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Would you confess to a crime you did not commit?  You may say you would never falsely confess to a crime under any circumstance (especially those with great penalties), but the truth is, false confessions happen more often than you realize. 

For instance, take the case of Eddie Lowery.  Although Eddie Lowery deep now knew he was innocent of rape, he inevitably confessed and consequently spent 10 years of his life in prison until DNA evidence and the help of the Innocence Project exonerated him.

False confessions can occur for numerous reasons and some people may be more susceptible to falsely confess.  For example, the mentally ill and children are highly influenced by police during interrogation and subsequently confess more often than individuals who are not mentally ill or are adults.  Other circumstances, such as being deprived of food, water, and the restroom, being interrogated for hours on end (which happened in Lowery's case - he was interrogated for more than 7  hours), and in some instances being beaten,  also lead to more false confessions.   

Interrogations can also plant false memories in the suspect's head to the extent to which they become real (much like the lost in the  mall study described in class).  According to Professor Garrett who studies cases such as Lowery's, facts about the case can be intentionally or accidentally brought up in interrogation which plants a seed in the suspect's memory.  With constant contamination to the suspect's memory, these "seeds" can grow into evidence that one would think only the person responsible for the crime would know. 

Much like you and me, Garrett was shocked by the amount of contamination that had occurred in the cases he studied.  Interestingly, more than half of the cases he studied, the suspect was "mentally ill, under the age of 18, or both."  Along with that, most of the interrogations were lengthy and held in a pressuring environment.  Even more interesting, none of the cases Garrett studied had a lawyer present during interrogation. 

Although in some cases evidence that is leaked during interrogations in accidentally, Eddie Lowery felt that the police intentionally contaminated his memories.  According to Lowery, after he confessed, the police insisted he recall the process of the crime and corrected him when he got key facts incorrect.  For example, Lowery recalled this from his interrogation: "How did he get in (police asking Lowery how the rapist got into the house)" "I kicked in the front door" - Lowery, "But the rapist had used the back door" - Police.  Consequently, Lowery changed his story and admitted to going through the back door.

Why are false confessions so important? -- because juries are highly influenced by them when deciding on a verdict.  Despite being cleared by DNA evidence prior to going on trial, 8 of the individuals in Garrett's study were still found guilty and sent to jail.  Because juries are mostly interested in the details of the case and because false memories have been implanted in the suspect's brain, jury members tend to ignore other facts in the case and focus on the highly detailed confession.

If false confession are so common, what can be done to prevent them?  Some police departments have started videotaping interrogations, especially ones that could result in severe punishments (death penalty).  Ten states require videotaping and many supreme courts are encouraging tapings of interrogations. 

Keeping the case of Eddie Lowery and many others in mind, how do you feel about videotaping interrogations?  Do you feel it is necessary for all interrogations (even those where the consequence if found convicted is not severe) or just crimes that could possibly cause someone to serve the rest of their life in prison or even be put to death?  Are there better ways to reduce the occurrence of false confessions?  What do you feel can and/or needs to be done to free the dozens of innocent people currently serving time behind bars?

 

Here is a link to the article and more about Eddie's case.

(Thank you Alyssa for sharing!)

After our class discussion on false confession during Tuesday's class I have been noticing the integration techniques we discussed is class. One news report on the E channel stood out above the rest. Kevin Fox's 3 year old girl was said to be missing on the morning of June 6th 2004. Kevin's wife Melissa was in Chicago for the weekend therefore he was home by himself with Tyler and the later missing daughter Riley. Police investigated the crime scene however, when police continued the investigation they ignored a lot of the evidence indicated there was an intruder. Instead investigators went after father Kevin Fox. The interrogation of Kevin Fox lasted 14 ½ hours. Over this time Kevin had asked to speech to his brother and a lawyer. Police told him that he did not need to speech to anyone and just needed to confess that he killed and sexually assaulted his daughter Riley. Police used tactics such as telling Kevin that if he didn't confess then there were some inmates in jail that would make him pay for what he did. They even went as far as to lie by stating that Melissa was going to divorce him if he did not cooperate with them. The interesting this about this statement is that Melissa stayed by Kevin's side throughout the entire investigation and police never said she would divorce him if he didn't tell the truth, they said she would divorce him if he did "cooperate" with them.  Eventually after this horrible interrogation Kevin admitted to killing his daughter using the information authorities gave him during his interrelation to make up his story.

 

After the confession investigator told the FBI to stop DNA testing. Kevin spent 8 months in jail before he would be cleared through the DNA testing that the FBI stopped.  Interestingly enough this is also the same procedure that was used during the interrogation of JonBenet Ramsey. Both fathers in this cases we told the killing of their daughter was an accident and they were trying to cover it up, and both fathers were exonerated by DNA evidence that in both cases were originally never carried out.

 

 

Below are a couple of links to some highlights of the ABC broadcast of the situation. The whole hour version of the episode in the links below because they were presented in parts and I was unable to find all the video clips. However, if you are interested there is a lot of information about the case on the ABC website if you search for either Kevin Fox or Riley Fox.

 

Introduction to the Case and the 911 phone call

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6210664

 

News article:Kevin Fox and his statements on the integration process.

http://www.truthinjustice.org/kevin-fox.htm

 

Video Clip about DNA exoneration of Kevin Fox

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6210784

This link will take you to a story featured in FRONTLINE, as a result of a mistaken identification from an eyewitness.  In the story, Jennifer Thompson was trying to identify her rapist, but because of faulty lineups, she chose an innocent man instead of her actual rapist. It really is an interesting story because they give you the lineup with the mistaken rapist and they also show you the real rapist. It also gives the composite, and how the two relate to it. 

You should check out the website and click around on some of the links about the case and what Thompson saw in the lineup. 

This link will take you to an article that went along with this story and goes along with what we've been covering in class about constructing lineups. 

The article is written by Gary Wells, a psychology professor at Iowa State University.  He, like Dr. Maclin, believes that there are faults in our legal system because of the methods of eyewitness identification.

As this case and prior data and findings suggest, several people are wrongfully convicted based on wrong eyewitness identification and faulty lineups.  The two play off each other as well.  For example, say a witness believes they can identify their attacker, however the police constructed a lineup where one suspect completely stands out from the rest, therefore the witness is more compelled to pick the person who stands out more, not realizing that this is actually not the man who attacked her. 

The witness's perception could also bias their pick out of a lineup.  If a guy looks meaner than the rest, or has more tatoos, the witness may associate this person with being more aggressive and therefore, more likely to be the offender.  As this area of research continues to grow and collect more results, better methods of obtaining eyewitness information and constucting lineups are being developed in hopes of improving of our justice system.  The growth of DNA testing and its use as evidence is also becoming more widespread and accurate to put the right people behind bars. 

The Case of Amanda Knox

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On November 1st, 2007 Meredith Kercher was found dead on the bedroom floor partly naked with stab wounds on her neck, many bruises, and signs of being sexually assaulted.  At the time, Meredith was a foreign exchange student in Perugia, Italy along with Amanda Knox, an American foreign exchange student.  Five days after interrogation, Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested and later convicted with murder, sexual violence, as well as other charges (Knox was sentenced to 26 years while Sollecito was sentenced for 25 years).  DNA and fingerprint evidence at the scene both inside and around Meredith's body pointed to another man, Rudy Hermann Guede.  Guede was later arrested, tried, and was also convicted of murder an sexual assault.  Guede was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison but appealed his sentence which was then reduced to 16 years. 

I had never heard of this case before but I happened to turn on Oprah today and caught the tail end of the story. I got the sense that it was a pretty well known case and I found this to be true when I was searching online and I did end up finding a lot of information about it.  Here is the link to the Wikipedia article which I think does a great job summarizing the case and is a good place to start if you haven't heard of the case before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MurderofMeredith_Kercher

There seems to be quite a bit of controversy going on about the differences in the criminal justice system and culture of Italy compared to that of the United States when dealing with this case.  I haven't looked into this issue very extensively, but what I have gathered is that many people feel that if Amanda was tried in the United States rather than Italy, she would have never been convicted.

Regardless of this controversy, it became apparent to me while watching the rest of the Oprah show and reading and watching the videos online (http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Amanda-Knoxs-Family-Speak-Out/7), being wrongfully convicted has substantial consequences not only for the person wrongfully convicted, but for their family as well. 

First of all, being wrongfully convicted puts a huge financial burden on the person who is desperately fighting for their freedom.  The book I am reading for this class (Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter) also touches on the tremendous debts one can be in when fighting their conviction.  Thousands upon thousands of dollars were spent, not only by Carter himself, but by his supporters.  Amanda's case seems to be no different.  When searching through sites online, I came across her official site where you could donate money to contribute to her defense fund which will hopefully someday free her.

Being wrongfully convicted also takes a emotional toll on the person who has been wrongfully convicted as well as their family.  On Oprah's website, you can watch a short video of an interview of Amanda's three sisters.  The oldest of the three talks about her new responsibility of being the older sister since Amanda is away and how she struggles at being a good example for her younger sisters.  Amanda's youngest sister talk about how she feels like she doesn't have a family because she describes a family as everyone being there, which is not the case.  Her younger sister struggles with her emotions and her need to stay strong for Amanda and her parents.  My book focuses a lot on Carter's emotional struggles to keep his identity while in prison and the shame he feels, which inevitable causes him to distance himself from his former wife and children.  Carter's family was torn apart by his wrongful conviction, but Amanda's has come together.  Her parents divorced when she was three, but since her conviction, they have combined forces in attempt to free their daughter.  Every Saturday her family gets together for the weekly phone call from Amanda. 

Being wrongfully convicted has tremendous repercussions for the individuals and their families.  Stories like these really make me understand the importance that psychology plays in the law.  I'm not sure how heavily eyewitnesses played in Amanda's conviction, but eyewitness evidence was the only thing used to convict Carter of his sentence of triple-murder.  In order to keep the innocent out of prison, it is evident that a better understanding and acceptance of faulty eyewitness testimonies is necessary, but I'm afraid that no matter how hard we try, there will always be people who are wrongfully convicted.  Even if our criminal justice system improves on keeping the innocent out of jail from now on, there are currently many innocent people in prison, most of which are more than likely desperately trying to free themselves.
 


This is a very interesting article about how the point of a finger gave a man a 50 year prison sentence on a rape charge.

Three days after the rape, Detective Gauldin called the rape victim Jennifer Thompson in to do a photo lineup. He lay six pictures down on the table, said the perpetrator may or may not be one of them, and told her to take her time.

Thompson did not immediately identify a photo, taking her time to study each picture.

"I can remember almost feeling like I was at an SAT test. You know, where you start narrowing down your choices. You can discount A and B," Thompson said.
.

I find it so interesting that the flaws of eyewitness identification can be so obvious. When taking a multiple choice test you being narrowing down the answers. When you come down to the bottom two you seem to make an educated guess. When dealing with 50 years in prison, I would hope the question only has one obvious answer, and isn't multiple choice.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/06/60minutes/main4848039_page2.shtml?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Throughout this class we have dealt with many aspect of witness identification. Through the construct a line up project I was amazed at how many people actually guessed the suspect right. So not only is this whole process biased in that a person basically picks as a multiple choice guess sometimes, but also that a line up can be very biased. Many line ups are made with an obvious answer to be picked. Many of think us probably think, so what! That person is probably guilty. However, in this above case we see that a man was wrongly picked from a line up and the consequence was major jail time. When picking out of a line up the person is basically choosing the course for the person. We also learned in class that eye witnesses are of HUGE impact to a jury. This can also lead to false testifying which can easily sway a jury. It starts to make you really reflect upon our justice system and the ways that eye witnesses, juries, and even line ups can be extremely biased.

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