own false confession.
Jason Stout (2014)
False confessions are a real concern in the criminal justice system. Research has proven that they do happen, possibly because of coercive interrogation tactics, and that they can bias both the investigation and the trial against an innocent person. Not only does it likely result in an innocent person being thrown in prison for something they didn’t do, but it also means that the real perpetrator gets away with their crime unpunished! What can we do about it? In regards to the investigation process, it might help to separate the law enforcement officials who interrogate suspects from those who are interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence for as long as possible. It might make the investigation take a little longer, but it would help prevent false confessions from biasing the rest of the investigation and leading investigators away from the true offender. In terms of the trial, it might help to describe how the interrogation leading up to a confession was conducted or show the jury a video of the room during the interrogation. Directing their attention to the situation may help a jury overcome the fundamental attribution error and carefully consider whether an interrogation could have forced a confession out of an innocent person. These changes can help reduce the impact a false confession has on the entire process and can potentially save innocent people from going behind bars for crimes that they never committed.
References
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2017). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Innocence Project. (2021, May 25). False Confessions & Recording Of Custodial Interrogations. Retrieved from https://innocenceproject.org/false-confessions-recording-interrogations/
Leo, R. A. (2009). False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 37(3), 332-343. Retrieved from http://jaapl.org/content/37/3/332
Stout, J. (2014, April 25). [A suspect manipulated into a false confession]. Retrieved from https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-04-25/when-confessions-prove-false/