WEBVTT - From a schoolyard brawl to murder: Why do innocent people confess? 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:06.040 Kiota. 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.360 I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:17.160 daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. Police interviewing 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:22.119 techniques have been a controversial topic here and around the globe. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.040 There have been countless high profile cases where someone has 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:32.280 been convicted but later exonerated and their interrogations questioned. In 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.040 New Zealand, Tana Pora was wrongfully convicted of murder and 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.839 rape largely based on a confession given during a lengthy 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:44.760 police interview, and more recently, Harry Matchett had his manslaughter 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:49.360 conviction quashed after a so called false confession. He spent 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.400 three years behind bars and is now seeking six hundred 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:58.320 thousand dollars in compensation. So why do people confess to 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.720 things they didn't do? Today on the Front Page, forensic 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:07.280 psychologist Rosie Mittweet joins us to discuss the psychology behind 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:16.520 police interviews. So tell me why might someone confess to 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.720 a crime that they actually didn't commit. 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.880 Well, first of all, let's think about what a confession is. 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.920 A confession in a police context and the criminal context 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.120 is when somebody basically admits to the crime. But you 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.080 can get different types of confessions. You can get a 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.920 full confession. You've accused me of X, and I've admitted it, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.880 and I've got and tell you why and all the 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.080 details that you want. But then you can also get 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.240 tentative confessions. So I'm not telling you that I did it. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:54.520 I'm not necessarily saying I didn't do it, but I 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.400 give some information that supports that I did it. So 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.880 I might say something like, well, if you say so, 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:09.320 then I did or I probably did it. So we've 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.400 got to be careful of that. A full confession or 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.960 a full admission versus a tentative one. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.640 And in both of those cases, I mean, we have 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.600 seen instances where people have you know, done a full 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.840 confession or a partial confession, or have said probably, you know, 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.840 I may have been there, I probably did that, but 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.840 in fact, years later, things like DNA has you know, 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.880 found out that that is completely not the case. Why 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.120 would someone say, yes, I did it. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:46.080 I think that probably in most cases in life, if 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.600 you think outside of the coult room context, I think 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.480 most of us have probably confessed to something that we 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.480 didn't do right. And a good example of that is 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.000 maybe back in the school days, when one of your 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.920 mates is getting into trouble for something and you just 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.840 take the fall for them, or you might protect a 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.720 sibling against your angry parents. Question then becomes like if 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.400 if you think, well, at one time, I did take 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.120 the blame for something where I knew I didn't do it, 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.800 or I apologized for something and I knew I wasn't 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.639 responsible for what I did, but I apologize. So if 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.520 you like that might be an attentative admission of sorts. 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.880 You can just sit back now and downplay that and think, oh, yeah, 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.320 it's something that I did, it was a long time ago, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.160 and you just cast over it. But if you actually 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.640 stop in pouts and reflect on why did you do that? 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:46.880 Right? 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.240 Why did you take the blame for something that you 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.960 didn't do. Most typically, if you were to stop and think, well, yeah, 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.600 back at school, I took the fall for my maid, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.480 Well you might say, well, I did it out of 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.240 loyalty to them than my friend, and I didn't want 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.320 them to get into trouble, whereas the consequences for me 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.920 were less were far less severe. Things like that can 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:14.520 be quite powerful drivers for why somebody might make an 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.880 admission to something that they didn't do. So there's basically 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:24.680 mechanisms that we think are why people make false confessions. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:26.560 That's one of them that I've already spoken about, a 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:34.280 voluntary confession, voluntary admission, so you literally volunteer the admission. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:40.560 But the other one is confessions can be or retracted. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.320 Confessions can come about when people say that they were 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.480 placed under pressure and they received inducements. 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.760 So that's the coercive confession or something. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:05:02.640 Exactly exactly coercive. And now we used to think that 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:09.839 false or false admissions or unreliable admissions would only come 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:16.479 about by harsh interventions, harsh interviewing styles, so literally beating somebody, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.560 assaulting them, depriving the depriving them of food, you know, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:29.039 for days, electric shock treatment, all sorts of deprivation, and. 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:32.640 That level of coercion. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.200 Has high incidents of people agreeing to whatever's put to 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.000 them because they just can't take it anymore. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.080 And the belief is so they go. 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.279 Into it, denying the offending that as the pressure builds 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.880 and is sustained, they give up and they admit to 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.320 whatever's been put in front of them under the belief 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:57.320 that that pressure or that coercion will stop having done that. 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:02.560 And we used to think that it would be brutality 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.200 that would essentially make people confess in that context. What 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.760 we now know, and we've known for a while now 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.920 through research and experience, is that it could be far 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.480 more subtle than that inducement being offered, a bribe being offered. 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.320 If you confess, this interview can stop and or you 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.440 can get to go home and be with your family. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.039 Inducements like that can make people admit to all sorts 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.359 of things that later they retract. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.800 When it comes to I suppose police interviews, where does 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.760 the blind blur I guess when it comes to being 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:49.920 approachable and cordial versus being a bit too matey, when 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.160 does it blur into coerciveness? 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.200 So to speak, Well, you use the word mate It 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.599 should never be matey police interviews. 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:58.400 Never matey. 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.839 If the police have reason to believe that somebody is 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.000 a suspect for a crime, and that's the reason that 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.760 they're questioning you, it ought to never be matey. That 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.280 the police have their own processes and so they ought 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.040 to be in uniform. Your bill of rights need to 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:18.960 be read to you. You need to be very clear 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.680 on that, and part of that is you don't need 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.960 to make a statement, and that's important that you can 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.559 speak to your lawyer without delay, that you understand these 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:34.080 conditions that the police approach should never be matey. It 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.000 needs to be the lines need to be well to 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.280 find that you are there because you are a suspect 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:47.640 for X offense, So my view being mate being chummy 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.760 that can create problems of reliability. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.800 Further down the track, how long. 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:57.840 Do you think is too long when it comes to 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.000 a police interrogation or propose we're calling them police interviews now. 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.840 I mean, look, I read police interviews most weeks of 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:11.400 my career, not for this purpose, not necessarily because there's 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.160 questions about the reliability of confessions, but just to read 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:19.920 the evidential interviews that an offender or complainant has made. 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:26.200 And I have to say that overwhelmingly I see excellent 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:31.680 police processes in their questioning, and they take great care 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:39.599 around instructing the suspect around their rights. So what we 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.760 call the Bora rights there the museum full of rights, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.760 and they have regular breaks. And I don't think an 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.200 interview should go on for hours. It shouldn't go one 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:55.280 if it's obvious that the suspect is fatigued. But often 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.640 there's obviously an asymmetry of power. If you're in a 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.040 police interview and you could ask somebody, you know, how 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.400 are you Are you going okay? 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:06.600 You're happy to continue? 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.120 And the person might say yes, yes, I'm happy to continue, 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.240 but that they are doing that, they're saying that to 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:18.000 try and please the interviewer. I think it's a good 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.480 process for the police to insist on breaks and say, look, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.440 we'll stop now and offer the person you know, a 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.360 drink or coffee or smoke if they do and just 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.360 have a break. And in my experience, the police are 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.280 quite good at doing that and institutes reasonable breaks. But 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.120 I don't think an interview should go one for hours. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.360 I don't think it should go on late into the night. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:46.040 Definitely shouldn't have gone overnight. Fatigue and the like can 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.440 be an impediment to a good interview. 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:56.000 Go ahead. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.080 It's four declamatory sentences followed by a question for a 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.960 total of fifty seven words. Okay, it's look. It obviously 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.920 starts with you the right to remain silent. I know 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.680 you've heard them beforn, and then I think it sounds 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:14.320 something like, yeah, well the thing, yeah, oh right, do 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.800 you have the right to remain an attorney? 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.280 Did you say that you have the right to be 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:21.360 an attorney. You do have the right to be an 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.440 attorney if you want to do so. 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.400 You mentioned something. What rights do you have when you 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.320 are being interviewed or interrogated by police? So you have 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.440 the right to remain silent? Is that just not in 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:37.000 the movies? 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.439 It's definitely not in the movies. So you don't need 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.839 to make a statement. And you can start to make 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.760 a statement and then decide that you want to stop 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:52.240 making that statement, and that is okay. You can ask 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:57.200 to speak to a lawyer at any time and without delay, 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.439 and in private. If you're a child, if you are 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:07.640 sixteen or under, you can have a support person in 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.040 there with you of your choosing. Doesn't need to be 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.800 your parents to be somebody of your choosing. 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.200 When it comes to false confessions, what do you think 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.000 are some really good examples It could be from overseas 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.120 or even here in New Zealand, about how things have 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.040 gone wrong and how they've been fixed. 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.079 Before I even talk about toilples, I'll tell you how 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.320 how I got into the area. But you have to 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.320 remember a couple of things I prefer to call in 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.400 my working practice, I refer to them as retracted confessions, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:47.239 not false confessions, because just because a confession is retracted, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:52.720 it doesn't mean it's false. And ultimately, you know that 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.160 the court is the decision maker, and it's for the 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.480 courts to decide whether somebody's statement is unreliable not and 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.360 ultimately whether it is false or not if it goes 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.719 that far. That's not the role of an expert in 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.640 somebody such as myself. What I do is I give 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.000 an opinion on it. Then I give an opinion on 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.200 a balance of probabilities. The other thing is that when 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.319 I give an opinion one way another and whether I'm 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:25.120 saying it is in my opinion reliable or unreliable, the 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.839 opposite side, so whether I'm instructed by the crime or 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.360 the defense, the other side will have the opportunity to 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.160 get their own expert to review my work and give 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.880 their own opinion. And that can even happen as many 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.440 as two, three, four or five experts, you know, in 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.480 a case. So that's I think really important for people 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.800 to understand. It's not that you get one expert and 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.000 they decide. We give an opinion and that's open to 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.040 scrutiny and cross examination. Like it's always the court that 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.280 will make the decisions on that. But look that there's 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:03.319 been a lot of high profile cases nationally and internationally. 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.199 Probably the highest profile one here in New Zealand is 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:14.920 the Taina Poorer case where he made various statements that. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.079 Were found unreliable. 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.040 In the UK, I was always interested in cases from 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.559 the seventies. You've got the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.520 and these were very high profile cases at the time 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.120 where these individuals were accused of IRA bombings and they 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:35.800 had very dubious police interviewing, the elicited admissions that were 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.360 then retracted that these people were found guilties and years 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.880 in jail. I think the Birmingham six sixteen years in 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:49.719 prison always maintained the innocence and then eventually those convictions 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.280 were overturned. But the way I got into this in 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:58.440 New Zealand was very early on in my career. I 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.720 had a routine assessment looking at the issue of fitness 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:06.440 to stand trial and this person had been accused of 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.719 child sexual offending. But what was really interesting was he 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:15.079 turned up to the police station on his own accord 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.360 and he made these disclosures and the police of course 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.120 did what they had to do. And part of their 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.320 investigation is they went to speak to the complainant and 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:31.120 the complainant said that not only had this never happened, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.280 she didn't even know who the accused was, had never 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.120 come across him, and of course they checked all of 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:44.160 that out, that they felt that because he'd made this admission, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:49.760 that they had to charge him. And it was early 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:54.400 in my career, you know, and the circumstances of this 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.640 whole thing concerned me, and I remember speaking to the 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:00.680 law and said, look, in terms of his fitness to 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:05.280 stand trial, there are no issues there. He's a bit 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:10.000 to stand trial, but I'm concerned about the reliability of 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.840 this admission. And that lawyer, who's very good, got his 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.560 own independent expert to look into this issue. And what 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.760 it was found was, you know, this person had boadline 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.920 intellectual functioning, so from memory, I don't think he had 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.640 intellectual disability, that he wasn't far from it. So he 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:30.880 had cognitive limitations. And basically he was living with some 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:37.120 friends and they I think there'd been some issues on 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.120 their side in terms of their own offending histories, and 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.600 they had said to him he'd mentioned a girl or 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.800 somebody that he'd seen, and they basically said to him 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.000 that they put the accusations to him and said that 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.400 the right thing for him to do would be for 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.320 him to go and make this admission, and he did 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.840 that to please them, to be part of the friendship circle. 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:03.520 And it was that case, as I say, very early 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.440 on in my career that got me interested in this 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.280 and that was why I started reading, you know, quite 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:13.600 extensively about it, and it sort of became an interest 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.680 theory of mine and have been unvoult in furious cases. 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.240 Over the years. Than that. Thanks for joining us, most welcome. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.200 That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.120 can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.240 at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.720 produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:42.400 our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.040 on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.120 in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.