Silk Road forums
Discussion => Legal => Topic started by: Bluto on August 15, 2013, 08:59 pm
-
The coerced or forced confession has been a cornerstone of American law enforcement for years. There are a number of cases that one can show where the defendants (deft) were proven to be guilty at some later point yet, for some reason -confessed to a crime.
I was discussing this with a friend and she pointed out that Sleep Deprivation is the main tool that law enforcement uses to coerce people into confessing. Just googling for instance:
clearnet: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=1082744
Defense lawyers said that Kogut gave a videotaped confession, only after more than 18 hours of interrogation and sleep deprivation. In it, he said that Fusco had gotten into a van with him and the two other men. The three sometimes worked for a moving company that Restivo's family owned.
In his confession, Kogut said that the four had driven to a nearby cemetery where Restivo and Halstead raped Fusco and convinced him to strangle her. They then dumped the body near the skating rink, he told police.
Kogut later recanted the confession, but it, coupled with testimony of several inmates was enough to get a conviction against all three at trial. DNA tests conducted in the early 1990s gave mixed results, but two years ago a more advanced DNA technique showed that the DNA found on the victim's body did not match any of the three men
Now if it was something that the cops were trying to get me to sign -I would sign it something like "I did not do this". I don't know if that would be sufficient. Knowing cops, they may rip up the confession and try to get you to sign one again or fake your signature.
There is another problem when the cops want you to make a video confession. I guess I could just keep repeating that I want to talk to my lawyer -but if they are not letting you sleep or putting you in cells with torturers -I'm not sure on what the best strategy would be. Perhaps trick them into running the tape and then telling the camera of your circumstance -but oftentimes the prisoner doesn't know that they are being filmed.
Any ideas?
-
Personally, I think it depends what your in for.
1. Always say nothing (apart from asking for a lawyer) not even no comment, as it will antagonize the Police making them probe you harder.
2. Fall asleep on the table or meditate. Make it clear you aren't going to be playing ball through your silence.
3. Don't freak out about missing the whole week. If they are probing you hard for a confession, they likely don't have enough evidence to convict you and hopefully not charge you. If you make it to 72 hours without giving them anything to file charges with they gotta let you go.
-
Only speak to them to request the presence of your legal representative/adviser or to ask for food/water etc. If not accompanied or at least advised by a legal professional or alternative of your choosing then you should never say anything which is being taken on record. You do not have to explain why, or anything else. Don't get aggressive about it but make it clear you understand your rights and are not going to be intimidated into discussing anything further until you have proper legal support and advice. Whenever they try strange little mind games just clam up and concentrate on maintaining your own psychological wellbeing. Don't get riled up or tricked into saying anything, they're good at twisting scraps of info into lies that can get you fucked in court if you don't have solid alibis. Remain calm, passive, and unresponsive. Even if they say they have evidence of something do not respond until you have verified this via an external legal representative.
On a more specifically on-topic note, the only way to be sure of avoiding slip-ups etc after sleep deprivation and other psychological techniques have been employed against you is to be confidently in control of your own thoughts and behaviors. Know yourself and your mind and remain calm and calculated. However, everyone has a limit.
-
Never smoke the cigarette and ALWAYS eat the food!!!
Ryno
-
Never smoke the cigarette and ALWAYS eat the food!!!
Ryno
why? i like to have a smoke now and then
-
Never smoke the cigarette and ALWAYS eat the food!!!
Ryno
why? i like to have a smoke now and then
The cigarette was used in exchange to talk.
-
To unconsciously give you a feeling of guilt and the need to do something back.
Bla bla you know the drill
-
I re-read what I said and it sounded like I was someone with broken english. LOL. I was just joking. I always thought they offered food to see if you'd be able to eat(being guilty you wouldn't be hungry) and the cigarette would usually be taken by the people guilty. Idk i watch too many movies.....
Ryno
-
I re-read what I said and it sounded like I was someone with broken english. LOL. I was just joking. I always thought they offered food to see if you'd be able to eat(being guilty you wouldn't be hungry) and the cigarette would usually be taken by the people guilty. Idk i watch too many movies.....
Ryno
bullshit, if I was guilty I would more likely not take the cigarette because I'm anxious and just want to leave, if I know I'm straight then fuck yeah I want a cig
-
I re-read what I said and it sounded like I was someone with broken english. LOL. I was just joking. I always thought they offered food to see if you'd be able to eat(being guilty you wouldn't be hungry) and the cigarette would usually be taken by the people guilty. Idk i watch too many movies.....
Ryno
bullshit, if I was guilty I would more likely not take the cigarette because I'm anxious and just want to leave, if I know I'm straight then fuck yeah I want a cig
well i've never smoked so i guess this is the thoughts coming from a nonsmoker.
Ryno
-
1 thing I wanted to add:
Dont fall for the Good Cop / Bad Cop game- it may sound like a TV cliche, but they do play it, because it works more often than not.
Just remember that the good cop isnt a good cop hes playing a role an so is the bad cop. In reality theyre both the stupid cop, and thats how you should think of them. Stupid for trying to play you into a legal trap.
And snitching wont get you out of a jam no matter what they say. It might get you dead, because people find these things out, one way or another.
-
1. Always say nothing (apart from asking for a lawyer) not even no comment, as it will antagonize the Police making them probe you harder.
2. Fall asleep on the table or meditate. Make it clear you aren't going to be playing ball through your silence.
efully not charge you. If you make it to 72 hours without giving them anything to file charges with they gotta let you go.
IRA training was to pick a spot on the wall and concentrate on it. Say nothing. Just stare and concentrate all your energy on that one spot.
-
Never smoke the cigarette and ALWAYS eat the food!!!
Ryno
This is a very valid point people. If you're in a shit situation, if they offer food or water, take the damn thing if you want. Sometimes in really shit situations, they will bring in your buddy if you're caught with one or a few, and usually bring him in when you're eating food, having and drink and maybe get patched up. Know that in your head, he would eat away just like you would in that situation, take care of yourself, they are using the situation to make you feel awkward around one another, twist your emotions together and expose your weak spots.
With regards to questions, only give your full name, address and date of birth (and if you're in the military, rank). Do not use the words "Yes" or "No" at any point. Your only answer is, to any other question, is "I cannot answer that question" or keep your mouth shut. Why? Because I am British, who knows if they are recording it, they mix it up to say "Do you think Britain should come help you?" "No.", "Do you think we're treating you well enough" "Yes". That is one example, but you can see where it can lead to.
Forced confessions? Not likely to exist. If they must get you to confess, it means they're in a country where it is unlikely they'd kill you, just take the beating and be happy you have your freedom, the wounds heal faster than the sentence, trust me.
-
Forced confessions? Not likely to exist. If they must get you to confess, it means they're in a country where it is unlikely they'd kill you, just take the beating and be happy you have your freedom, the wounds heal faster than the sentence, trust me.
In the United States this happens all the time.
From the clearnet: http://www.ipt-forensics.com/library/coerced.htm
Coerced or Nonvoluntary Confessions
Hollida Wakefield, M.A.* and Ralph Underwager, Ph.D.
Police may engage in deceptive and coercive interrogations to obtain confessions. When a confession is later retracted, judges and juries must assess the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession, including the interrogation techniques used and the effects of these tactics on the particular defendant. A suspect who is vulnerable and confused or who is given false evidence by a coercive interrogator may produce a false confession. Expert testimony may be necessary to help jurors understand the circumstances that lead to nonvoluntary confessions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A confession is one of the strongest forms of evidence that can be brought into a court of law. In the United States criminal justice system, prosecutors avidly seek confessions as the most persuasive evidence to win cases. Eliciting a confession and presenting it to the fact finder easily becomes a primary goal of the justice system. A confession has a compelling influence on jurors and they are more likely to convict on the basis of a confession than anything else, including eyewitness identification. This effect persists even when the jury is fully aware that a confession was coerced and likely nonvoluntary (Kassin & McNall, 1991; Kassin & Sukel, 1997; Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985).
However, confessions have also been a source of controversy. Whether the suspect was of sound mind and whether the confession was voluntary or coerced must be considered by judges and juries. Kassin (1997) notes that "a confession is typically excluded if it was elicited by brute force; prolonged isolation; deprivation of food or sleep; threats of harm or punishment; promises of immunity or leniency; or, barring exceptional circumstances, without notifying the suspect of his or her constitutional rights" (p.221).
If it is demonstrated that the police lied, fabricated evidence, or otherwise coerced a confession, the fact finder must consider whether the police lies and deception would have made an innocent person confess. Judges must determine the admissibility of the confession by evaluating whether it was voluntary, but they seldom find police lying so severe that it undermines voluntariness (Young, 1996). The result is that lying, deception, coercion, and fabrication of evidence may be approved and condoned in court rulings even while such practices are criticized. Convictions based on coerced confessions may later be upheld through the appellate process. Huff, Rattner, and Sagarin (1996) observe that a systemic bias exists in the justice system so that lower courts are seldom reversed by higher courts.
When a confession is admitted and later retracted and claimed to have been made under duress, an additional question is whether the jury can understand the pressures that led up to the confession. Milgram's (1963, 1964) obedience studies suggest that, although most people may believe they personally would never succumb to pressure, their behavior in a coercive environment is to conform. Jury members may be unable to perceive how an innocent person could actually confess to something he did not do. Widespread overconfidence in personal ability to resist coercion may lead jurors to give undue and erroneous weight to a coerced confession. Expert testimony may be necessary to help jurors understand the circumstances that lead to nonvoluntary confessions, but trial courts have not always admitted such testimony.
JUDGES AS GATEKEEPERS
Whether a questionable confession is admitted as evidence before a fact finder is determined by the trial judge. The judge also determines whether expert testimony concerning the circumstances of the confession will be admitted. This is true whether the jurisdiction is operating under the older Frye rule or the more recent U.S. Supreme Court Daubert ruling on the admissibility of scientific evidence. A judge is the gatekeeper and either opens the gate for expert testimony or closes it. The result is that testimony about nonvoluntary confessions may or may not be admitted depending upon the particular judge and his or her interpretation of the law.
Whoa, let me re-emphasise that:
>>Jury members may be unable to perceive how an innocent person could
>>actually confess to something he did not do. Widespread overconfidence
>>in personal ability to resist coercion may lead jurors to give undue
>>and erroneous weight to a coerced confession.
The problem with judges as gatekeepers is likely that described by Chief Justice Rehnquist in his dissent to the Daubert ruling:
I defer to no one in my confidence in federal judges; but I am at a loss to know what is meant when it is said that the scientific status of a theory depends upon its "falsifiability" and I suspect some of them will be too (Daubert v. Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993, pp.3-4).
Saks (1989) sees the law as policy analysis without benefit of data and based on guesswork:
The law, and most of the people who enter the law, had their intellectual upbringing in the humanities. Law students are typically smart people who did not like math. The quantitative, empirical, social and behavioral sciences exist in another world (p.1115).
Judicial capacity as a gatekeeper may be affected by a number of factors including bias, personality dispositions, cognitive capacity, and social or political pressures (D'Amato, 1990; Imwinkelried; 1996; Landsman & Rakos, 1994; Wesley, 1984). For the science of psychology, the gatekeeping task of judges is an example of the fundamental tensions and conflicts between the law and psychology that have been discerned in the past (Meehl, 1989).
-
...more...
COERCED CONFESSIONS AND FALSE CONFESSIONS
Coerced or nonvoluntary confessions must be distinguished from false confessions, since not all coerced or nonvoluntary confessions are false and not all false confessions are coerced. Although it is common for defendants to retract confessions made during police interrogations, this will include both true and false confessions. Obviously, some nonvoluntary confessions are true. In this paper, the focus is on coerced and nonvoluntary confessions and is not limited to those that have been demonstrated to be false.
It is sometimes argued that police coercion, including deception and trickery, is necessary to make criminals confess, but such interrogation techniques also risk eliciting false confessions. The extent to which this happens is unknown since no one knows the actual rate of false confessions (Kassin, 1997). Several researchers maintain that enough instances have been documented to suggest that a concern over such a risk is justified (i.e., Ayling, 1984; Brandon & Davies, 1973; Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985; Leo, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c; Leo & Ofshe, 1998). Rattner (1988), in a sample of 205 cases of wrongful convictions, reports that coerced confessions accounted for 8.4%. In a study of 229 inmates in Icelandic prisons, 27 (12%) of the inmates claimed to have made a false confession in the past during police interviewing (Gudjonsson & Sigurdsson, 1994) and the majority of the subjects (78%) were convicted of the offense to which they had allegedly made a false confession1.
Others disagree that there is a significant problem with false confessions. Cassell (in press) believes that there is no empirical evidence that false confessions occur frequently and he maintains that the problem is largely confined to persons who are mentally retarded or have serious mental problems. He states that many reports of wrongful convictions from false confessions are based on media reports and other secondary sources, and that credible evidence shows that the individuals were most likely guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. He argues that false confessions are not caused by police interrogation techniques in general but rather by using these techniques with narrow, mentally limited populations.
In another article Cassell (1998) estimates the number of false confessions leading to wrongful convictions using data from a variety of sources, primarily Huff et al. (1996). He believes that a reasonable estimate is in the range of 10 to 394 wrongful convictions from false confessions in the United States each year. Cassell stresses that this estimate relies on extensive extrapolations and assumptions and cannot be viewed as a hard number. It must also be remembered that this estimate is not of all nonvoluntary confessions or even of all false confessions, but only pertains to the subset of false confessions that result in wrongful convictions.
Being interrogated by the police is a highly stressful experience, especially when the individual is isolated and not in contact with familiar individuals. Isolation and confinement can cause a wide range of behavioral and physiological disturbances including loss of contact with reality (Gudjonsson & MacKeith, 1982). Foster (1969) notes that police interrogation "can produce a trance-like state of heightened suggestibility" so that "truth and falsehood become hopelessly confused in the suspect's mind" (pp.690-691).
Stress can also arise from the suspect's submission to authority. When the interrogator is perceived as being invested with socially legitimate authority, the suspect may obey instructions and suggestions which would ordinarily be rejected. The experiments by Milgram (1963, 1964) on obedience to authority illustrate this. This is apt to be more likely in an individual who generally defers to authority.
If a person has no experience with arrest and interrogation, he is more likely to become upset and stressed by the interrogation. A study in England (Irving, 1980) reported that anxiety and fear were most commonly observed in first-time offenders and those suspected of sex crimes. Observations noted included trembling, shivering, sweating, hyperventilation, frequent urination, and verbal incoherence. A substantial proportion of the suspects were not in a normal mental state during interrogation.
Gudjonsson and MacKeith (1982) note that factors encouraging a suspect to make a genuine confession may be similar to those that cause a person to make a false confession. They state that "non-psychotic individuals ruminating guiltily about such things as sexual deviation may also have an exceptionally low threshold to confession to things that they have not actually done" (p.259). The false confessor may be aware he is not telling the truth or his perceptions may be distorted or he might even be deluded for a brief period of time. The false confession in all of these situations is an interplay between the person's mental state, basic personality, intelligence, and all of the environmental circumstances of the interrogation.
There are individual differences in the way people react to the stress of an arrest and interrogation. Three types of false confession have been distinguished: (a) voluntary (statements made without external pressure), (b) coerced-compliant (when the suspect confesses to escape an aversive interrogation, secure a promised benefit, or avoid a threatened harm), and (c) coerced-internalized (when suspects actually come to believe they are guilty of the crime (Kassin, 1997; Kassin & Kiechel, 1996; Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985)).
Although the last type of false confession seems less likely, a suspect who is vulnerable and confused (internal factors) and who is given false evidence by a deceptive interrogator (external factors) may confess to the act, internalize the confession, and confabulate details consistent with the newly created belief. A laboratory test of these two factors demonstrated that they can lead to a coerced-internalized false confession (Kassin & Kiechel, 1996). The Paul Ingram case is a well known example of this. Ingram, following months of coercive and misleading interrogation that included hypnosis, not only falsely confessed but recalled false details of crime scenes (Ofshe, 1992). Gudjonsson and LeBegue (1989) also provide a detailed case report of a coerced-internalized false confession.
A distinction must be made between the generation in an interrogative context of a false belief that a person committed a crime and a false memory for the crime. They may not go together (Gudjonsson, 1995). Creating a false belief may be the precursor to developing a false memory. The false memory may develop when there is some process which reinforces the false belief. Gudjonsson (1992) explains internalized coerced confessions by suggesting a memory distrust syndrome. This is thought to be a state of confusion in which people lose confidence in their own recollections of events. Then when the confusion dissipates and the original memory returns, the person retracts and challenges the confession.
A situation we have observed is when the accusation is made by an intimate or a highly regarded person. Although initially the accused knows it is false, he may need to explain how it could happen that the accusation was made. A low tolerance for ambiguity and a high need for closure may cause the person to think about possible explanations. Source monitoring errors may eventually lead to a confusion between what is thought and what happened. Across time the possible scenario becomes more and more real and detailed. For example, in one case, a man began thinking about an ambiguous dream he had. It then progressed through more dreams, more details, and then moved to possible behaviors suggested by the dreams. Finally, he admitted the possibility that he may have done something inappropriate.
THE GUDJONSSON SUGGESTIBILITY SCALESResearch indicates that criminal suspects who make confession statements which they later deny differ from subjects who persistently deny any involvement in the crime of which they are accused. Gudjonsson and his colleagues have developed a scale to assess "interrogative suggestibility" which is intended to be applicable to police interrogations (Gudjonsson 1984a, 1984b, 1991c, 1997; Gudjonsson & Clark, 1986). Interrogative suggestibility is seen as differing from other types of suggestibility and is defined as "the extent to which, within a closed social interaction, people come to accept messages communicated during formal questioning, as a result of which their behavioral response is affected" (Gudjonsson & Clark, 1986, p.84).
The features of interrogative suggestibility are:
1. It involves a questioning procedure which typically takes place within a closed social interaction.
2. The questions are mainly concerned with past experiences, events, and recollections. In contrast, other types of suggestibility are typically concerned with the motor and sensory experiences of the immediate situation.
3. Interrogative suggestibility contains a component of uncertainty, which is related to the ability of the person to process information cognitively.
4. Questioning in a police context commonly involves considerable stress with important consequences for the witness, victim, and suspect (Gudjonsson, 1997, pp.1-2).
The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales (GSS 1 and its parallel form, GSS 2) (Gudjonsson, 1997) are intended to help identify people who are particularly susceptible to giving erroneous accounts of events when subjected to questioning. The scale, which is applicable to questioning of witnesses and alleged victims as well as interrogations of criminal suspects, assesses responses to leading questions and to pressure resulting from negative feedback.
The scale is based on a short, narrative story, which is read out loud to the subject who is then asked to relate everything that can be recalled about it. After providing both immediate and delayed recall, the subject is asked 20 specific questions, 15 of which are subtly misleading. Next, the subject is clearly and firmly told that he or she has made a number of errors (even if no errors have been made), that it is necessary to ask all of the questions again, and that the subject should try to be more accurate. The extent to which the subject gives in to the misleading questions in the first trial is scored as Yield 1, any change in answers between the first and second trials is scored as Shift, and Yield 1 and Shift are added together to make up the Total Suggestibility score.
Many studies have been done on the GSS and the manual (Gudjonsson, 1997) provides normative data from a number of populations. Intelligence has been found to correlate negatively with GSS suggestibility scores in several studies (Clare & Gudjonsson, 1993; Gudjonsson, 1997; Richardson & Kelly, 1995). Poor assertiveness, evaluative anxiety, state anxiety, and avoidance coping strategies correlate positively (Gudjonsson, 1997). Adolescents do not yield to leading questions more than do adults, but they are more responsive to negative feedback (Gudjonsson & Singh, 1984a); but after age 16, there is no relationship between age and suggestibility (Gudjonsson, 1984a).
Most important for the issue of nonvoluntary confessions, research with the GSS indicates that "resisters" (subjects who persistently denied their involvement in the crime they were charged with) score significantly lower than "false confessors" (subjects who retracted confessions they had previously made during police interrogations) (Gudjonsson, 1984b, 1991a, 1991b). Gudjonsson (1991a) observes that these differences remain when intelligence and memory capacity are controlled for (Gudjonsson, 1991a). The results also suggest that the confessing behavior is linked to the suspects' ability to cope with pressure, rather than their tendency to give in to leading questions per se. Suggestibility also appears to be related to the suspect's experience with police interrogations in that it is negatively correlated with previous convictions (Gudjonsson & Singh, 1984b; Sharrock & Gudjonsson, 1993).
Gudjonsson (1991 a) observes that it is almost certain that not all of the "false confessors" in his study were innocent of the crime with which they are charged. However, at least some most likely were and the fact that not all of these people were of low intelligence reinforces the point that people of normal intelligence can and do falsely confess to serious crimes.
-
POLICE INTERROGATIONS
Police freely admit deceiving suspects and lying to induce confessions. Police have fabricated evidence, made false claims about witnesses to the crime, and falsely told suspects whatever they thought would succeed in obtaining a confession. They have lied about the suspect's culpability, assuring him that his behavior was understandable and not really blameworthy, or telling him that if he described what happened, the victim could be helped. They have falsely told suspects that they had physical evidence such as footprints, fingerprints, or semen, that a codefendant had confessed, that the weapon used in the crime was found, that the suspect failed a lie detector, and that there was medical proof of sexual molestation (Heavner, 1984; Hrones, 1996; Skolnick & Leo, 1992; Underwager & Wakefield, 1992; Young, 1996). Lindsay (1991) conducted a series of four experiments which suggest that police deliberately and intentionally construct biased lineups to assure identification of a suspect they believe to be guilty.
Deception is justified by the police as a necessary evil in order to, obtain convictions of guilty persons. Skolnick (1982) notes that police officers move from investigation, through interrogation, to testimony. The system, including the training academies and the courts, permit, if not encourage, deception during the investigation phase. A detective may pose as a consumer, a fellow criminal, a panderer, or use informers and wiretaps. The line between entrapment and acceptable deceit is vague and unclear.
The actual number of cases where police lie is not known, but, because most criminal cases end with guilty pleas, the reported cases represent only a fraction of the actual cases where police lie (Young, 1996). Police deception can result in innocent people being convicted; McCloskey (1989) lists police lies on the witness stand, police pressure to coerce false witnesses, suppression of exculpatory evidence, shoddy police work after a conclusion has been reached about guilt, and falsified forensic science reports as major factors in wrongful convictions.
Miranda v. Arizona, decided by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1966, used quotations from Criminal interrogation and confessions by Inbau and Reid (1962) to show that police used deception and psychologically coercive methods in questioning people. The court concluded that interrogation is now psychologically oriented rather than physical but that the degree of coerciveness inherent in the situation had not diminished.
The court observed that the 16 strategies for interrogation proposed by Inbau and Reid (1962) show three major themes. The first reattributes the implications of the situation by shifting the blame or minimizing the seriousness of the crime. The second attempts to frighten the individual by exaggerating the evidence available, telling the person that the interrogator knows he is guilty, or stressing the consequences. The third makes an emotional appeal through showing sympathy, flattery, and respect, and by appealing to the best interests of the suspect. The court found such practices inherently coercive.
The most recent edition of this manual, which remains the most popular in the country for teaching interrogation methods, presents different themes for interrogators to use in eliciting confessions (Inbau, Reid, & Buckley, 1986). This book remains the most widely used text for training police. For example, in State v. Kelekolio the detective testified that he lied in the interrogation because he had been told to use that technique at a police seminar. When videotapes or audiotapes of police interrogations are available, it is easy to discover the specific techniques followed in the interrogation.
Leo (1996b) notes that American police have become extremely skilled at the practice of manipulation and deception during interrogation. Based on hundreds of hours of research as a participant-observer in three police departments, he concludes that modern interrogation techniques can best be understood as a confidence game based on the manipulation and betrayal of trust. Zimbardo (1967), based on his review of training manuals, believes that the interrogation techniques of the police are sometimes more highly developed, more psychologically sophisticated, and more effective than those that were used by the Chinese Communists in Korea. The result of such sophisticated and psychologically persuasive interrogation techniques is that many people will confess to crimes, even when it is against their best interests.
Leo (1996c) states that one of the most troubling aspects of false confessions resulting from such police interrogations is that the police leaders and trainers deny that their highly manipulative and deceptive interrogation tactics may produce confessions from entirely innocent persons. He observes that, due to the widely held belief among police officers that virtually all suspects are guilty and will confess only if they are, in fact, guilty, the interrogator may elicit a false confession without realizing it. Leo believes that many criminal suspects remain incarcerated for crimes they did not commit as a result of such false confessions.