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Selling Confession: Setting The Stage With The "Sympathetic Detective With A Time-Limited Offer", Richard Leo, Deborah Davis, William C. Follette
Selling Confession: Setting The Stage With The "Sympathetic Detective With A Time-Limited Offer", Richard Leo, Deborah Davis, William C. Follette
Richard A. Leo
The effectiveness of an interrogation tactic dubbed the “sympathetic detective with a time limited offer” was tested. Participants read two versions of an interrogation transcript, with and without the tactic. Those who read the sympathetic detective version believed the detective had greater authority to determine whether and with what to charge the suspect, more beneficent intentions toward the suspect, and viewed confession as more wise. However, regression analyses indicated that for innocent suspects, only perceptions of the strength of evidence against the suspect and the detective’s beneficence and authority predicted the perceived wisdom of false confession. Interrogation tactics were generally …
Interrogation Through Pragmatic Implication: Sticking To The Letter Of The Law While Violating Its Intent, Deborah Davis, Richard A. Leo
Interrogation Through Pragmatic Implication: Sticking To The Letter Of The Law While Violating Its Intent, Deborah Davis, Richard A. Leo
Richard A. Leo
In response to increasing evidence that police interrogation procedures can and do elicit false confessions from innocent suspects, American Courts have offered guidelines intended to protect suspects from coercive interrogations and to ensure the voluntariness and reliability of any confessions obtained. However, faced with legal prohibitions against police promotion of suspect confessions through use of physical coercion or explicit incentives for confession, American police interrogation tactics have evolved to rely on the use of pragmatic implication to nevertheless convey strong incentives for suspects to confess guilt—practices that have essentially diluted or circumvented the intended protections and that have continued to …