WEBVTT - #404 Wrongful Conviction: Junk Science - Coerced Confession Evidence 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.160 Hey, folks, Kate Judson here, I'm a lawyer and the 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.760 executive director of the Center for Integrity and Forensic Sciences. 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.560 We're back with another episode of Junk Science, a series 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.239 we first released in twenty twenty. But these stories are 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.400 just as relevant as ever. Confessions, as you'll hear in 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:27.120 this episode, are frequently unreliable, especially under circumstances that include, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:33.640 but aren't limited to, depression, shock, youth, grief, and false 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:38.360 claims by law enforcement. And since many confessions take place 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.080 in the high stress environment of an interrogation room, there's 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.040 a higher than average likelihood that confessions given to law 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:54.360 enforcement will be false or unreliable. With how unreliable confessions 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.480 can be, it might surprise you to know that they 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:02.360 are sometimes used to validate a scientific concept. It works 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.680 like this, Analysts or experts use a risky type of 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.640 analysis in a case and then say that because an 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.360 accused person confessed in the case, the analysis is correct. 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:21.360 This approach isn't two independent pieces of proof. It's one 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:26.640 mistake compounding another on their own. Confessions need to be 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:31.520 treated with skepticism and care, and certainly they should never 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.640 be the main basis for a scientific concept. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.600 Hi, everyone in our feed you've probably heard the podcast 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.800 Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions hosted by Laura and I Wrider 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.840 and Steve Drizzen. Would they dive into the stories of 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:55.240 innocent people who have been subject to tactics that elicit 0:01:55.320 --> 0:02:00.320 false confessions. As it turns out, these tactics are actually 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:06.800 rooted in junk science, just like bitemark evidence, bloodstain pattern analysis, 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.560 and so many others that we have covered in this show, 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.359 we want to make it clear that false confessions are 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.919 another link in this chain of the junk science epidemic. 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.960 For some of our more avid listeners, this will be 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.280 something of a refresher for what you've already heard about 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.680 how twenty five percent of wrongful convictions are based on 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:31.639 false confessions. But in today's episode, we're going to unpack 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.360 the story not of an individual case, but the story 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.480 of how the junk science that's behind false confessions is 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:47.680 employed in the interrogation room. Here's our show. It's a 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.560 crisp fall morning, and you're on your way to the 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.800 first class of the day, psychology one onh one. Just 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.600 a few weeks ago, you started as a freshman at 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.560 this small college in Massachusetts and so far, psych is 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.280 your favorite class. You walk into your classroom and start 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.120 taking off your jacket while your teacher makes some announcements. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:14.200 He says, the psychology department is conducting an experiment. Participation 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:18.120 is completely optional, but anyone who decides to participate will 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:22.600 receive extra credit. You're already doing really well in this class, 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.400 so the extra credit doesn't matter to you that much. 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.120 But you're curious to see what a psychological experiment will 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.800 be like, so you sign up. The next week, you 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.560 show up to the room where the experiment will be conducted. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.320 When you get there, there's already another student waiting outside 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.280 who says she's also here for the experiment. It's not 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.720 long before a professor comes out into the hall to 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.680 greet you, and he's well, very professor looking. He wears 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.280 a tweed jacket and his hair is slightly gray. The 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.440 professor tells you, in a very authoritative tone, sit in 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.280 front of the computer. He then motions for the other 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.200 student to sit in the chair next to you. On 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.520 the table in front of her, there's a piece of 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:13.320 paper with letters printed on it. Then the professor takes 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:14.440 his seat across from you. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:14.800 Both. 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:20.720 He says welcome, thanks for joining us today. This experiment 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.400 will test reaction times. One student will read from a 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.040 list of letters well, the other will type out the 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.200 letters that she calls out. It's actually a very simple experiment. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.239 He pauses for a moment, then looks you in the eye. 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.440 Just one thing before we begin, be very careful not 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.800 to hit the alt key. You see, it's right there 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.160 next to the space bar. The computer program we are 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.760 using today is a little bit finicky, and hitting that 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.240 alt key will cause the computer to crash. And if 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.479 that happens, we'll lose all of our data, and we 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.719 wouldn't want that to happen. It's not quite the experiment 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.360 you were expecting, but it sounds like it'll be, I guess, 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.719 kind of fun. You sit up straight, fingers hovering over 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:15.440 the keyboard. The professor says, let's get ready and begin. 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:23.240 The student next to you starts reading off letters B, A, J, B, T, 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.039 S K. The letters come quickly, but you keep up. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:30.920 You think of this as a game, and you want 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.440 to win. You're laser focused on the task in front 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:40.280 of you. But then the screen suddenly glitches and then 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:56.400 it goes black. You sit there, frozen, staring at the 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:01.000 blank screen. The professor running the experiment sees the confused 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.640 look on your face and jumps up from his seat. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.240 He looks pissed. He walks over to your side of 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.440 the table, looks at the blank screen and says, did 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:11.560 you hit the alt key? 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:13.200 No? 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.880 I didn't. I don't know why this happened. I'm gonna 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.640 ask you one more time. The professor says, did you 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:27.320 hit the alt key? I said no, I really don't 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.240 think I did. You're getting flustered, and the professor is 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.839 clearly angry. What a strange reaction. He stands over you 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:39.279 and picks up the keyboard and clicks some keys and 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:43.919 nothing happens. You did hit the alt key. I know 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.640 you did. He turns to the student who is reading 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.799 the letters and asks her if she saw what happened. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.320 She says, hate to say it, but I did see 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.880 you hit the alt key. The professor storms over to 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.880 seat and starts writing furiously on his pad of paper. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.640 You're confused, and you feel really bad, like you've messed 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.560 up the whole experiment. You didn't mean to. You thought 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.280 it was going well. But if the other student said 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.080 you did it, I mean the computer did crash. You 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.160 must have hit it by accident. The professor rips off 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.920 the top page of his writing pad and pushes it 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.920 toward you. Sign this, he says. You read what the 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.240 professor has scribbled down. It says, I hit the all 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:39.280 key and cause the computer program to crash. Data was lost. 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.000 I really don't think I hit it, professor, you say. 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:49.120 The professor is now fuming. He practically slams the pen 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.960 down on the table in front of you. Sign it. 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:58.000 The leader of this experiment will call you later today. 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.800 You think this guy's pretty pissed. I'll just talk it 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.560 through the organizer of the experiment. When he calls, you, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:10.560 pick up the pen and sign the paper. Just then, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.440 another student walks into the room. The professor says to her, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.480 we'll have to reschedule our appointment. As he leaves the 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.160 room to get his appointment book, mumbling something angry to himself, 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.960 the new student in the room raises her eyebrows at you. 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.960 She whispers, Hey, what happened? She must have heard all 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.480 the yelling. I hit a key on the computer that 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.679 I wasn't supposed to, and I guess I crashed the computer, 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.319 you say. The professor comes back he books a new 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.200 appointment with the girl who walks in. When she leaves, 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:48.000 he sits down and takes a deep breath and says, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.320 it's okay. I didn't mean to get so upset. Show 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:56.800 me exactly what happened when you hit the old key. 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.359 You put your hands on the keyboard, and you say, well, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.000 when I was going to hit the A button, I 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.760 hit the alt key with the side of my hand 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.160 by accident. The professor writes down a note on a 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:15.320 pad of paper, then looks up. Okay, great. His demeanor 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:21.600 totally changed. He suddenly calm and seems to be even cheery. 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.600 That's the end of the experiment. Thank you so much 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.280 for participating, and let me explain everything. He tells you 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:33.280 that the experiment was really not for testing reaction times, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.800 but to study whether presenting someone with phony evidence and 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.560 then accusing them can lead that person to admit to 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:46.840 doing something that they did not do. Turns out, everyone 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.720 else that was in that room with you, the student 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.640 reading out the letters, the one that later asked you 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:57.280 what happened, they were all in on the experiment. The 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.240 professor tells you that you did not, in fact hit 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.559 the ald key, but you certainly aren't the only person 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:09.520 to falsely admit that you did. The story you just 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.800 heard is based on an experiment that was conducted by 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:18.400 psychology professor Saulcaston at Williams College in nineteen ninety six. Now, 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.920 he did the experiment to better understand why people confess 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.040 to crimes they did not commit. You might be thinking, well, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.040 admitting to hitting an ald key sounds like a sort 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.880 of low stake scenario. It's nothing like admitting to a 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.600 rape or a murder, and that's precisely the point. In 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.680 the low stake scenario of Casson's experiment, it seems like 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.800 there would be less of a reason to lie. So 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.960 the experiment actually underscores how a combination of applying pressure 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:56.120 and false inculpatory evidence can cause someone to doubt themselves 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.800 to the point of admitting to something they did not 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:04.439 do in a low stress situation. So it logically follows 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.319 that when the stakes are as high as being accused 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:12.120 of something like rape or murder, the stress and vulnerability increases, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:18.200 as does the likelihood that someone will falsely confess. Often, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.320 when I tell people about Chorus confessions, they say I 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.760 would never confess to something I didn't do. But if 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.760 you were able to relate to the student in this experiment, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.520 if you could just imagine yourself second guessing your own 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.480 actions in that scenario, then it's likely that you too 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.640 are susceptible to the tactics that are often employed by 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:45.280 law enforcement to obtain a confession, regardless of whether you 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:51.480 are innocent or guilty. I'm Josh Dubin's civil rights and 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.840 criminal defense attorney, an innocent ambassador to the Innocence Project 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:01.080 in New York. Today, on Wrongful Conviction Junks Science, we 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:07.559 examine the psychology behind coerce confessions. Interrogation techniques that detectives 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.520 use when questioning a suspect are in fact, very efficient 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.760 and extremely effective. They routinely result in getting people to 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:21.160 confess to committing crimes, and that presents a really unique 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.880 dilemma for detectives investigating those crimes. They know that once 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.240 they get someone in that windowless room of a police precinct, 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.440 they will oftentimes be able to get them to confess, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:38.520 which means those detectives better have real evidence, not merely 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.640 a gut feeling or a hunch, real proof tying a 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:46.840 suspect to a crime before subjecting them to the crucible 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:51.400 of an interrogation, because while this process is great at 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.040 getting guilty people to confess to crimes they committed, it 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.400 is also great for getting innocent people to confess the 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.440 crimes they did not commit. 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.000 When three dozen former Brooklyn Navy yard workers found themselves 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.439 irreparably poisoned by the asbestos they used in the construction 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:16.400 of the battleships that won World War Two, Perry Whites 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.880 and Arthur Luxembourg literally put everything on the line to 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.520 successfully represent them. 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That's 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:09.520 weitz lx dot com. 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.400 Coarse confessions have been a part of our criminal justice 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.120 system for a long time. Take for example, the case 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:21.760 of Stephen Born in eighteen nineteen, detectives found three big 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.840 bones in Stephen's backyard in Vermont. The police alleged that 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.240 the bones belonged to his brother in law, who had 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.640 gone missing and was presumed to have been murdered. The 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.840 police told Stephen, the only way you're going to avoid 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.680 the death penalty is to confess and stand trial, and 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.600 so Stephen confessed. He put his fate in the hands 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.400 of a jury who declared him guilty of murdering his 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.600 brother in law. Stephen was convicted and sentenced to death. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:54.160 Luckily for him, before his execution date, his brother in 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.840 law was found alive and well hanging out in New Jersey. 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.000 And those bones they found the stea Evan's backyard turns 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.880 out they were animal bones all along. He was lucky 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:11.120 to escape the gallows. And still, even after so many 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:15.360 false confessions, just like Stephen Bourne's, the confession of a 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.360 suspect continues to be seen as the gold standard and 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.320 evidence of a person's guilt. Jurors can never seem to 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.640 wrap their heads around the fact that someone might confess 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.720 to a crime they didn't commit, and the tactic for 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.040 obtaining a confession from a suspect only got better. In 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.160 nineteen forty seven, a detective named John Reid began to 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:45.200 distill the methods and principles of interrogations into a scientific 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:50.800 procedure designed to increase the likelihood that a suspect would confess. 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.800 John Reid was a polygraph expert for the Chicago Police 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.120 when he began to develop his nine step process, is 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:04.480 called the Read technique. He claimed that his technique could 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:10.080 diagnose truth interception. The retechnique spread throughout the country and 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:15.880 is still popular today. According to the Red and Associate's website, 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.600 over half a million law enforcement and security officers have 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:24.640 attended their training programs. And while John Reid's technique indeed 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:28.680 increased the likelihood of securing a confession from crime suspects, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.440 not much had been done to understand whether these tactics 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.400 produced confessions that were actually accurate and truthful. That is 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:42.760 until Saul Cassen began conducting his computer crash experiments at 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.800 Williams College. Doctor Casson's experiment tested for some of the 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.520 variables that are often used during the reed technique. The 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:56.880 first variable is vulnerability. Cassen made his test subjects feel 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.480 vulnerable by putting them in the mildly stressful set situation 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.040 of having them type letters at a rapid pace. Another 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:10.600 variable was false incriminating evidence. When students in the experiment 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.800 were told that someone saw them hit the alt key, 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.399 they were much more likely to sign a confession. In fact, 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.000 of the students who were asked to type at a 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.040 fast pace and then we're told that someone saw them 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.200 hit the alt key, one hundred percent of them confessed. 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.000 Although none of them actually hit the alt key, they 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.200 all admitted to the crime when presented with false incriminating evidence. 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.879 On top of that, sixty five percent of students who 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.920 were presented with false incriminating evidence actually believed in their 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.159 own guilt. This was measured by how many of the 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.560 students said, I hit the key when that third student, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.040 remember the one that enters the room for their quote 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:58.200 unquote appointment, A seemingly more neutral party comes into the 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.119 room and says, hey, what happened. Finally, thirty five percent 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.600 of the students actually internalize their guilt to such a 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.720 degree that they made up details about it by saying, 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.439 for example, oh, I hit the alt key with the 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.800 side of my hand. The fact is that none of 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.000 these students had hit the alt key, yet under these 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:24.520 controlled conditions, they confess to something they didn't do. Inducing 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.359 vulnerability and presenting false, incriminating evidence are the cornerstones of 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:34.040 the red technique. What doctor Casson's experiment shows is that 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:39.160 interrogation techniques like John Reid's are a recipe for causing 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.240 innocent people to admit to things that they did not do. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.200 You can flip a coin and be as accurate in 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.840 determining whether somebody is telling the truth or not as 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.760 a trained police officer, and trained police officers are no 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.280 more effective at that than your average person. And in fact, 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:07.560 there have been numerous psychological studies and nothing correlates to 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:12.280 being able to do that to any degree of scientific validity. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:16.439 And that's really where the junk science of this technique 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:21.680 comes in, because the reality is you can't tell whether 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:26.320 or not somebody is lying by verbal and nonverbal behavior. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.680 So with us today we have the amazing David Rudolph 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:38.680 David is a phenomenal, phenomenal criminal defense attorney, civil rights attorney, 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.120 criminal justice reform advocate. The list goes on and on. 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.880 He is a friend of mine, a personal hero of mine, 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:49.679 and many of you have probably seen him in the 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:56.080 Netflix series The Staircase, which followed the trials of his client, 0:19:56.200 --> 0:20:01.160 Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife. Now, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:05.440 David has worked on countless wrongful conviction cases and cases 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.960 in which people have found themselves sitting in an interrogation 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.359 room getting broken down by detectives. And he is someone 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.600 who has studied corese confessions and really dug into how 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:22.000 the psychological techniques used by these interrogators can result in 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.840 a wrongful conviction. So, David, I want to dive right 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.680 into the red technique. What is it and how is 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.920 it different than say, standard police interview. 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.639 When you're trying to elicit information, what you're really doing 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:42.240 is interviewing, not interrogating. You're asking open ended questions, You're 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.879 following up on things, not for the purpose of confronting 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.480 the person, but rather for the purpose of finding out 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:55.040 what actually happened, and that's not designed to get a confession. 0:20:55.359 --> 0:21:01.679 The retechnique is simply a protocol for how to interrogate someone, 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.080 and this is important who you already believe is guilty. 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.719 You don't use the retechnique in order to elicit information. 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:14.680 You only use the retechnique in order to secure admissions 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:16.639 and then ultimately a confession. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.160 Okay, so let's talk about that for a second, because 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.880 you said something interesting, and that is that the interrogator 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:29.080 will actually use this technique on the person they believe 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.960 to be the guilty suspect. They might not have any 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.080 physical evidence to prove that, but they have a hunch, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.720 or they're zeroing in on someone because of tunnel vision, 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.760 whatever the case may be. They think this is their guy, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.040 and they bring that person in for questioning. And they're 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:50.520 not simply trying to find out the truth, right, They're 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.560 sole objective when they employ this technique is to get 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:55.280 a confession. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:00.280 Absolutely. It's intuition plus arrogance. You know that. That's my 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.000 recipe for how this all starts. You have a police 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:08.280 officer who's done one hundred five hundred one thousand investigations 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:12.000 and they know who they like for the crime. You know, 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.960 if it's a wife who's dead, they like the husband 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:19.800 immediately if the husband has a mistress, well that's the clincher. 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.679 So there's all these sort of preconceptions, and then the 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.960 arrogance is that they know because they've done it so 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:29.680 many times. And you know, part of what we ought 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.560 to recognize here is that when you're doing that, you're 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.199 obviously already thinking the person's guilty, and so confirmation bias 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.919 is going to start leaking in. And this is especially 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:44.400 true and it's ironic where there's not much other evidence. 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:49.000 Picture this situation. So there's a vicious crime, just an 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:54.199 awful uproar in the community, and this police officer believes, 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.560 legitimately believes that this other person is the purp, but 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.040 there's no evidence. The pressure to get that person to 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:08.320 confess becomes enormous because if you don't, then there's no case. 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:13.560 And so ironically enough, there's much more pressure to get 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:18.240 a false confession when there's no evidence. So that means 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.920 there's much more pressure to get a false confession when 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:23.480 the person is innocent. 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.320 So David walk us through this technique. Let's say you 0:23:27.440 --> 0:23:33.080 have a husband suspected of killing his wife. Police ask 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.480 them to come down to the station. What's the first 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:36.360 thing that happens. 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.000 What you do in the retechnique is first you isolate 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.960 the person. You put the person in an uncomfortable position, 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:49.080 You shut them off from any support system, and you 0:23:49.200 --> 0:23:53.520 make them anxious so that they're more susceptible to the 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:56.919 other techniques that are going to follow, and so the 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:02.440 person is feeling vulnerable. When you feel vulnerable, you're much 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.880 more likely to give in to pressure, particularly if you're 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:12.879 all alone in a strange place, surrounded by imposing authority 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.560 figures who have guns. I don't think there's very many 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:21.959 people who wouldn't feel a bit of panic at that situation, 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:27.000 just psychological panic. So it's a whole notion of creating 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:30.159 a situation where you are uncomfortable that you want to 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:34.159 get out of, and then creating a situation where the 0:24:34.200 --> 0:24:38.160 only way out is to say what those bullies want 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:47.600 you to say. 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:51.680 You know, I'm imagining the guy in our hypothetical who 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:57.359 is probably just overcome with grief from having just lost 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.800 his wife, and then the last place he wants to 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.320 be is where he ends up, you know, in some 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:09.159 dank room at a police station, and it's you know, 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.600 got no windows, it's always got those uncomfortable chairs and 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.119 they leave them to cool as heels right, and he 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:21.040 sits there by himself for a while, and then the 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:26.280 detectives come in and the questions start, and tell our 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:32.080 listeners what techniques the interrogators use to sort of capitalize 0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:33.680 on his vulnerability. 0:25:34.359 --> 0:25:37.320 What you do during the interview phase is you ask 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:41.080 a series of questions, some of which are called behavior 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:45.439 provoking questions, and there are questions that are designed, at 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:49.800 least in the officer's mind, to provoke responses that they 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:53.480 can then use to determine whether the person is telling 0:25:53.520 --> 0:25:55.600 the truth or not. So, you know, it might be 0:25:55.720 --> 0:25:58.679 questions like why would somebody be saying that you were 0:25:58.680 --> 0:26:02.919 at the crime scene if you really weren't, Or what 0:26:02.960 --> 0:26:05.400 do you think should happen to the person who did this? 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:10.400 You know, when you ask a husband, why would your 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:14.560 own friends be saying that they think that you might 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:18.720 have done this? And you're thinking to yourself, well, you know, 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:22.840 maybe some of my friends saw that time when you know, 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:25.679 my wife and I got into an argument over the 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:29.160 car or whatever it is. And so you're just trying 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:33.159 to come up with some explanation because the officer is 0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.399 asking you for one, and you minimize it because it 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:39.320 wasn't a big deal, and so you talk about it, 0:26:39.400 --> 0:26:42.199 and then all of a sudden, that then becomes the 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:45.679 takeoff point. Well, that wasn't the only time that you 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:48.400 had an argument, wasn't. No, it wasn't the only time 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:50.840 we had an argument. Well, let's talk about some of 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:54.520 the other times you had arguments. And the idea is 0:26:54.720 --> 0:26:58.600 that if you ask enough of these behavior inducing questions, you, 0:26:58.640 --> 0:27:02.040 as a trained police officer, sir, looking at verbal and 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:07.320 nonverbal cues, you know, hesitation, how their eyes are looking, 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:09.199 that you can tell if they're lying or not. 0:27:10.320 --> 0:27:13.040 A lot of us have this notion that investigators have 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:15.679 this heightened ability to tell if someone is lying or not, 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:18.960 and that's just not the case. We know that there's 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:22.439 no science to back up that an officer can tell 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.199 if you are or are not telling the truth. But 0:27:25.280 --> 0:27:28.359 that doesn't help the person sitting in that interrogation chair. 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:34.520 Any answer you give is subject to confirmation, bias, and interpretation. 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:39.640 And that's why this whole thing is junk science. There's 0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:43.920 no logic to it, there's no basis for it. It's simply, 0:27:44.440 --> 0:27:46.760