Transcript False Confessions and the Death Penalty

False Confessions and
the Death Penalty
Prepared by:
Caitlin Chamberlin
Margaret Lai
Kelly Thomson
Admissibility of a Confession:
Constitutional Analysis
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4th: Search and seizure limitations
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5th: Right ag. self incrimination
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6th: Right re: assistance of counsel
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14th: Protects ag. involuntary
confessions
14th Amendment: Voluntariness
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For confessions to be admissible, the
Due Process Clause of the 14th
Amendment requires that they be
voluntary.
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Voluntariness: assessed by looking
at the totality of the circumstances.
Totality of the Circumstances
Test for Voluntariness
Totality of the Circumstances includes:
 Suspect’s:
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Police:
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Age
Education
Mental & Physical Condition
Setting
Duration
Manner of Police Interrogation
Spano v. New York, 360 U.S. 315 (1959)
14th Amend: Case History
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1936: Supreme Court rules that a
confession is involuntary where it was
obtained by physically beating the
defendant.
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Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278.
1986: Supreme Court rules that a
confession is not involuntarily merely
because it is the product of a mental
disease that prevents the confession from
being of the defendant’s free will.
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Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157.
Voluntary?
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1991: Supreme Court held that a
conviction will not necessarily be
overturned if an involuntary confession
was erroneously admitted into evidence.
The harmless error test applies, and the
conviction will not be overturned if the
government can show that there was
other overwhelming evidence of guilt.
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AZ v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279.
6th Amend: Right to
Counsel
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6th provides that in all criminal
prosecutions, the D has the right to
the assistance of counsel.
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This is violated when the police
deliberately elicit an incriminating
statement from a D without first
obtaining a waiver of the D’s right to
have counsel present.
Example:
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1980: The 6th Amend right to
counsel is violated when an
undisclosed, paid government
informant is placed in the D’s cell,
after D has been indicted, and
deliberately elicits statements from
the D regarding the crime for which
the D was indicted.
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US v. Henry, 447 U.S. 264.
5th Amend: Privilege Ag.
Self-Incrimination
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No person “shall be compelled to be
a witness against himself. This has
been interpreted to mean that a
person should not be compelled to
give self-incriminating testimony.
5th: Miranda Warnings
The 5th Amend. Privilege ag.
compelled self-incrimination became
the basis for ruling on the
admissibility of a confession.
 The Miranda warnings and a valid
waiver are prerequisites for
admissibility of any statement
made by the accused during
custodial interrogation.
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5th: Miranda Warnings
Police may not badger the D into
talking/confessing if he invokes his
“right to remain silent.”
 Also protects ag. self-incrimination
by the admission of evidence based
on a psychiatric interview of D who
was not warned of his right to
remain silent.
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5th: Miranda Warnings
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If the police obtain a confession from a D
without giving him Miranda warnings and
then give the D Miranda warning and
obtain a subsequent confession, the
subsequent confession will be
inadmissible if the “question first, warn
later” nature of the questioning was
intentional.
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However a subsequent valid confession may
be admissible if the original unwarned
questioning seems unplanned and the failure
to give Miranda warnings was inadvertent.
But…
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Miranda generally only applies to
interrogation by the police. It does not
apply where interrogation is by an
informant who the D does not know is
working with the police (like a cellmate
covertly working for the police).
Rationale: the warnings are intended to
offset the coercive nature of policedominated interrogation.
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Illinois v. Perkins
And…
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A confession obtained in violation of
a D’s Miranda rights, but otherwise
voluntary, may be used to
impeach the D’s testimony if he
takes the stand in trial, even though
such a confession is inadmissible in
the state’s case in chief.
Available Police
Interrogation Methods
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Feigned sympathy
and friendship
Appeals to God and
religion
Blaming the victim or
an accomplice
Placing the suspect in
a soundproof, starkly
furnished room
Wearing a person
down by a very long
interview session
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Approaching the suspect
too closely for comfort.
Overstating or
understating the
seriousness of the offense
and the magnitude of the
charges.
Presenting exaggerated
claims about the
evidence.
Falsely claiming that
another person has
already confessed and
implicated the suspect.
But this can lead to…
D feeling that it is in his best
interest to confess…even though this
is the most self-defeating course of
action.
 Deception techniques allow police to
“create evidence” so accused thinks
there is DNA or other air-tight
evidence against them.
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Garrett case
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Edgar Garrett of Goshen, Ind.,
suspected in 1995 of his daughter’s murder, despite the
absence of direct evidence linking him to the crime.
Garrett’s interrogators lied egregiously, saying that several
witnesses saw him with his daughter shortly before she
disappeared. They also said that a polygraph test had
proved his guilt.
Then one of the detectives put it to the accused, who
sometimes drank heavily, that he could have experienced
a blackout. He reminded the suspect that he had once
struck his daughter while in an alcoholic haze.
Garrett’s confidence in his memory began to falter and,
though increasingly upset and confused, he ceased
insisting that he had not seen the girl shortly before she
disappeared.
Garrett case
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After 14 hours of such cynical
manipulation, Garrett signed a statement
that he had killed his daughter and was
charged with capital murder. In the
months that followed, however, evidence
turned up showing that Michelle was slain
with a knife, not “thumped” with a stick,
and that Garrett could not have been
anywhere near the crime scene. He was
eventually exonerated.
Richard Danziger
case
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Nancy DePriest was raped and murdered
in her work place in Austin, Texas in
1988. Chris Ochoa pled guilty to the
murder of DePriest and his friend, Richard
Danziger, was convicted of rape. Ochoa
had confessed to the crime and had
implicated Danziger. It would be
discovered, however, that his confession
was coerced and that neither man had
anything to do with the slaying or raping
of DePriest.
Richard Ofshe and Richard
Leo’s Experiment
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Case selection
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60 cases where an individual was
arrested primarily because police
obtained an inculpatory statement that
later turned out to be a proven, or
highly likely, false confession
Case classification
1) Proven false confession (34)
 2) Highly probable false confession
(18)
 3) Probable false confession (8)
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Cases involving suspected or
established false confessions
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Typically resulted in some deprivation of
the false confessor’s liberty
30 of the false confessors whose cases
proceeded to trial had a 73% chance of
being convicted
81% of false confessors find themselves
having to choose either to plead guilty to
a crime they did not commit or go to trial
and risk the harshest possible
punishment = DEATH
Conclusions of Ofshe and
Leo Study
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Confession evidence substantially biases trier
of fact’s evaluation of the case
These 60 false confessions show that the
manuals often teach police to use tactics that
end up producing false confessions since those
tactics are coercive
Not enough safeguards in our criminal system
Criminal justice officials and lay jurors treat
confession evidence with such deference that it
outweighs strong evidence of the defendant’s
innocence
General Information
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In more than 25% of DNA
exoneration felony cases, innocent
defendants made incriminating
statements, delivered outright
confessions, or pled guilty
Factors that contribute to
confessions by innocent people
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Duress
Coercion
Intoxication
Diminished
capacity
Mental impairment
Ignorance of the
law
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Fear of violence
The actual
infliction of harm
The threat of a
harsh sentence
Misunderstanding
the situation
Ways to prevent “false confessions”
from leading to wrongful convictions
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Electronically
record the entire
interrogation
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States: IL, ME, NM,
WI, DC
Sup Ct decisions:
AK, MA, MN, NH,
NJ
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Mandatory jury
instructions
directing the jury
to disregard the
confession if
believed to be
coerced