Pros And Cons Of Confessions

In the trial of the four Norfolk sailors, the main reason why they were all convicted was not the proclaimed evidence that wasn’t on the scene, but was the confessions that they were coerced to say during the interrogations. There was virtually no evidence against the four sailors, but the jury sided that they were all guilty. The major problem during the trial was that no evidence was found at the crime scene and the prosecution only badgered the four sailors based on confessions that they were threatened to say or else they

For instance, when Dr. Ofshe says, “Mr. Misskelley describes that what he learned to do was to feed back to the interrogators what they were telling him happened and he sought to avoid making mistakes because when he made mistakes they would make him go back through the entire story and they would not believe him when he repeatedly told them that he was working with Rickey Deese that day and he knew nothing about the crime” (Ofshe). Jessie felt hopeless, like the only way out was to confess to the murder whether he did it or not which is incredibly unjust. Their tactic was to put so much pressure on this innocent 17 year old boy with an IQ of just 72 until he finally just couldn’t take it anymore, which honestly seems like a form or torture in a way. Also, another good point made by Ofshe is, “The statement about the time at which this crime occurred is a statement that comes up and is manipulated eight different times over the course of this interrogation and over the course of those eight manipulations one sees a pattern of unrelenting pressure on Mr. Misskelley” (Ofshe). Doing things like manipulating a statement eight times to get a response you know won’t be true is foolish.

Guilt can either be determined by factual guilt or legal

Adnan was found guilty for the murder of Hae Min Lee but never once confessed or confirmed his involvement. It was Adnan’s friend Jay who connected the dots throughout the investigation by providing the police with important details of Hae’s murder. If police had conducted a Guilty Knowledge test with Adnan during his interrogation, the police would have had the opportunity to ask him those specific questions pertaining to the murder and monitor his reactions. With The Guilty Knowledge Test, only Adnan would know the answers to important questions such as the whereabouts of Hae’s vehicle and how she was murdered. The Guilty Knowledge test is very effective at identifying innocent participants and has a 98% accuracy rate (Dahl, 2016).

In 1966, an influential court case occurred – one that would shape the United States to improve the justice system. Ernesto Miranda was accused for crimes and identified by the victim, after which he was then interrogated. Miranda orally confessed to a crime and signed a written confession; however, he did not request a lawyer, nor was he advised of his right to have one present. Due to the inadequate constitutionality of the situation, Miranda was able to challenge the Supreme Court in this conviction. The ruling in Miranda represents the fulfillment of the legal tradition of the promise of self-incrimination by offering protection in statements, reinforcing the Fifth Amendment, and the equity of suspects during interrogation.

Opponents to the high use of this procedure cite the issue that it removes the public and the jury from the justice system, it is based on coercion, and it understates true crime statistics when criminals plead guilty to lesser crimes. Additionally, innocent people may plead guilty from fear they will be convicted by a jury and face a long jail sentence. (Barkan and Bryjack, Page 250-252)

The creation of the United States and the colonies that came before, brought about many legal traditions and precedents. Among these legal traditions and precedents, is an essential precedent present in all interrogation related proceedings and court ones—the Miranda warning. When an individual is detained, they may be subjected to an interrogation by designated officials. During an interrogation certain rights are guaranteed to an individual through the provision of the Bill of Rights to prevent self-incrimination and the historical precedent established before it. However, in certain situations, these rights were not always guaranteed as they should’ve been.

This is significant because it enabled the wrongfully accused to prove that they did not commit the crime for which they falsely confessed. In 2004, Drizin and Leo studied 125 of these cases to determine the causes. Physical and psychological coercion have been found to induce false confessions, especially in children. Brenton Butler was 15 years old when he went into that

08 Feb. 2016. This source explains that torture is actually one of the last methods used when they are interrogating someone since many know that it has a very low success rate. If the person is not willing to cooperate, they go down a list. Many people thought to use the top methods as they are not as immoral. Getting to the end of the list thought means they have nothing else to make the person talk which is why they use

The police then determine if the suspect is guilty and continuously interrogate, accuse, and even threaten the suspect for hours until they confess, whether they are guilty or not. On many occasions the people who are coerced into false confessions are have severe mental impairments that prevent them from functioning as a normal person with out the impairments would.

Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong In Brandon L. Garrett 's book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, he makes it very clear how wrongful convictions occur and how these people have spent many years in prison for crimes they never committed. Garrett presents 250 cases of innocent people who were convicted wrongfully because the prosecutors opposed testing the DNA of those convicted. Garrett provided simple statistics such as graphs, percentages, and charts to help the reader understand just how great of an impact this was.

Thirteen years, seven months and thirteen days. That is the time Lawrence Rubin Montoya spent in prison for a crime he did not commit. Montoya was sentenced to life in prison in November 2000 after he was allegedly pressured by Denver police officers into confessing to murdering a Denver school teacher. In June 2014, his conviction was overturned thanks to DNA retesting of evidence. Now, the 31 year old is suing the city of Denver and members of the city’s police department in federal court for $30 million, citing the interrogation process and later failures by the District Attorney’s office.

The principle in law that one is innocent until proven guilty has created much discourse. There are those who feel that the moment that one is arrested, there is reasonable belief that they committed the crime. However, there are those who feel that just as the principle states, one is, and should be taken as a victim and the outcome could be either way: guilty or not guilty. In fact, this argument is supported by the many cases of malicious prosecutions and mistaken identities.

Although, this tactic does not always work, it can cause some problems. Officers are supposed to use the tactic when there is a suspected criminal, but if it turns out there is no criminal it can cause many problems. Officers do not need to persuade the innocent because then the cops are just creating crime witch is the opposite of what they are supposed to do. The main point of this article is that it wants to make the structure and the frame work of the entrapment system clearer and more precise. The article identifies ways to make entrapment more stable and clearer.

To be a good interrogator it requires more than confidence and creativity although it does help, but interrogators are very well trained in the mental tactics of social impact. An interrogators task is to get someone to confess to a crime, but it is not easy. While it isn’t easy for them, sometimes they will end up with confessions from the innocent testifies because of the expertise in psychological manipulation interrogators have. The interrogation process has been manipulated over the years and they are using unethical approaches to gain information or a confession from suspects. But in the law of confessions, it is required that confessions are not coerced but be voluntary so that it is admitted into evidence.