Too Many Murder Confessions Are Coerced False Confessions



I know what many of those who are in favor of the death penalty believe: that if a man confesses to a murder it positively means he committed the murder. I believe the opposite. If I read that a man confesses to a murder under police questioning, the likelihood is that he was coerced into falsely confessing.

As many as 25% of wrongful convictions overturned with DNA evidence involve false confessions (1). We can only imagine how many more cases there are of innocent people who were coerced into confessing that we don't know about because of a backlog in processing DNA evidence (2) or because prosecutors and judges refuse to allow post-conviction testing of DNA evidence (3).

As to why prosecutors stonewall such DNA requests: simple - "... most prosecutors are evidence-tampering, perjury-suborning, jury-rigging, self-serving bastards who have no desire in furthering the interests of justice but only to advancing their careers, no matter what innocent party they have to persecute and prosecute."

Sadly most juries do not understand that anyone can be coerced into confessing because the police lie about the evidence against him and make false promises that they'll let him go if only he would provide a confession (4). Police will even feed the poor victim details of the murder so that when the confession is finally made, it contains convincing 'evidence' that the confessor is indeed the killer.

If I were on a jury in a murder trial I would discount any confession, no matter how convincing or probative the details therein. I want to hear evidence; a confession is not evidence of a crime - it only proves that the police were very efficacious at breaking a person's will.




ENDNOTES


(1):

Innocence Project, 16 May 2006, DNA Evidence Exonerates Douglas Warney after a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Did Not Commit

“About one-quarter of the 177 wrongful convictions that have been overturned with DNA evidence involve false confessions or admissions,” Neufeld said. “Many of them involve defendants who have cognitive limitations – and law enforcement officials who sometimes prey on those limitations with aggressive or dishonest interrogations. The only way to stop these abuses of power, and the injustice they create, is to record interrogations for serious crimes.

(2):

GOVERNING, 8 Mar 2012, Crime Labs Struggle with DNA Test Demands

Twelve years ago, Congress passed a bill aimed at bolstering the capacity of state and local crime labs. It was known as the “DNA Backlog Elimination Act.” The ensuing effort now bears the more modest title of “DNA Backlog Reduction Program.” But even with the new name, it is an ambitious venture. Since 2006, Congress has poured $785 million into helping to fix the logjam in DNA evidence collection at the state and local level through this and other programs.

There’s no question that a serious problem exists. Recent advances in science and technology have made DNA a more useful tool for convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent, but major backlogs persist, despite broad acknowledgement that delays in processing DNA evidence are keeping criminals on the streets. “A lot of it is supply and demand,” says Kermit Channel, director of the Arkansas state crime lab. “Because the technology offers so much more today than even five or six years ago, law enforcement is asking for more and more from us.”

(3):

Innocence Project of Florida, Opposition to DNA Testing

A common misconception about post-conviction cases involving DNA is that requests for testing are immediately granted. Unfortunately this is simply not the case—in many circumstances, prosecutors erect barriers to obtaining this vital scientific test that merely determines whether evidence of innocence even exists.

In the last three years alone, the prosecution opposed all but two of twenty-five requests for DNA testing filed by IPF, despite the fact that IPF only requests testing in cases it has fully investigated and reviewed, and also despite the fact that IPF pays for all DNA testing. This is a disturbing trend that suggests a much larger systematic refusal to admit that mistakes might have been made, leading to the waste of both judicial and private resources. Instead of seeking to unlock the truth, too many prosecutors seem unwilling to even consider that a potentially innocent citizen is serving an unjust sentence.

(4):

Friends of Justice, 4 Jan 2012, Coerced confessions: One way wrongful convictions happen

coerced confessions by tortureIt seems impossible to imagine confessing to a serious crime that you know you did not commit. That’s why confessions make such great evidence. Juries almost always believe them. And yet, false confessions happen. They usually happen in serious felony cases; 80% of coerced confessions uncovered in one study were obtained in murder investigations.

...

Police are trained to interrogate suspects using psychological methods. These interrogation techniques are powerfully coercive and are designed to destroy the suspect’s hope and confidence. Police often lie to suspects about the evidence against them and make false promises about what will happen if they provide a confession. The police, convinced before the interrogation that the suspect is guilty, go to great lengths to obtain a confession. The prosecution is then convinced by the confession that the suspect is guilty.

And that is how many wrongful convictions happen.




### End of my article ###

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