WEBVTT - Interrogations and False Confessions 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.480 If you will place your left hand on the Bible 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.920 and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me, 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:14.960 I do solemnly swear. Then titled action find the defendant 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.520 guilty of the crime. It makes no sense, it doesn't fit. 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.040 If it doesn't fit, you must equit. We all took 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.600 the same oath of office. We're all bound by that 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.120 common commitment to support and defend the Constitution, to bear 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.080 true faith and allegiance to the saying that you faithfully 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.040 discharge the duties of our office. Do you solemnly swear 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.760 or affirm that the testimony you are about to give 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.120 will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:43.479 the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio, this 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:54.200 is Sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. One of the 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.320 first studies that we did where we planted an entirely 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.040 false memory is if I were talking to you, I 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.319 would say, Philip, I've talked to your mother, and your 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:06.360 mother told me some things that happened to you when 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.119 you were about six years old. I want to see 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.080 what you can remember about these childhood experiences. If you 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.760 don't remember, just tell me you don't, and then I 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.720 present you with three true memories things your mother really 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:24.440 told me did happen to you. And then this completely 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.959 made up experience about being lost in a shopping mall 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.800 and frightened, crying, ultimately rescued by an elderly person, and 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:39.959 reunited with the family. With a few suggestive interviews, we 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.840 got our research subjects about a quarter of them to 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:47.000 remember all are part of this completely made up experience. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.120 And after we published that study, other investigators came along 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:56.440 and planned even more bison or and unusual false memories. 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.279 That you were attacked by an animal, that you nearly 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.520 drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard. That 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.920 you committed a crime as a teenager that was serious 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.200 enough that the police actually came. So these are some 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.720 of the things that people have been led to believe 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:27.000 even though they never actually happened. That was Dr Elizabeth Loftus, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.400 a psychology professor at the University of California, Irvine. You 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.840 might remember her from our first episode on eyewitness testimony 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.480 and the Malleability of Memory. In this episode, we spoke 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.920 to her about implanted memories and the ways in which 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.840 police interrogations and interviews could cause a false confession, false 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.960 confessions are real, and they are a big problem in 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.519 the legal system. And I know a lot of people 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.959 can't imagine ever confessing to a crime they did not commit. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.399 But it happens, and as we'll in this episode, there 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.000 are a lot of reasons for that, from questioning techniques 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.720 to problems with human memory that can cause someone to 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:13.480 admit to or to even fully remember something that they 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:19.400 did not do. Well. These false memories, they can be 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.040 very detailed and specific, and people will start to add 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.400 details and the color of clothing that people were wearing 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.920 or where location was. It really looks and feels like 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.480 a real recollection. Other times, what they develop is a 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.160 false belief. I'm pretty sure this happened, but I just 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.360 don't really have a strong memory of it happening. Both 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.600 of these things are possible. This is a study published 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.640 just a few years ago out of Canada. With the 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:54.040 power of suggestion. They convinced ordinary people that as a 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.080 teenager they committed a crime, and the police actually came 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:01.360 to investigate. These people are trying to figure this out, 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.240 and you know, if my mother told you this, it 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.480 must have happened. Did I plan for Fiti somewhere? And 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:09.760 what was I with my best friend when we did, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.240 and they pretty much talked themselves into constructing something that 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:19.200 never happened. After the experiment is over, we tell them 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.320 what the experiment was all about, we might apologize for 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:27.680 using any deception with them, so presumably they don't continue 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:32.799 for ten years believing they really did it. I wanted 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.240 to ask Dr lawsus about how drugs and alcohol might 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.840 play a role in an implanted memory. Before an interrogation, 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.200 suspects are often asked whether or not they've taken mind 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.720 altering substances like drugs or alcohol in order to prevent 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.000 a false confection. But I know and fans of Up 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.920 and Vanished might know of at least one case here 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:58.760 in Georgia where this has allegedly come into play. Ryan Duke, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.880 the defendant in the murder case involving Tera Grinstead, claims 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.960 that he was under the influence of morphine while making 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:11.880 incriminating statements to the police. Oh, that's that's certainly possible. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.479 Especially if he were under the influence of alcohol. His 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:20.080 memory would be somewhat weak compared to begin with. It's 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.240 even easier to plant something in somebody's mind when the 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.440 memory is weak. To begin with either week to begin 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.200 with or week because the passage of time is weakened it. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.640 There is a very famous case of the Paul Ingram case. 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.240 He was civilian with the Sheriff's Department in the state 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:43.279 of Washington. His daughter accuses him of involving her in 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.479 satanic ritual abuse, and he starts getting interrogated and he 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.120 thinks to himself, you know, my daughter wouldn't really like 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.800 maybe I did it. Maybe I blacked out or something, 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:58.159 and maybe I did it, and he actually confessed. He 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.400 would come to realize that this confession and been kind 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.960 of coerced and take it back. But you could see 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.440 how it happened in that case. He just thought maybe 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.080 I did it, because why would she lie? Well, there 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.160 were a number of reasons why she might have told 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.839 a false story. There are a lot of things that 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:23.960 go on in a false confession besides faulty memory, and 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.720 there are confession experts who testify frequently in cases where 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.400 the defense is alleged a coerced and false confession. A 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.120 bigger problem in getting people to falsely confess is they 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.960 get persuaded that they're better off if they confess to 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.640 this little thing and they're gonna be really screwed if 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.760 they don't. So if you'll just admit that you accidentally 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:51.920 shook the baby, you'll be able to go home see 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.440 your kids. You'll be fine. But if you don't, we're 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.640 gonna think you did it on purpose, and you're never 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.760 gonna go home and see your kids again. So there 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.680 are your choices, and people will confess to accidentally shaking 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.080 my baby when they don't really believe they did it. 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.640 Three of the wrongfully convicted men we spoke to earlier 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.400 this season, Joe Diaz, William Dillon, and Bill Richards, all 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.800 had this experience of police telling them that they would 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.960 have an easier time if they just confessed to the crime, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.520 all of these being crimes that they did not commit. 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.160 They also had the shared experience of being questioned by 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:41.120 the police for hours and hours on end. They took 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.120 me down to the police station, interrogating me for a 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.840 few hours, wanting to know where I was on certain days, 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:48.960 and if I knew of a certain school and a 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.280 certain part of town, and I didn't. But nevertheless, they 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.600 interrogating me for a long time. They wouldn't tell me 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.360 why they were interrogating it it's been so long, Why 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.440 don't recall they've read me my rights? But you know, 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.880 I spoke to them. Biggest mistake I ever made in 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.320 my life. But again, I was a twenty year old 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.840 ignorant individual, had nothing to hide, so I was willing 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:12.680 to talk to them because I hadn't done anything wrong. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.520 So they take me and put me in a room 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.560 with a bunch of police officers. It's not like the 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.480 television where they put you in a room and there's 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.000 two guys come in and talk to you. And this 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.960 is like five, six of them. They were all different places, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.600 and they're all talking to me at once about different things, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.640 asking me questions about the murder or something, trying to 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.080 ask me about this and what am I doing over here? 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.800 And I kept admiralbly denying any involvement. And I didn't 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:45.640 know any answers. I wasn't involved. Eventually, they had gotten 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:47.880 tired and they were ranting, and Raven and I kept 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.440 putting up the same thing, and finally I said, Okay, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.520 we'll offer you five years manslaughter. Don't worry about it. 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.719 You'll do two years and you'll be on your own. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.880 You'll beat free. I said, I'm not taking any deals. 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:01.480 I didn't have anything to do with it. I'm not 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.920 taking no kind of deals. Finally said, okay, we're gonna 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:06.439 put you in an electric chair. You're going to be 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.199 arrested for first degree murder, felony murder. I said, you 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:14.000 got the wrong guy. I found my wife at midnight, 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.200 so I've been up since about seven that morning, and 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.600 they let me go five or six and next afternoon, 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.680 so I've been up thirty some hours without sleep, probably 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.680 twenty some hours without food, and under intense interrogation, you know, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.160 trying to get me to confess. I came down again 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.720 trying to help them. I thought they would actually start 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.880 looking for the real killer, which of course was my 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:41.960 mistake because they didn't. So I was actually in the 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.840 police station for another fifteen hours of intense interrogation, which 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.400 is not what I came down therefore, and they just 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.040 finally said, well, if you want to admit you did it, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.440 you're under arrest. I always thought, okay, what if I 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.640 did admit it, I've been at all. It was such 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.080 a stupid thing to say. That's why you get so 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.840 many false confessions. I can tell you have been through 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.120 these things. I could see why people just give up 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.720 the crap of the same thing lots only alng there's 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.079 an edit tape that they claimed this was the interrogation was. 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.640 Of course, there's over thirty hours interrogation. They have a 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.199 two hour tape. But even on that I hear myself 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.080 giving them things that I didn't want to say because 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.400 I didn't remember or didn't think they were true. But 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:43.280 I surely never said I did anything wrong. These practices, 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.560 as Dr Loftus has said, are a big reason that 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.240 people will admit to things that they did not do. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.000 We spoke with an interrogation expert to hear more about 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.400 how interrogation techniques work and how they might elicit these 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:03.360 false confessions. This Brian Leslie that the purpose of an 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.480 expert suching myself, is to first of all educate the 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.400 court or the jury of all the facts and what 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.080 they're looking at. When I go into court, I have 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.160 no stake either way. What I do is I look 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.719 at what I've been told to look at. I give 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:25.040 my expert opinions based on that. I'm not the trier 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:27.199 of fact. The trier of fact, whether it's a jury 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.160 or judge, will determine what weight to carry into my 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:36.479 testimony as an extent. I'm a forensic course of interrogation 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.679 expert in both interrogations and interviews. I've got a police background, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:46.280 law enforcement for fifteen years, chiefs two years. Most of 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.640 what I deal with is homicide, sex abuse cases, terrorist cases. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.160 I asked Brian to explain the difference between a police 0:11:55.280 --> 0:12:00.800 interview and a police interrogation. One of the most important 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.720 things about an interrogation, which most people missed that point, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.760 is the presumption of guilt, which is a requirement to 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.640 go into the interrogation. To establish the presumption of guilt, 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.640 investigators or the interviewer prior to doing an interrogation would 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.440 have had to have at least proven the case to 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.080 a point where there's sufficient evidence to enter into an interrogation. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.040 The difference between an interview and an interrogation just so 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:32.920 very clear. An interview is to fact find. An interrogation 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.520 is to solicit confession. So you would use an interview 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.520 for the purposes of witnesses victims. You would speak to 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:47.120 individual to basically corroborate physical evidence, any other direct evidence 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.800 you might have, and based on that then you would 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.000 then decide, Okay, here's the most likely suspect based on 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.000 the evidence I have, you would target that suspect. You 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:58.959 would then take that suspect either invite him in to 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.000 have an interview, which you'd start off with an interview 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.040 and then end up with an interrogation. Prior to going 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.880 into an interrogation, you should have already completed your investigation, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.520 have been satisfied that the presumption of guilt was there, 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.760 and that's why you're bringing the individual in for an interrogation. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:21.120 Need mirandize the individual. Then you would conduct the interrogation, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.240 and the interrogation has done in a controlled environment versus 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.880 what an interview would be done, not necessarily in a 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.439 controlled environment. Standard training and an interrogation is to get 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:33.600 in the individual's personal space, so you would bring the 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.040 chair's face to faith. You wouldn't be writing anything down. 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.680 You'd be facing the individual at that particular point, and 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.840 you would be then asking questions that are more getting 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.040 to the point of what you already know is the 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.280 answers you've already had the evidence. I also asked Brian 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.880 about some of the techniques officers use in order to 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:58.679 get that confession. There's a huge difference between coercive questioning 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:03.720 and miscond. The two are not necessarily the same in 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:10.800 patterns of course of interrogation may force an individual to confess. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.880 For example, in an interrogation room, worseisness may end up 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:19.960 in what's known as minimization, when somebody minimizes the culpability 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.520 of an effect. In other words, murders way up here. 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.520 What you did is just way down here, but in 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:29.640 fact it may just be right under murder. This type 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.360 of comment or this type of narrative will be created 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:37.120 by the interrogator, and eventually the individual will start believing 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.520 that there's nothing to worry about. Maybe I'm not going 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.520 to be charged with anything. And then eventually the individual 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.960 may tap into what's known as vulnerabilities. For example, if 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.680 you were a drug user or you're an alcoholic, they 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.520 may start tapping into having a conversation at the beginning 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.320 where you're building the rapport with the suspect, and you'll 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.400 start talking to about the parties they went to and 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.040 how many times did they passed out, and eventually that 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:09.480 will start being used against them. What may be suggested 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.040 is that after this person has told them that they've 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.280 passed out many times, they may suggest that this is 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.600 what happened in this case that you just don't remember 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.680 because you probably passed out and that's probably what happened. 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:23.400 And eventually, after a period of putting that two of them, 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.280 the individual may be suggectively agreeing with that type of 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:32.240 the narrative. There's a fairly lower threshold for an arrest 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.600 versus whether or not a person with confess in an 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.640 interrogation room on a couple of reasons. For example, if 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.360 it's a lengthy interrogation, that could be a reason, whether 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.000 he was tired, where there was sleep deprivation, whether he 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:51.040 had been denied food. These types of situations can provoke 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.320 a no hope situation where he's constantly every time he 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.160 tells the truth, he's being told, well, no, that's a lie. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.800 We have information and we have witnesses that so you 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.840 do certain things which potentially are lies to begin with 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.640 with the minimization as well as tapping into his vulnerability. 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.400 He may then just confess thinking that it's not that 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.720 big of a deal. I'll take whatever I can because 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.440 they've maximized the penalties. Where they tell the story about 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.720 somebody who they just interrogated a week and a half ago, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.200 got fifty five years because he wasn't being honest. So 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:31.320 the individual in the interrogation room. They then decide, well, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.840 I better than give him what he wants and I'll 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.440 get a smaller offense, or I'll get a smaller offenses. 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.280 Here's Attorney Ashley Merchant, who you also heard in the 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.200 last episode. Not only is ash a colleague of mine, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:06.400 she's also Ryan Duke's lead defense attorney. Actually has educated 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.359 herself quite a bit about false confessions in order to 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:15.439 present Ryan Duke's defense. I think what normally happens is 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.680 the truth life somewhere in the middle, and I've always 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.080 thought that, I've just not always put it in the 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.919 context of a false confession. Some of the statistics that 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.800 I found are just very disturbing. One out of four 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.440 people wrongfully convicted that are later exonerated by DNA made 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:36.719 a false confession or an incriminating statement. That's a huge number. 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.880 The more I looked at it, the more I found 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:45.280 how often this stuff happens. It's been something that has 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.920 sort of evolved for me to come to the acceptance 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.280 that false confessions happen, and I can even say as 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.719 a lawyer it was hard for me to accept that, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.560 and I had to really study it and really look 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.240 at the statistics, because you just think, why would someone 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.400 ever tell the police they did something they didn't do. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.120 I mean, that's just against human nature. Now I'm convinced 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.920 that it happens at an alarming regularity. To me, I 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.200 had to kind of try and conceptualize how it could 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.000 play into my own life. How many people tell their 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.879 doctor when they think the doctor wants to hear I 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.040 was going to the doctor, and you know, I was like, Okay, well, 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.320 maybe I haven't been so good about what I'm eating 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.399 or whatever. You know, but you want to tell your 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.879 doctor the truth. If the doctor told you need to 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.040 lose ten pounds and you go back and you haven't 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.120 lost ten pounds, You're like, oh, I've been trying, I've 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.320 been trying. You haven't been trying, but you think your 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:39.199 doctor wants to hear that. And then you have to 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.520 think about the position that criminal defendants are in, and 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.000 you have to think about the power struggle between law enforcement. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.240 I think about my kids, and I think about how 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.800 they are raised to think that law enforcement are the 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.600 good guys. I think that a lot of people grow 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.320 up with that they want to please law enforcement, They 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.840 want to tell them what they want to hear. They 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.200 psychologically break down when they're asked the same thing over 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.840 and over and over again, because clearly they're not giving 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.040 the right answer, or else, why is someone asking me 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.920 the same thing twelve times? If you ask me how 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:13.439 I feel, and I see I feel fine, and then 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.199 you ask me again, you asked me again. First of all, 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.000 I want you to stop asking me, because it's annoying 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.960 at that point. But second of all, psychologically, I'm convinced 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.640 that I must be giving the wrong answer because why 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.040 are you repeatedly asking me this? A lot of times 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:32.000 criminal defendants are exhausted during these interviews. They're very lengthy. 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.719 You can really talk to somebody about something that's uncomfortable, 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.840 I think for maybe forty five minutes or an hour, 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.280 and then after that, I mean, I know, for me personally, 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.200 it's almost like you gotta you gotta move on to 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.040 something else. Sometimes people are taking medicines that could affect that. 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.160 You've got a lot of people that when the police 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.040 are interrogating you, they may not care about the end result. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:54.480 They may just want to get out of that room 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.720 because they don't really care what happens to them. They're 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.600 almost like martyrs. There's so many different things that can 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:02.800 happen that can lead to these false confessions. It's just 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.560 really scary to me. A lot of times, it's not 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.520 that the police just pick some random person off the 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.920 street that has no connection to anything and they get 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.200 them to false lead to confess to something. I don't 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.639 know that that happens as often as someone may have 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:21.000 had some involvement and they're interrogated. I think that we 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.840 get the truth very perverted during the types of questioning, 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.360 and there's certain types of questioning that police are encouraged 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:29.879 to do that I think leads to more false confessions. 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.239 Citizens don't realize that police are encouraged, you know, not 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.560 only allowed, but encouraged to lie to suspects. So they 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.199 believe that when a police officer tells them something and 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.600 ask them something, that that's truthful. There's a lot of 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.760 times things that happened prior to the audio going on. 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.000 I mean, we see like recorded confessions now, but there's 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.160 a lot of times interaction prior to that. A lot 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.199 of the you know, almost grooming I would call it, 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.359 that happens before the false confession. This camaraderie that's built 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:03.560 happens before videos ever on. I asked actually to tell 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:07.640 us what types of cases she sees these false confessions 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.760 in most frequently, most of the time that I see 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.320 these interrogations where the police are using these heavy handed techniques, 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:20.360 it's in the cases that are really circumstantial, really um 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.640 a stretch, and they're using that to shore up their 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.679 case and they need the confession. It's the cases that 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.080 they need the confession because they don't have enough otherwise. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.440 Those are the ones that they look for the confession 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.480 and they use all these techniques. That's really where we 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:38.280 see it. What happens is the police go to interrogation 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.560 one on one, they take the class, they're taught how 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.919 to do it. They're not taught about false confessions. That 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.800 war does not come up in their training. They have 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.280 an interrogation technique that they were taught by the academy. 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.000 They follow that like it's the bible. That technique actually 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.919 can lead to false confessions. For their technique, their interrogation 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.440 technique to work. They want a confession. I mean, that's 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.840 the goal. The goal isn't to get an accurate confession. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:05.359 It's to get a confession, and so their goal is 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.920 not to get necessarily the truth, even though they'd say 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.160 it was to get the truth. It's to close the case. 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:11.960 I mean, there's a reason they're reading you, Miranda rights 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.520 and saying it's going to be used against you. They 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.919 want something to use against you. They want to make 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:18.919 sure they've got the right person. And I think police 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:21.680 officers innately do want to get the right person. I 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:23.600 think they want to believe they've got the right person. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.760 I think the problem is that to do that and 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:28.600 to sleep at night, they have to just sort of 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:31.720 have blinders onto these false confessions, because they wouldn't be 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.240 able to do their job if they if they doubted 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:39.040 every confession they had. I asked actually to detail some 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.600 of the interrogation techniques she's learned about during her research 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.400 into false confessions. One of those techniques is called the 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:52.800 read technique. The read technique is it's where the officer 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.960 tries to establish rapport with the suspect. It's where they're 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.360 trying to give them some hope of benefit, and it's 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:01.800 kind of like playing mind game one. I'm almost the 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:03.560 hope of benefit could be something minor. I mean, it 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.240 could be giving them a pizza, could be giving them 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.399 something to drink. It could be telling them I know 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:13.919 you're really sorry, giving them feedback, positive feedback that the 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.720 more they're telling you, the better it is for them. 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.600 False promises, you know, promises like I'll put in a 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:22.800 good word for you, or I'll make sure that you 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.080 can hug your mom before you go away, or whatever. 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:29.000 You know, just little promises to build a rapport. In 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:34.240 particularly vulnerable populations, it works, and even a non vulnerable 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.760 person after so many hours. They tend to believe that 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:40.480 they use religion a lot of times, that God wants 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.760 them to confess their sins and that they'll be absolved 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:46.760 and they'll pray with them and things like that. These 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.960 are all psychological tricks. I mean, the officer is not 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.920 your friend. They're not praying with you because they care 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:56.320 about you. They're doing this because it elicits a response, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.840 and they want that response. They want that information. So 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.880 other things that they do is they'll offer like tidbits 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:06.159