Why People Falsely Confess And Crimes

It may seem implausible that someone would confess to a crime they did not commit, but it does happen, and the prevalence of such confessions occurs at a much higher rate in juvenile populations. Aggressive interrogation methods, like those used in the Reid Technique, lead to a greater probability of false confessions among juvenile subjects than if those techniques had not been used. In a study completed by University of San Francisco law professor and renowned false confession researcher, Richard Leo, 35% of the 125 proven false confession cases he sampled included confessors who were under the age of 18 (2004). Before we examine what it is about this technique that prompts false confessions, we must first outline the systematic, nine-step process developed by John E. Reid & Associates nearly forty years ago.

Studying collage students, or any other narrowed group, does not represent the majority of individuals that could be in the situation of a false confession. The consequences of a confession of a crime can lead to an investigation to close, leaving the "perpetrator" with higher charges. These real life consequences can also discredit any real evidence on a case, letting the real perpetrator off. With this, if an individual decides to retract their false confession, a jury is more likely to convict them because they are seen as untrustworthy (Kassin et al., 2010). These consequences are unlikely to be taken into consideration with experimental research on false

Now a day’s evidence can change a person’s life in the blink of an eye. “People were often punished for crimes based on the word of one or two individuals, with little concern given to sorting out the truth of the affair” (Hunter 12). But today a person must be tried and some physical evidence is needed in order for a person to be convicted of a crime.

Wrongful convictions are common in the court-system. In fact, wrongful convictions are not the rare events that you see or hear on televisions shows, but are very common. They stem from some sort of systematic defect that lead to wrongful convictions such as, eyewitness misidentification testimony, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions and incriminating statements, DNA lab errors, false confessions, and informants (2014). Bringing awareness to all these systematic defects, which result in wrongful, is important because it will better adjust the system to avoid making the same mistakes with future cases. However, false confession is not a systematic defect. It does not occur because files were misplaced or a lab technician put one too many drops. False confessions occur because of some of psychological attempt to protect oneself and their family. Thus, the courts responsibility should be to reduce these false confessions.

This paper takes a leap into the corrupted side of the criminal justice system. After analyzing several articles regarding wrongful conviction cases in the Unites States, it is apparent that wrongful conviction cases occur more often than society believed. It has come to surface in recent years that wrongful convictions are a big problem with our criminal justice system. Researchers have discovered the causes of wrongful convictions to be bad lawyering, government misconduct, informants, false confessions, flawed forensic science and eyewitness error. Furthermore, this paper explores the affects victims face due to a wrongful conviction. As society has begun to steadily realize that miscarriage of justice is a possibility, researchers have considered reforms to the criminal justice system.

Determining a false confession proves difficult due to the multitude of dimensions involved. According to Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1985) survey of the literature, there are three main types of false confessions—voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. Unlike coerced false confessions, voluntary false confessions arise as a result of someone willingly turning themselves into the police with an account of their crime (McCann, 1998). Voluntary false confessions can result from multiple motives, including an internalized need for punishment or to save someone else’s face. In contrast, coerced false confessions directly result from police interrogations. While coerced-compliant confessions are made to avoid interrogation, escape the stressful situation, or achieve some other reward, coerced-internalized confessions emerge when a suspects begins to

Our criminal justice system has over time implemented and changed the means of sentencing and punishment for crimes. In the United States plea deals are accountable for 90% of criminal cases. A plea deal is an agreement between prosecutor and defendant in whom the defendant accepts a guilty plea to a charge and in return receives some type of concession from the prosecution. As we have moved forward in the judicial system and now have the ability to look back on previous cases, plea deals have become more controversial. The majority of awareness in this area has been used to look deeper into false confessions, grazing right over the fact that false confessions are a large part plea deals. A controversy arose when many refused to believe that situational factors during interrogations and dispositional factors inherent to the suspects could result in false confessions. (Redlich, 2010)

Police interrogate suspects on a daily basis, but how can they tell if the confession is real? We have all heard, at one time or another of someone confessing to a crime they didn’t commit. Then your next thought is “I would never confess to something I didn’t do”. The only way you can be a 100% sure of that is if you have been through an interrogation before. This paper is going to define “confession” and tell how an innocent person will confesses to a crime they didn’t commit. This paper will also show the history of interrogations.

False confessions and wrongful convictions have been around forever. In medieval times and long before, torture was used as a way to try to get information from people. It often worked/’ in

Why Innocent People are Wrongly Convicted Introduction Attention grabber: “Wrongful convictions have been documented throughout history with incidents in 1611,1660,1792,1819,1820, and 1835 - not including the Salem Witch trials” (Krieger) Explanation: There are many different factors that contribute to false imprisonment such as: inaccuracy of eye-witnesses, perjured testimony, availability of DNA testing, accuracy of DNA testing, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective defense representation. These are only some of the few factors that lead to false imprisonment. B. Thesis: False imprisonment should not be a problem in today’s advanced society, there should be more precise ways to ensure that false imprisonment does not occur.

The story of Ryan Ferguson is a bizarre case that many find difficult to comprehend. In 2001, a murder was committed and although DNA evidence was left behind, no suspects were found. The case became cold, until two years later when an anonymous call came saying that the murderer was Charles Erickson. Apparently, Chuck Erickson blacked out the night of Halloween and thought that he may have committed the crime because he was in the vicinity of the scene. When interrogated his story was loose and full of doubts. The police tell him about the murder weapon and various details of the crime, including motive.

In my example, John Mark Karr falsely confessed to murdering JonBenét Ramsey. No one knows why Karr confessed to the crime. I think that Karr confessed because he was being held on child pornography charges and he probably felt guilty about it or he wanted to become famous and get attention. Some investigators did not believe Karr’s confession because he only provided facts about the crime that were known to the public and presented in the media. Karr didn’t provide any details that would convince the investigators that he actually committed the crime.

Kocieniewski, (2007) states that because of such intimidation most of the witnesses do not come forward to you the witness, and police say that because of such fear criminals are not getting punished. This is another side of the witnesses, women witnesses experienced more difficulties when compared to the men. Women are more worried about their families and the reputation in the society. Under the force of the intimidation the individual providing which is strongly getting entry influenced from the threat, the situation because more sensible that witnesses consider most of the accused people as gangsters and are afraid of such people witness on them. Based on the critical analysis that was conducted on the judiciary system, and regulatory associated with theories of crime, it is identifying that witnesses gave more important though scientific or technical evidence available. Malik states that criminals also invest money to avoid large penalties and fines. If the prosecutor effectiveness is high, it influences the size of the investment that will be made by the

"It [torture] assured the articulation of the written on the oral, the secret on the public, the procedure of investigation on the operation of the confession; it made it possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal; in the same horror, the crime had to be manifested and annulled. It also made the body of the condemned man the place where the vengeance of the sovereign was applied, the anchoring point for a manifestation of power, an opportunity of affirming the dissymmetry of forces."[4]

People commit crimes for various reasons. These various reasons got to do with social, economic, and cultural reason. These factors trigger an individual to do criminal activities. Social reasons are peer pressure, and school failure. Economic reasons are poverty. Cultural reasons are hatred. The combination of these factors is behind a person who commits crimes.