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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Three Errors: Pathways To False Confession And Wrongful Conviction, Richard A. Leo, Steven A. Drizin
The Three Errors: Pathways To False Confession And Wrongful Conviction, Richard A. Leo, Steven A. Drizin
Richard A. Leo
Research has demonstrated that false confessors whose cases are not dismissed before trial are often convicted despite their innocence. In order to prevent such wrongful convictions, criminal justice officials must better understand the role that false confessions play in creating and perpetuating miscarriages of justice. This chapter examines police-induced false confessions and analyzes three sequential errors that occur in the social production of every false confession: investigators first misclassify an innocent person as guilty; they next subject him to a guilt-presumptive, accusatory interrogation that invariably involves lies about evidence and often the repeated use of implicit and/or explicit promises and …
Police Interrogation And Coercion In Domestic American History: Lessons For The War On Terror, Richard Leo, K. Alexa Koenig
Police Interrogation And Coercion In Domestic American History: Lessons For The War On Terror, Richard Leo, K. Alexa Koenig
Richard A. Leo
The use of torture during interrogations conducted by U.S. special forces, military police, CIA agents, the FBI, and private contractors during the War on Terror has been widely documented. While many chroniclers of the use of torture have characterized its use as a dramatic break from the past, the use of torture by American interrogators and the tacit sanctioning by U.S. officials are not new. The routine use of torture by American domestic police during the early part of the twentieth century has been largely ignored by scholars who study contemporary uses of torture in the international context. This chapter …
Three Prongs Of The Confession Problem: Issues And Proposed Solutions, Deborah Davis, Richard Leo
Three Prongs Of The Confession Problem: Issues And Proposed Solutions, Deborah Davis, Richard Leo
Richard A. Leo
Many cases could not be successfully prosecuted without a confession, and, in the absence of a confession, many would be much more costly to investigate and to develop other evidence sufficient to convict. Responding to this pressure to reliably elicit confessions from their suspects, the police have developed sophisticated psychological techniques to accomplish two goals: to induce suspects to submit to questioning without an attorney, and to induce them to confess. Unfortunately, these methods are sufficiently powerful to induce false as well as true confessions and to render them involuntary. Further, because they are based upon often subtle, yet sophisticated …
What Do Potential Jurors Know About Police Interrogation Techniques And False Confessions?, Richard Leo, Brittany Liu
What Do Potential Jurors Know About Police Interrogation Techniques And False Confessions?, Richard Leo, Brittany Liu
Richard A. Leo
Psychological police interrogation methods in America inevitably involve some level of pressure and persuasion to achieve their goal of eliciting confessions of guilt from custodial suspects. In this article, we surveyed potential jurors about their perceptions of a range of psychological interrogation techniques, the likelihood that such techniques would elicit a true confession from guilty suspects and the likelihood that such techniques could elicit a false confession from innocent suspects. Participants recognized that these interrogation techniques may be psychologically coercive and may elicit true confessions, but that psychologically coercive interrogation techniques are not likely to elicit false confessions. The findings …
Psychological And Cultural Aspects Of Interrogations And False Confessions: Using Research To Inform Legal Decision-Making, Richard A. Leo, Mark Costanzo, Netta Shaked-Schroer
Psychological And Cultural Aspects Of Interrogations And False Confessions: Using Research To Inform Legal Decision-Making, Richard A. Leo, Mark Costanzo, Netta Shaked-Schroer
Richard A. Leo
False confessions are a major cause of wrongful convictions. In many countries, physical abuse and torture are still used to extract confessions from criminal suspects. Cultural orientations such as collectivism and power distance may influence the tendency to confess, and a suspect's past experience in a country that uses physical abuse during interrogations may render suspects fearful and more prone to falsely confess. After looking at interrogations outside the United States, we examine the issue of why false confessions sometime occur in the U.S. legal system. We prove an overview of the stages of a typical interrogation and provide a …
Strategies For Preventing False Confessions And Their Consequences, Deborah Davis, Richard Leo
Strategies For Preventing False Confessions And Their Consequences, Deborah Davis, Richard Leo
Richard A. Leo
Researchers have amply documented that contemporary methods of psychological interrogation can, and sometimes do, lead innocent individuals to confess falsely to serious crimes. The consequences of these false confessions can be disastrous for innocent individuals. This chapter reviews the primary causes of false confession and resultant miscarriages of justice that are subject to the influence of law enforcement and the courts. We first review the major identifiable causes of false confession, offering suggestions for ways to minimize or avoid them. We offer four primary strategies for prevention of false confessions: (i) interrogation only of those for whom there is sufficient …
The Third Degree And The Origins Of Psychological Interrogation In The United States, Richard Leo
The Third Degree And The Origins Of Psychological Interrogation In The United States, Richard Leo
Richard A. Leo
This chapter describes and analyzes third degree interrogation in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The chapter begins with a detailed description and analysis of the various kinds and types of third degree interrogation, describing both the physical and psychological components of the third degree. Next, the chapter discusses how the ideology and practice of so-called "scientific" lie detection and psychological interrogation came to replace the third degree following the Wickersham Commission's Report in the 1930s. Although the third degree is, for the most part, a relic of the distant past, its demise represents a crucial turning point in the history …