Guilt or Grief ?
Let’s talk about false confessions by victim-related suspects.
Guilt or Grief?
Let’s talk about false confessions by victim-related suspects. By Hailey Janysek.
Who are victim related suspects?
Victim-related suspects are suspects who had or have a relationship with the victim of the crime they are accused of committing.
Victim-related suspects can be family members, friends, roommates, and romantic partners.
Victim-related suspects are often shocked and grieving in the wake of the crime.
While in this fragile emotional state, they are interrogated by the police.
Grief negatively impacts:
Physical condition, concentration, decision-making, emotional regulation, and memory.
During an interrogation:
Police officers use a decades-old process called the Reid technique. The officer assumes that the suspect is guilty, and tries to make the suspect confess to the crime so that they can close the case.
Suspects are questioned in small, uncomfortable rooms for hours at a time. Additionally, officers are legally allowed to lie about the evidence, what the suspect will be charged with, and whether someone else has said the suspect is guilty.
Stress of being interrogated + physical condition + grief + police manipulation = coerced confessions.
“If they said, ‘We want you to say you were responsible for the assassination of J.F.K.’… I would have.”
Quote from Huwe Burton, who falsely confessed to the murder of his mothers after hours of interrogation in the days immediately after she was killed. He was sixteen at the time. He was wrongfully convicted and served nineteen years in prison before he was exonerated.
Picture of Huwe Burton wiping away tears in court on the day he was exonerated.
Victim-related suspects are vulnerable to police manipulation and are more likely to falsely confess as a result of their grief and vulnerability.
Between 1989 and 2020:
29% of DNA exonerations involved false confessions.
49% of the false confessors were 21 years old or younger at the time of arrest.
31% of the false confessors were 18 years old or younger at the time of arrest.
9% of the false confessors had mental health or mental capacity issues, known at trial.
False confessions are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States.
Solutions
1. Get rid of the Reid technique. Police officers must stop using the highly coercive Reid technique because it results in far too many wrongful convictions. Other methods, like the PEACE model, are effective without being coercive.
2. Provide access to a grief counselor. Victim-related suspects should be permitted to visit with a grief counselor before they are interrogated. Even a single session could help them begin to cope and understand how their grief may be impacting them.
Sources:
Slide 2: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10896-024-00802-z
Slide 4: https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/how-tragedy-affects-the-brain/
Slide 5: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2014/rpt/2014-R-0071.htm
https://innocenceproject.org/police-deception-lying-interrogations-youth-teenagers/
Slide 7: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/nyregion/3-detectives-obtained-a-false-murder-confession-was-it-one-of-dozens.html
Slide 8: https://innocenceproject.org/police-deception-lying-interrogations-youth-teenagers/
Slide 9: https://innocenceproject.org/police-consultants-drop-reid-technique/