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“Interrogation-Related Regulatory Decline:” Ego-Depletion, Failures Of Self-Regulation And The Decision To Confess, Deborah Davis, Richard Leo

Richard A. Leo

As reflected in rulings ranging from Trial Courts to the U.S. Supreme Court, our judiciary commonly views as “voluntary,” and admits into evidence, interrogation-induced confessions obtained under conditions entailing stressors sufficient to severely compromise or eliminate the rational decision making capacities and self-regulation abilities necessary to justify such a view. Such decisions reflect, and sometimes explicitly state, assumptions soundly contradicted by science regarding the capacity of normal suspects lacking mental defect to withstand such stressors as severe fatigue, sleep deprivation, emotional distress-- and aversive interrogation length, tactics and circumstances--and nevertheless resist the powerful pressures of the interrogation to self-incriminate. Notwithstanding …