The Problem of False Confessions
In police interrogation rooms across the country, 无辜的人承认他们从未犯过的罪行——像谋杀和性侵犯这样的严重罪行.
通常, they later recant, but a confession is a powerful thing, not easily dismissed by jurors or attorneys.
Why would anyone admit to a violent crime they didn’t commit?
White wades into a handful of these cases each year, preparing a report or testifying as an expert witness. Rather than offering an opinion about the truthfulness of statements, he applies social science research to illuminate how social influence, individual vulnerabilities, and interrogation techniques can lead to false confessions. 一种被广泛使用的审讯方法被称为“里德技巧”，它是诱使无辜的人做出虚假供词的最大风险因素, 白说. 这项技术的目的是让嫌疑人相信认罪对他们最有利.
关于 a decade ago, 怀特对这起备受瞩目的案件的情况提出了专家意见，其核心是一份有争议的声明, one that is again making news during its appeal. 在纪录片《十大菠菜台子》中，16岁的布兰登·戴西在这个案件中供认了自己的罪行.
It’s mid-June, mid-morning. White sits behind his desk in his bright, orderly Science Center office. He is barefooted. 他谈到了他是如何在与Deja Vishny合作项目后参与这项工作的, a Milwaukee public defender who works on homicides. For about 30 years, White has consulted on the science of eyewitness testimony, but around 2000, 维什尼敦促他考虑在一个需要他专业知识的新领域工作:警察诱导的虚假招供. 怀特是一名社会心理学家，定期教授社会心理学和法律心理学课程.
I knew generally about the issue and the topic [of false confessions], but then I decided to get involved. That meant doing lots of reading, 在伯洛伊特大学教授关于审讯和招供心理学的高级研讨班, doing some studies with others and publishing those studies. 我开始接到律师的电话，希望我为这些有争议的认罪案件提供咨询. The first time I testified as an expert was 2005. That’s when I felt like I was genuinely qualified.
自那以后，怀特作为审讯和供词的社会心理学专家，在威斯康辛州的法庭上作证12次. 他对接受的案例是有选择性的，因为他主要关注的是心理学的教学和研究, and advising students in 贝洛伊特’s law and justice minor program.
I consult on cases where there is no credible, independent evidence of guilt beyond what the suspect has confessed to. 我告诉律师，如果审讯过程被记录下来，我才会接手他们的案子, if there’s no independent credible evidence of guilt, 如果嫌疑人或被告在供词后不久就收回供词. I choose to work on a case where somebody says, “是的, I told the police I did it, but I didn’t really do it.’
怀特说，美国大多数警察审讯采取两种形式之一:收集信息或指控. The Reid Technique is the most widely used accusatorial approach. While it’s highly effective in getting guilty people to confess, 它增加了虚假供词的风险，因为它依赖于身体和社会隔离等策略, confrontation, indifference to claims of innocence, 并向嫌疑人暗示，如果他们认罪，他们将得到宽大处理. 白说 that lengthy questioning, sleep deprivation, and fatigue can add to the risk that suspects will incriminate themselves. 年轻人, people with low intelligence, 患有精神障碍的人特别容易承认他们没有犯下的罪行.
使用里德技术的调查人员有时会使用一种被称为虚张声势的冒险策略——当他们假装有牵连嫌疑人的证据时, such as fingerprints or an eyewitness. 研究表明，每一个警察诱导的虚假供词都是三个连续错误的产物:错误分类, in which police mistakenly conclude that an innocent person is guilty; coercion—the use of accusatory interrogation techniques; and contamination, 警察向嫌疑人施压，要求其提供证词，然后通过向嫌疑人提供犯罪细节来积极塑造证词.
怀特指出，在过去10年里，有两个重要的变化有助于减少虚假供词的盛行.
威斯康辛州是一个非典型的州，所有的警察部门都用音频或视频记录审讯过程. (Nationwide, only some police departments do this.) Recording allows us to see exactly what goes on in the interview room, and it protects police from false claims made by defendants. There’s a record that everyone can examine. 第二个, some police departments, including large ones like Los Angeles, have decided that the Reid Technique is problematic. 他们将停止使用它，因为它诱使太多的嫌疑人虚报. There’s a very good alternative called an ‘information gathering approach,’ which asks suspects for an account of what happened, where they were, what they did. 侦探的行为就像一个真正的侦探，看看这个说法是否有意义，是否与其他证据一致. 情报收集技术是由军方和中央情报局与具有询问技巧专业知识的心理学家和社会科学家共同开发的. 它避免了引导性问题，而里德技巧就是关于引导性问题的.
当我们的采访接近尾声时，怀特把椅子挪到离电脑屏幕更近的地方. 他准备在这个夏天花一大块时间观看对一名德克萨斯州男子的审讯，这名男子的律师要求重新审判，因为他们说他的供词是被胁迫的. White normally doesn’t work on cases so far removed from Wisconsin, but he took this one because of its high stakes. The Texas man, already convicted of murder, is currently on death row.
Susan Kasten is the editor of 贝洛伊特 College Magazine.
False Confessions: How Common Are They?
The overall number of false confessions is unknown, 但拉里·怀特教授分享了一些关于这一现象的最新统计数据.
- Researchers have documented hundreds of false confessions.
- 虚假供词在杀人和性侵犯案件中比在其他类型的案件中更常见.
- 2017年的无罪项目发现，在350起DNA免责案件中，有28%的案件存在虚假供词或认罪.
- Roughly 12% of 2,034 exonerations involved a false confession or admission, according to the 2017 National Registry of Exonerations.
