Innocent Adults Are Easy To Convince They Committed a Serious Crime

binarstu (720435) writes "Research recently published [link is to abstract only; full text requires subscription] in Psychological Science quantifies how easy it is to convince innocent, "normal" adults that they committed a crime. The Association for Psychological Science (APS) has posted a nice summary of the research. From the APS summary: "Evidence from some wrongful-conviction cases suggests that suspects can be questioned in ways that lead them to falsely believe in and confess to committing crimes they didn't actually commit. New research provides lab-based evidence for this phenomenon, showing that innocent adult participants can be convinced, over the course of a few hours, that they had perpetrated crimes as serious as assault with a weapon in their teenage years."

Comments

The average human being

[Anonymous Coward]

Is a gullible idiot.

Re:The average human being

[ShanghaiBill]

Is a gullible idiot.

Yes they are, and our justice system should take that into account. Confessions should not be admissible as evidence in court unless the jurors are given a full, uncut tape of the interrogation that led up to that confession. Way too many people have been tricked or pressured into confessing to something they didn't do. In the 1990 Central Park jogger case several falsely accused, and subsequently convicted, teenagers claim that they were told they could go home if they confessed.

Re:The average human being

[Anonymous Coward]

Confessions should not be admissible as evidence in court unless the jurors are given a full, uncut tape of the interrogation that led up to that confession.

Along with that, jurors should be allowed to directly question attorneys and witnesses.

Re:The average human being

[blackbeak]

Confessions should not be admissible as evidence in court unless the jurors are given a full, uncut tape of the interrogation that led up to that confession. Along with that, jurors should be allowed to directly question attorneys and witnesses.

And informed of the jury nullification option.

Re:The average human being

[KermodeBear]

I wasn't familiar with the Reid Technique, but once I learned what it was, it struck me as an incredibly unfair and abusive interrogation technique. It's also the technique we see often on a lot of those police investigation television shows: There's a presumption of guilt, all of the questions are loaded. I never knew it had a name, I always called it, "The Asshole Interrogation Technique," because you have to be an asshole to use it.

For those who are interested, the Wikipedia has a short article but The New Yorker has a much more interesting one.

Here's an interesting follow-up idea

[BarbaraHudson]

What would be interesting would be to see what a polygraph says about their false memories. Can it distinguish between an event that occurred and one that was from a false memory? If not, that would be the final nail in the coffin.

Re:Here's an interesting follow-up idea

[Carewolf]

What would be interesting would be to see what a polygraph says about their false memories. Can it distinguish between an event that occurred and one that was from a false memory? If not, that would be the final nail in the coffin.

What coffin? Polygraphs are a hoax intended to scare stupid criminals into confessing. It does even work on real memories, why would it work on false ones?

Reid Technique

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It's called the Reid technique and the police in the US have been deliberately exploiting it for years to obtain false convictions.

They know they are exploiting a psychological weakness. They do not care that innocent people are sent to prison. They simply want convictions.

Re:Reid Technique

[russotto]

It's called the Reid technique and the police in the US have been deliberately exploiting it for years to obtain false convictions.

I've had that used on me. As soon as I realized what they were doing I called them on it (didn't know what it was called at the time) and they ended the interview right there. In Step 1 they implied they had certain evidence of my guilt and knew I was guilty; they screwed up Step 3 because I said I didn't do it, and somewhere in Step 6 or 7 realized they had no such evidence (because it didn't fit their alternatives) and called them on it.

Re:Understand your rights!!

[OldSport]

Basically, don't talk to the police without a lawyer present. Period. I mean, I'm not going to stonewall a cop that pulls me over for a broken taillight, but if the line of questioning goes any further than what's immediately relevant to said taillight, that's when I shut up. And you can guarantee that I will be videotaping the entire encounter! Cops are under no obligation to tell you the truth about anything; it's up to you to know what your rights are in a given situation and assert them.

Re:With our out-of-control gov't, NONE are innocen

[TWX]

Given the crazy volume of laws imposed by our governments, it's almost certain everyone commits multiple crimes daily.

Which is why one should exercise one's right to remain silent. The police do not decide to prosecute or not, and do not get to 'make deals' or not. That's firmly in the prosecutor's realm, with required agreement from a judge in the case of plea deals. Police offers to, "go easy on you," if you cooperate now, or to, "put in a good word to X," are also meaningless, as once the evidence is turned over to the prosecutor, the police have only as much influence as the prosecutor is willing to accept.

Don't do the police's job for them, you're not required to tell them anything or to admit guilt. There's always another opportunity to "make a deal", with your lawyer and the prosecutor negotiating that deal, not you and the plainclothes detective.

The (in)justice system

[fyngyrz]

And along with that, "plea bargains" should be absolutely forbidden. What they do is provide the prosecution tools to coerce and frighten victims of the system into admitting guilt for things they didn't do, at the same time as they take the determination of the individual's guilt out of the hands of a jury.

Re:The (in)justice system

[Anonymous Coward]

It's one of the few things that are quite black and white, either someone committed a crime or he did not.

A plea bargain is not someone saying they partially committed a crime, it is them admitting full guilt to a crime. The law frequently gives a range of punishments, e.g. upper and lower limits for fines or jail time, and the judge can pick something lower if the defendant saves everyone a bunch of time by just admitting it. Some laws also allow judges to remit or change the charges to a lesser crime depending on the circumstances too, especially if part of the plea bargain involves helping them catch other people. It has nothing to do with partly committing a crime, but what amount of punishments and exactly what charges are used. That said, it can pressure innocent people in tough situations to just accept guilt.

Re:The (in)justice system

[JeffOwl]

Ask yourself which makes more money for a lawyer - handling several plea bargains a day, or one long case that he is likely to lose for a client that will have no income?

You realize that many, if not most, of these plea bargains are between public defenders and the DA's office. You realize that neither group is raking in huge cash based on case volume. It isn't about making money, it is about a case load that they could not possibly handle if they had to take every one to court. Besides, the court system couldn't deal with the volume either.

Re:The (in)justice system

[nbauman]

It's one of the few things that are quite black and white, either someone committed a crime or he did not.

A plea bargain is not someone saying they partially committed a crime, it is them admitting full guilt to a crime.

In reality, a plea bargain is a strategic decision by a defendant or his lawyer that he would be better off taking a shorter sentence in a plea bargain than go to court, and get a much longer sentence if he loses.

I've seen typical plea bargain of 6 months, which is time served, versus 15 years if he loses in court.

Some judges insist on a legal fiction that the defendant is voluntarily admitting to the crime, but everybody knows that it's not voluntary and people are often forced to falsely admit to crimes to avoid the risk of a much worse sentence by a vindictive prosecutor.

Lawyers have cases on file where people pled guilty to avoid a much longer sentence, and were exonerated afterwards.

The courts are punishing people for exercising their constitutional right to a trial. The most outrageous thing is that the Supreme Court approved it.

Re:The (in)justice system

[SlaveToTheGrind]

"plea bargains" should be absolutely forbidden.

You're assuming infinite resources. As it is, would you prefer a system where (1) your taxes now have to cover a 20-30-fold increase in state and federal courts (and prosecutors) needed to take all cases to trial; (2) on the other side of the bar, an even higher percentage of the population becomes criminal defense lawyers; and (3) you yourself end up on jury duty multiple times a year?

Or, would you rather a world where the prosecutors just pursue the most egregious criminals given the limited resources they have, and put everyone else right back out on the streets with no deterrent whatsoever?

I'm not suggesting the current plea-bargain system is optimal or that incremental changes aren't possible. What I am suggesting that you can't just throw out such a fundamental piece without stepping back and redesigning the entire system.

Re:The (in)justice system

[mrchaotica]

The alternative is the prosecutors office being required to pursue every single case. 5-17 year old took a nude picture of herself? Child Porn charges. kill in clear self defense? Murder charges. transpose two digits on your tax return? Tax Fraud charges. There wouldn't be enough people to serve on the juries for the people that missed jury duty! There wouldn't be enough people to serve on the juries for the people that missed jury duty!

GOOD! Then we might finally get some of these arbitrary, capricious, unconstitutional, bullshit laws off the books!

Re:The (in)justice system

[mrchaotica]

Or, would you rather a world where the prosecutors just pursue the most egregious criminals given the limited resources they have, and put everyone else right back out on the streets with no deterrent whatsoever?

YES, GODDAMNIT!

That's EXACTLY what we want and what you should want -- unless you're a fucking totalitarian sociopathic boot-licker -- because we're living in a goddamn police state that contains 25% of the WORLD's prison population even though we only have 5% of the world's population overall. Damn right we need to only pursue the "egregious criminals," because in every civilized country on the planet, what you call the "egregious criminals" are the only criminals!

Re:The (in)justice system

[ultranova]

I never quite got why plea bargains are permissible in the first place.

They're a form of punishment. Being forced to testify against yourself humiliates the accused and empowers the prosecutor. It dehumanizes the accused, by showing that no, he doesn't have any of those Constitutional rights. The prosecutor is, in effect, establishing his superiority to reality itself: pretend that what happened is what he said happened, or be severely punished.

Plea bargains are basically a sadist's wet dream. And US legal system is built on the idea that justice is institutionalized sadism. Every single aspect of it is geared towards maximum harm to those caught in it, from criminal records (meant to extend punishment to infinity) to keeping people in death row for decades to uncertain methods of execution (as opposed to a simply breathing nitrogen) to private prisons (who have very incentive to make recidivism rate as high as possible). Hence the popular notion that everyone accused must be guilty, so you can enjoy watching the system grind them to bits with good conscience.

Plea bargains are a symptom, but the disease itself is simply bloodlust.

Re:The (in)justice system

[theedgeofoblivious]

-or they would have to be more selective about what they prosecuted.

5-17 year old took a nude picture of herself? Well I'd *like* to prosecute that, but I'm too busy prosecuting this other case.

Kill in clear self defense? Again, I'd *like* to prosecute that, but I'm too busy prosecuting this other case.

Can you imagine how horrible that would be?

Re:The (in)justice system

[sjames]

Even more extreme (but not unknown), you face 40 years but if you plead guilty tomorrow, you'll be home with time served by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, you can't afford a real lawyer and your public defender can't even remember your name or what you were charged with. Naturally, that means bail is right out, so even if you are found not guilty, you'll spend a fair bit more time in the slammer if you plead not-guilty.

So there it is, plead guilty and go home where you might be able to put your life back together or spend another 6 months to 40 years imprisoned and either way, you will lose what little you have.

Re:The (in)justice system

[Cytotoxic]

Particularly in drug crimes, prosecutors routinely use extreme penalties to win plea bargains. There is also a penalty for going to trial: people pleading guilty get much lower sentances on average than those found guilty at trial.

Re:The (in)justice system

[quenda]

Or you've spent 5 years in an illegal prison without valid charge, and subject to torture.
Finally, prosecution says you can go home tomorrow if you plead guilty to this new retrospective crime we just made up.

And there you have the confession and first conviction of a Gitmo detainee! (Five years later, the US Court of Appeals ruled the conviction invalid.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re:The (in)justice system

[Headw1nd]

But the thing is plea bargaining is not a fundamental piece, it has only gained prominence in the last 100 years, and was popularized to handle the enormous amount of "crime" that prohibition created. We now recognize that the underlying cause of much of this crime - Prohibition - was bad law, so why are we clinging to plea bargaining? Probably because we are still clinging to prohibition, just in a different fashion.

The (in)justice system is primarily about power.

[fyngyrz]

cops don't care who really did it

Neither do the prosecutors -- or the judges. For them, it's all about notches on the handle of their figurative pistol.

Our justice system attracts some of the worst human beings among us. The very last thing you can expect from it, and from them, is "justice."

The famous Reykjavik confessions

[caseih]

It's not just a matter of people being idiots or people talking to police without a lawyer. There's a much deeper psychological thing going on here, and that's I think the point of the article. A famous case years ago in Iceland really illustrated this phenomenon. Six people admitted to their role in a murder in Iceland and this was thought to be an open and shut case. Several of the accused even showed police where they disposed of the body, and provided details on how they committed the murder. The problem was, none of them actually had anything to do with the murder, or any murder at all, and all the details they were remembering were not real at all. It's a very long but fascinating read. Yes they were manipulated and badgered (by well-meaning prosecutors who didn't see themselves as manipulative), but the crazy thing is that as a result they convinced themselves that they really did participate in this murder. Was this just a case of over-zealous police and prosecutors? Or was there something more to it?

http://www.bbc.com/news/specia...

Entrapment?

[houghi]

Is that still legal in the USofA?

I also overheard a conversation where some cops-in-training where proud on how they learned how to get confessions out of people for things they did not do. Not get the truth out of them. To get confessions for things THEY DID NOT DO.

Country was Belgium.

When I did a reply on Usenet in an anti-abuse newsgroup of a link to childporn. I informed the police. I also informed the media when it wasn't gone after 2 days.
I was asked to come in via the company where I worked and they tried to get me for:
1) Spreading of childporn, because of the reply that still had the URL. (And that is why you must snip on quote correctly on Usenet.) When I told them I send them an email, they explained that their mailserver was broken.
2) The tried to get me for falsification of my identity, because the email-provider did not have my correct address. Like anybody would give out that on some random website.
3) They tried to get me for obstruction of the law, because I spoke to the press. If they would have just send me an autoreply, I would have done nothing. Obviously I had no idea that any investigation was going on. Also: they already KNEW who was the guilty person and were keeping it live just to get higher numbers. As the URL was already out, it ment that they were basically spreading childporn.
4) They called my company from where I had done the posting and told them they needed my information because of a child case abuse.
Luckily the COO was not an idiot and understood after 30 seconds when I told him what I had done and even asked me if he should block the info about who I was and wait for a court order. He could easily do that under Belgian law on the right to privacy. The CEO even offerd to pay for any lawyer if anything would come of it. It never did.
Imagine that this would have been another company. I could have lost my job over someting I was trying to get solved. But then: They do not care. They were clueless and only interested in the numbers, not in stopping spreading those sick, sick, sick images that I can not unsee.
When I left the police station after making clear that I was not afraid and that I did nothing do and they were basically idiots (also leaving me alone with evdence of other cases on the table) they asked me if I would keep the same login in the future. Only later did I realize that I did not know the difference between a login and an email address.

From then on I NEVER saw anything illegal on the Internet anymore. EVER.