WEBVTT - #165 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Coerced Confession Evidence 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:05.119 Hi everyone. In our feed you've probably heard the podcast 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:09.360 Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions, hosted by Laura and I Wrider 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.440 and Steve Drizzen, where they dive into the stories of 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.840 innocent people who have been subject to tactics that elicit 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.960 false confessions. As it turns out, these tactics are actually 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:27.400 rooted in junk science, just like bitemark evidence, bloodstain pattern analysis, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.160 and so many others that we have covered in this show, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.959 we want to make it clear that false confessions are 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.480 another link in this chain of the junk science epidemic. 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.519 For some of our more avid listeners, this will be 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.840 something of a refresher for what you've already heard about 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.199 how twenty five percent of wrongful convictions are based on 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:52.239 false confessions. But in today's episode, we're going to unpack 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.920 the story not of an individual case, but the story 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.120 of how the junk science that's behind false confessions is 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:08.240 employed in the interrogation room. Here's our show. It's a 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.160 crisp fall morning and you're on your way to the 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.360 first class of the day, psychology one on one. Just 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.160 a few weeks ago, you started as a freshman at 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.120 this small college in Massachusetts, and so far, psych is 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.840 your favorite class. You walk into your classroom and start 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.680 taking off your jacket while your teacher makes some announcements. 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:34.720 He says, the psychology department is conducting an experiment. Participation 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.720 is completely optional, but anyone who decides to participate will 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.200 receive extra credit. You're already doing really well in this class, 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.960 so the extra credit doesn't matter to you that much. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.720 But you're curious to see what a psychological experiment will 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:54.360 be like, so you sign up. The next week, you 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.120 show up to the room where the experiment will be conducted. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.880 When you get there, there's already another student waiting outside 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.840 who says she's also here for the experiment. It's not 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.320 long before a professor comes out into the hall to 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:13.240 greet you, and he's well, very professor looking. He wears 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.359 a tweed jacket and his hair slightly gray. The professor 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.000 tells you in a very authoritative tone, to sit in 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.880 front of the computer. He then motions for the other 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.760 student to sit in the chair next to you. On 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.080 the table in front of her, there's a piece of 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.880 paper with letters printed on it. Then the professor takes 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:38.680 his seat across from you. Both. He says welcome, Thanks, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.800 for joining us today. This experiment will test reaction times. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.400 One student will read from a list of letters well 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.000 the other will type out the letters that she calls out. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.200 It's actually a very simple experiment. He pauses for a moment, 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.919 then looks you in the eye. Just one thing before 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:03.120 we begin, be very careful not to hit the alt key. 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.600 You see, it's right there next to the space bar. 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.000 The computer program we are using today is a little 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.240 bit finicky, and hitting that alt key will cause the 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.560 computer to crash. And if that happens, we'll lose all 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.359 of our data, and we wouldn't want that to happen. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.000 It's not quite the experiment you were expecting, but it 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.680 sounds like it'll be, I guess, kind of fun. You 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:31.919 sit up straight, fingers hovering over the keyboard. The professor says, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:38.680 let's get ready and begin. The student next to you 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:44.920 starts reading off letters B, A, J, B, T, S K. 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.640 The letters come quickly, but you keep up. You think 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:51.800 of this as a game, and you want to win. 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.240 You're laser focused on the task in front of you. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:01.680 But then the screen suddenly glitches and then it goes black. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:19.000 You sit there, frozen, staring at the blank screen. The 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.120 professor running the experiment sees the confused look on your 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:25.440 face and jumps up from his seat. He looks pissed. 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.320 He walks over to your side of the table, looks 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.560 at the blank screen, and says, did you hit the 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:32.160 alt key? 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:33.760 No? 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.320 I didn't. I don't know why this happened. I'm going 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.080 to ask you one more time. The professor says, did 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:47.640 you hit the alt key? I said no, I really 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.640 don't think I did. You're getting flustered, and the professor 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.279 is clearly angry. What a strange reaction. He stands over 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.680 you and picks up the keyboard and clicks some keys 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:04.200 and nothing happens. You did hit the alt key. I 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.839 know you did. He turns to the student who is 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.400 reading the letters and asked her if she saw what happened. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.920 She says, hate to say it, but I did see 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.479 you hit the alt key. The professor storms over to 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.480 his seat and starts writing furiously on his pad of paper. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.200 You're confused, and you feel really bad like you've messed 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.159 up the whole experiment. You didn't mean to. You thought 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.880 it was going well. But if the other student said 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.680 you did it, I mean the computer did crash. You 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.719 must have hit it by accident. The professor rips off 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.520 the top page of his writing pad and pushes it 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:50.520 toward you. Sign this, he says. You read what the 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.920 professor has scribbled down. It says, I hit the alt 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:59.440 key and cause the computer program to crash. Data was lost. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.200 I really don't think I hit it, professor, you say. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.719 The professor is now fuming. He practically slams the pen 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.560 down on the table in front of you. Sign it. 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.600 The leader of this experiment will call you later today. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.360 You think this guy's pretty pissed. I'll just talk it 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.080 through the organizer of the experiment. When he calls, you, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:31.120 pick up the pen and sign the paper. Just then, 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.040 another student walks into the room. The professor says to her, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.080 we'll have to reschedule our appointment. As he leaves the 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.760 room to get his appointment book, mumbling something angry to himself, 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.520 the new student in the room raises her eyebrows at you. 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.520 She whispers, Hey, what happened? She must have heard all 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:53.760 of the yelling. I hit a key on the computer 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.680 that I wasn't supposed to, and I guess I crashed 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:01.640 the computer, you say. The professor comes back, he books 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.000 a new appointment with the girl who walks in. When 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.119 she leaves, he sits down and takes a deep breath 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.200 and says, it's okay, I didn't mean to get so upset. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:17.360 Show me exactly what happened when you hit the alt key. 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.440 You put your hands on the keyboard, and you say, well, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.560 when I was going to hit the A button, I 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.320 hit the alt key with the side of my hand 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.760 by accident. The professor writes down a note on a 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:35.880 pad of paper, then looks up. Okay, great, His demeanor 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:42.160 totally changed. He suddenly calm and seems to be even cheery. 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.200 That's the end of the experiment. Thank you so much 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.880 for participating, and let me explain everything. He tells you 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.840 that the experiment was really not for testing reaction times, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.360 but to study whether presenting someone with phony evidence and 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.160 then accusing them can lead that person to admit to 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:07.480 doing something that they did not do. Turns out, everyone 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.280 else that was in that room with you, the student 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.200 reading out the letters, the one that later asked you 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.840 what happened, they were all in on the experiment. The 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.800 professor tells you that you did not, in fact hit 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.120 the ald key, but you certainly aren't the only person 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:30.120 to falsely admit that you did. The story you just 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.320 heard is based on an experiment that was conducted by 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.800 psychology professor Saulcasten at Williams College in nineteen ninety six. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.600 Now he did the experiment to better understand why people 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.600 confess to crimes they did not commit. You might be thinking, well, 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.600 admitting to hitting an ald key sounds like a sort 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.480 of low stake scenario. It's nothing like admitting to a 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:59.200 rape or a murder, and that's precisely the point. In 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.400 the state scenario of Casson's experiment. It seems like there 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.600 would be less of a reason to lie. So the 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:12.200 experiment actually underscores how a combination of applying pressure and 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:17.040 false inculpatory evidence can cause someone to doubt themselves to 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.760 the point of admitting to something they did not do, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:25.040 even in a low stress situation. So it logically follows 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.920 that when the stakes are as high as being accused 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.720 of something like rape or murder, the stress and vulnerability increases, 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:38.800 as does the likelihood that someone will falsely confess. Often 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.920 when I tell people about Chorus confessions, they say I 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.360 would never confess to something I didn't do. But if 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.360 you were able to relate to the student in this experiment, 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.080 if you could just imagine yourself second guessing your own 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.080 actions in that scenario, then it's likely that you too 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.240 are susceptible to the tactics that are often employed by 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:05.880 law enforcement to obtain a confession, regardless of whether you 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:12.040 are innocent or guilty. I'm Josh Dubens, civil rights and 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.440 criminal defense attorney, an innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:21.640 in New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction Junk Science, we 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:28.160 examine the psychology behind coerce confessions. Interrogation techniques that detectives 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:32.120 use when questioning a suspect are in fact, very efficient 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.320 and extremely effective. They routinely result in getting people to 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.720 confess to committing crimes, and that presents a really unique 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.439 dilemma for detectives investigating those crimes. They know that once 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.839 they get someone in that windowless room of a police precinct, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.000 they will oftentimes be able to get them to confess, 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:59.120 which means those detectives better have real evidence, not merely 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.200 a gut feeling or a hunch, real proof tying a 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.400 suspect to a crime before subjecting them to the crucible 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.920 of an interrogation, because while this process is great at 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.600 getting guilty people to confess the crimes they committed, it 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.040 is also great for getting innocent people to confess the 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.040 crimes they did not commit. 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.200 When three dozen former Brooklyn Navy yard workers found themselves 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.640 irreparably poisoned by the asbestos they used in the construction 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.559 of the battleships that won World War Two, Perry White 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.080 and Arthur Luxembourg literally putting everything on the line to 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.720 successfully represent them. Since then, they've championed the rights of 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.840 over fifty thousand regular Americans injured through the negligence and 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:52.200 malfeasance of mainly large corporations. Their ability to level the 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.840 playing field against seemingly insurmountable odds has led them to 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.880 litigate against opponents as diverse as Big Pharma all the 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.280 way to those responsible for rendering the water of Flint, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.240 Michigan undrinkable. Whites and Luxembourg ticket personally when there's a 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.920 miscarriage of justice anywhere, and therefore they feel a sense 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.640 of responsibility to support Bramfel Conviction podcasts. You can learn 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.200 more about them by visiting White's lux dot com. That's 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:29.880 we t z lux dot com. 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.920 Course, confessions have been a part of our criminal justice 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.600 system for a long time. Take, for example, the case 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:41.280 of Stephen Born in eighteen nineteen, detectives found three big 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.319 bones in Stephen's backyard in Vermont. The police alleged that 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.720 the bones belonged to his brother in law, who had 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.160 gone missing and was presumed to have been murdered. The 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.360 police told Stephen, the only way you're going to avoid 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.160 the death penalty is to confess and stand trial, and 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:02.120 so Stephen confessed. He put his fate in the hands 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.959 of a jury who declared him guilty of murdering his 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.079 brother in law. Stephen was convicted and sentenced to death. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.679 Luckily for him, before his execution date, his brother in 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.319 law was found alive and well hanging out in New Jersey, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.760 and those bones they found in Stephen's backyard turns out 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.480 they were animal bones all along. He was lucky to 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:31.679 escape the gallows. And still, even after so many false confessions, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.599 just like Stephen Bourne's, the confession of a suspect continues 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.560 to be seen as the gold standard and evidence of 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.240 a person's guilt. Jurors can never seem to wrap their 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.760 heads around the fact that someone might confess to a 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:51.880 crime they didn't commit, and the tactic for obtaining a 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:56.840 confession from a suspect only got better. In nineteen forty seven, 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.040 a detective named John Reid began to still the methods 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:06.520 and principles of interrogations into a scientific procedure designed to 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:13.360 increase the likelihood that a suspect would confess. John Reid 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.960 was a polygraph expert for the Chicago Police when he 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:22.040 began to develop his nine step process, called the Read technique. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.680 He claimed that his technique could diagnose truth and deception. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.120 The Reed technique spread throughout the country and is still 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:35.760 popular today. According to the Red and Associate's website, over 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.760 half a million law enforcement and security officers have attended 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:44.680 their training programs. And while John Reid's technique indeed increased 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.880 the likelihood of securing a confession from crime suspects, not 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.400 much had been done to understand whether these tactics produced 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:57.680 confessions that were actually accurate and truthful. That is until 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:04.360 Saul Cassen began conducting his computer crash experiments at Williams College. 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.960 Doctor Casson's experiment tested for some of the variables that 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.040 are often used during the red technique. The first variable 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:17.480 is vulnerability. Cassen made his test subjects feel vulnerable by 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:21.160 putting them in the mildly stressful situation of having them 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:26.280 type letters at a rapid pace. Another variable was false 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:31.000 incriminating evidence. When students in the experiment were told that 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.520 someone saw them hit the alt key, they were much 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:38.600 more likely to sign a confession. In fact, of the 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.200 students who were asked to type at a fast pace 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.920 and then were told that someone saw them hit the 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:49.280 alt key, one hundred percent of them confessed. Although none 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.200 of them actually hit the alt key, they all admitted 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:56.920 to the crime when presented with false incriminating evidence. On 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.440 top of that, sixty five percent of student udens who 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.400 were presented with false incriminating evidence actually believed in their 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.640 own guilt. This was measured by how many of the 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.040 students said, I hit the key When that third student, 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.560 remember the one that enters the room for their quote 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.720 unquote appointment, A seemingly more neutral party comes into the 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.600 room and says, hey, what happened. Finally, thirty five percent 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.080 of the students actually internalize their guilt to such a 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.240 degree that they made up details about it by saying, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.920 for example, oh, I hit the alt key with the 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.280 side of my hand. The fact is that none of 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.480 these students had hit the alt key, yet under these 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:44.000 controlled conditions, they confessed to something they didn't do. Inducing 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.840 vulnerability and presenting false, incriminating evidence are the cornerstones of 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:53.520 the red technique. What doctor Casson's experiment shows is that 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:58.640 interrogation techniques like John Reid's are a recipe for causing 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.720 innocent people to admit to things that they did not do. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.720 You can flip a coin and be as accurate in 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.200 determining whether somebody is telling the truth or not as 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.280 a trained police officer, and trained police officers are no 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.720 more effective at that than your average person. And in fact, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:27.040 there have been numerous psychological studies and nothing correlates to 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.800 being able to do that to any degree of scientific validity. 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.879 And that's really where the junk science of this technique 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:41.120 comes in, because the reality is you can't tell whether 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.800 or not somebody is lying by verbal and nonverbal behavior. 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.240 So with us today we have the amazing David Rudolph. 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:58.160 David is a phenomenal, phenomenal criminal defense attorney, civil rights attorney, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.600 criminal justice reform, AVAC. The list goes on and on. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.440 He is a friend of mine, a personal hero of mine, 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.159 and many of you have probably seen him in the 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:14.959 Netflix series The Staircase, which followed the trials of his 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:20.680 client Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife. Now, 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.920 David has worked on countless wrongful conviction cases and cases 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.440 in which people have found themselves sitting in an interrogation 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.879 room getting broken down by detectives. And he is someone 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.080 who has studied course confessions and really dug into how 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:41.520 the psychological techniques used by these interrogators can result in 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.320 a wrongful conviction. So, David, I want to dive right 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.159 into the read technique. What is it and how is 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.880 it different than say standard police interview. 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.119 When you're trying to elicit information, What you're really doing 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:01.720 is interviewing, not interrogating. You're asking open ended questions, You're 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.359 following up on things, not for the purpose of confronting 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.000 the person, but rather for the purpose of finding out 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:14.520 what actually happened, And that's not designed to get a confession. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:21.199 The retechnique is simply a protocol for how to interrogate someone. 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.560 And this is important. Who you already believe is guilty. 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.199 You don't use the retechnique in order to elicit information. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:34.200 You only use the retechnique in order to secure admissions 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.119 and then ultimately a confession. 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.640 Okay, so let's talk about that for a second, because 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:44.359 you said something interesting, and that is that the interrogator 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.560 will actually use this technique on the person they believe 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.520 to be the guilty suspect. They might not have any 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.600 physical evidence to prove that, but they have a hunch, 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.200 or they're zeroing in on someone because of tunnel vision, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.240 whatever the case, maybe they think this is their guy, 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.520 and they bring that person in for questioning. And they're 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.000 not simply trying to find out the truth, right, They're 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.040 sole objective when they employ this technique is to get 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:14.760 a confession. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.520 Absolutely. It's intuition plus arrogance. You know, that's my recipe 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.879 for how this all starts. You have a police officer 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.720 who's done one hundred five hundred, one thousand investigations and 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.479 they know who they like for the crime. You know, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.000 if it's a wife who's dead, they like the husband immediately. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.280 If the husband has a mistress, well that's the clincher. 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.200 So there's all these sort of preconceptions, and then the 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.480 arrogance is that they know because they've done it so 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.119 many times. And you know, part of what we ought 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.080 to recognize here is that when you're doing that, you're 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.679 obviously already thinking the person's guilty, and so confirmation bias 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.399 is going to start leaking in. And this is especially 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.920 true and it's ironic where there's not much other evidence. 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:08.520 Picture this situation. So there's a vicious crime, just an 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:13.720 awful uproar in the community, and this police officer believes, 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.080 legitimately believes that this other person is the purp, but 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.520 there's no evidence. The pressure to get that person to 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:27.800 confess becomes enormous because if you don't, then there's no case. 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:33.080 And so ironically enough, there's much more pressure to get 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.720 a false confession when there's no evidence. So that means 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.400 there's much more pressure to get a false confession when 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:42.960 the person is innocent. 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.800 So David walk us through this technique. Let's say you 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:52.560 have a husband suspected of killing his wife. Police ask 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:54.960 him to come down to the station. What's the first 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:56.000 thing that happens. 0:21:56.520 --> 0:21:59.480 What you do in the retechnique is first you isolate 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.480 the person. You put the person in an uncomfortable position, 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:08.560 you shut them off from any support system, and you 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:13.040 make them anxious so that they're more susceptible to the 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.439 other techniques that are going to follow. And so the 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:21.520 person is feeling vulnerable. And when you feel vulnerable, you're 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:27.199 much more likely to give in to pressure, particularly if 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.720 you're all alone in a strange place, surrounded by imposing 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.800 authority figures who have guns. I don't think there's very 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:40.560 many people who wouldn't feel a bit of panic at 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:45.159 that situation, just psychological panic. So it's a whole notion 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:49.240 of creating a situation where you are uncomfortable that you 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:53.200 want to get out of, and then creating a situation 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.720 where the only way out is to say what those 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:01.240 bullies want you to say. 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.520 You know, I'm imagining the guy in our hypothetical who 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:16.199 is probably just overcome with grief from having just lost 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.639 his wife, and then the last place he wants to 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:23.159 be is where he ends up, you know, in some 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:28.000 dank room at a police station, and it's you know, 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.479 got no windows, it's always got those uncomfortable chairs and 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.960 they leave them to cool as heels, right, and he 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.879 sits there by himself for a while, and then the 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:45.119 detectives come in and the questions start and tell our 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:51.000 listeners what techniques the interrogators use to sort of capitalize 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:52.520 on his vulnerability. 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:56.200 What you do during the interview phase is you ask 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.919 a series of questions, some of which are called behavior 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:04.320 provoking questions, and there are questions that are designed, at 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:08.680 least in the officer's mind, to provoke responses that they 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:12.320 can then use to determine whether the person is telling 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:14.439 the truth or not. So, you know, it might be 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:17.520 questions like why would somebody be saying that you were 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:21.800 at the crime scene if you really weren't, Or what 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:24.280 do you think should happen to the person who did this? 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:29.240 You know, when you ask a husband, why would your 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:33.440 own friends be saying that they think that you might 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.600 have done this? And you're thinking to yourself, well, you know, 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:41.679 maybe some of my friends saw that time when you know, 0:24:42.240 --> 0:24:44.560 my wife and I got into an argument over the 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:48.040 car or whatever it is. And so you're just trying 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:52.000 to come up with some explanation because the officer is 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.240 asking you for one, and you minimize it because it 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:58.160 wasn't a big deal, and so you talk about it 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:01.080 and then all of a sudden that then becomes the 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:04.520 takeoff point. Well, that wasn't the only time that you 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.240 had an argument, wasn't. No, it wasn't the only time 0:25:07.280 --> 0:25:09.639 we had an argument. Well, let's talk about some of 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:13.320 the other times you had arguments. And the idea is 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:16.800 that if you ask enough of these behavior inducing questions, 0:25:17.320 --> 0:25:20.879 you as a trained police officer looking at verbal and 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:26.159 nonverbal cues, you know, hesitation, how their eyes are looking, 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:28.080 that you can tell if they're lying or not. 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:31.879 A lot of us have this notion that investigators have 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:34.560 this heightened ability to tell if someone is lying or not, 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:37.800 and that's just not the case. We know that there's 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:41.280 no science to back up that an officer can tell 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.080 if you are or are not telling the truth. But 0:25:44.119 --> 0:25:47.240 that doesn't help the person sitting in that interrogation chair. 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:53.359 Any answer you give is subject to confirmation, bias, and interpretation. 0:25:53.560 --> 0:25:58.480 And that's why this whole thing is junk science. There's 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:02.040 no logic to it. No, there's no basis for it. 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.160 It's simply, let me ask a couple of hard questions 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:07.960 and see if the person is getting nervous or more nervous. 0:26:08.800 --> 0:26:11.680 Okay, so now the cop is certain at least in 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:14.520 his or her mind that the person in front of 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:18.040 them committed the crime, even though there's no proof to 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.800 back that hunch up. So what's the next step. 0:26:22.680 --> 0:26:27.000 Now? The goal is to get the confession, especially, as 0:26:27.040 --> 0:26:31.040 I said earlier, when there's no other evidence. So the 0:26:31.080 --> 0:26:35.040 tone of the whole conversation changes. It now turns sharp, 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:39.480 and all of a sudden, the officer says, listen, you know, 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:41.760 we've been talking for a while and I just have 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:44.560 to tell you. We know you're guilty. The person says, well, no, 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:48.840 I'm not, and the officer says, well, don't bother lying 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:52.280 to me about it. So the person says, no, I 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.720 didn't do it. Well, then can you explain why your 0:26:55.800 --> 0:27:00.239 DNA is on the knife? The officer says, you know, 0:27:00.280 --> 0:27:03.040 maybe it was so horrible that you've blotted it out 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:05.880 of your memory. You know, maybe that's why you don't 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:09.120 remember it. But how do you explain that that DNA 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:12.280 is on that knife? And there is no DNA on 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:16.560 the knife. But the officer is now aligning to the 0:27:16.600 --> 0:27:21.480