Why the Innocent Confess
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n the spring of 1989, five young men confessed to the brutal rape and beating of a 28-year-old woman who would become known to the horrified public as simply the Central Park Jogger. In videotaped confessions, taken after hours of interrogation by NYPD detectives and trips to the crime scene, four of the five suspects looked into the camera’s lens and gave accounts of how they attacked the jogger—one of the men even demonstrated how he physically overpowered her. Thirteen years later, however, a positive DNA match and a true confession by an incarcerated serial rapist revealed that the youths hadn’t committed the crime. Why had they confessed? Saul Kassin, a professor of psychology and the founder of legal studies at Williams College, has exhaustively studied the Cen tral Park Jogger case, and others in which confessions proved to be false, and has even staged crimes and interrogations to investigate the phenomenon. He shared what he has learned in a provocative lecture, “Inside Interrogation: Why Innocent People Confess and What to Do About It,” as part of the 2005-06 Hoffinger Colloquium. The answer, said Kassin, is complex and can be traced to flaws in the way that detectives evaluate and interrogate suspects, guilty or innocent, in criminal investigations. “The detectives knew that the DNA didn’t match,” said Kassin, referring to the Central Park Jogger case. “The only evidence against them was their confessions.” Investigators, Kassin explained, extract confessions through a system of interrogation rules called the Reid Technique, which
claims to turn detectives into “human lie detectors.” The tech nique is intended to prevent interrogators from questioning and charging innocent people through a three-step method. The first step—looking for visual clues of guilt such as averting a gaze, slouching or sitting rigidly—“is the pivotal point in the life of a case,” Kassin says, because if an interrogator is not persuaded of a suspect’s innocence, he then becomes predisposed toward the goal of eliciting a confession. Kassin’s research proves that the Reid Technique is only 55 percent effective. Rath er than removing innocent suspects, it is “a steamroller that treats the guilty and the innocent the same.” Equally troubling to Kassin are the actual questioning methods. Interrogators are allowed to present false evidence, keep suspects isolated and imply minimization of sentencing in order to draw out a confession. “You see false confessions being given in the bowels of a police station,” he says. “They want to get out of there and denial is not the way that’s going to happen.” Finally, Kassin blames the presentation of evidence at trial. Even though the Central Park Jogger suspects were questioned for nearly 30 hours each, the juries viewed only 20 minutes of videotaped confessions. If juries were privy to the entire interrogation, and not simply the stated confession, says Kassin, they might be able to see how an innocent person can falsely confess—or even believe through suggestion that he or she committed the crime. New methods of suspect evaluation, including those where detecting innocent
Criminal Minds The Hoffinger Colloquium invites scholars, lawyers, judges and journalists to discuss current trends and issues in criminal justice. In addition to Saul Kassin, the 200506 series featured: “Is Prostitution Still a Crime?” Elizabeth Bernstein, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University “The End of Labor Racketeering As We Knew It?” James B. Jacobs, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts, New York University “Eye for an Eye: Blood and Money” William Ian Miller, Thomas G. Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan “Criminology as a Vocation: Ethics, Responsibility, Ultimate Ends” Robert Reiner, Professor of Criminology in the Law Department, London School of Economics “The Political Constitution of Criminal Justice” William Stuntz, Professor of Law, Harvard University “Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe” James Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law, Yale University
behavior is taught as well as sniffing out guilt, plus videotaping full interrogations, says Kassin, are necessary to safeguard against false confessions. In parting, Kassin gave some unsolicited advice: He recommended that all suspects, innocent or guilty, never waive their right to an attorney. ■
Judges Tackle Tough Issues in Labor and Employment Law
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n the area of labor and employment law, state judges routinely encounter workplace privacy, whistleblowers, indepen dent contractors, torts and state class ac tions. Last November, these were also the topics of the two-day Employment Law Workshop for State Judges sponsored by the Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration and the Center for Labor and Employment Law. Professor Lance Liebman of Columbia University School of Law, the keynote speaker, stressed the state judiciary’s key role in the field. “Employment law is an area, quite interestingly, left to state common law,” Liebman said, so it’s up to the state judges to move the law forward. Leibman, who is the director of the American Law Institute (ALI), a AUTUMN 2006
private law reform organization, described how the institute initiates projects, called “restatements,” to clarify or recommend changes in the law. The ALI is coordinating restatements, which can take up to 10 years to complete, in family, state sentencing, nonprofit and software licensing law, Liebman said. Several years ago Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law Samuel Estreicher approached Liebman about the need for an ALI project, the first of its kind, to restate employment law. “Our goal,” said Estreicher, named one of four lead drafters of the undertaking, “is to identify and harmonize the rules that judges should be guided by in dealing with the range of issues involving employment that is not governed by statutes. Estreicher
presented a draft on employment contracts to the distinguished crowd, welcoming their opinions. He examined at-will employment, bilateral agreements, unilateral employer statements, termination for “cause,” and duties of good faith and fair dealing. Liebman, who like Estreicher teaches employment law, commented that the judi ciary’s decisions in these cases are instrumental in his classes. In fact, Liebman said he had discussed with his students that morning a Ninth Circuit decision involving a Reno casino that fired a 20-year employee who refused to abide by a new “image transformation” program requiring women to wear makeup. Liebman added, “We love it when you write teachable cases.” ■ THE LAW SCHOOL
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