Feb 06, 2024 23:00:00

How do police officers lie and extract false confessions from innocent people?

Occasionally in the news there are cases where people who were falsely convicted were acquitted after a long trial. However, once you are arrested and prosecuted for a crime, you lose social trust and a huge amount of time, so even if you are found not guilty, it is difficult to get your life back on track. The Seattle Times, an overseas media outlet, explains how police officers extract ``false confessions'' from victims of false accusations, and the bills that are being discussed to stop the harm caused by false accusations.

WA House bill would make it illegal for police to lie during interrogations | The Seattle Times

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wa-house-would-make-it-illegal-for-police-to-lie-during-interrogations/

In 1996, Ted Bradford, then a 22-year-old father of two living in Yakima County , Washington State , was arrested by the police on suspicion of a petty crime and was interrogated at the Yakima County Police Station. Bradford asked the officer if he should call a lawyer, but the officer said he didn't need a lawyer because he just wanted to ask a few questions, so Bradford said he signed a waiver with the intention of helping the police. thing.

However, the police officer interrogated Mr. Bradford for more than nine hours about a rape incident that occurred six months ago, not the misdemeanor for which Mr. Bradford was arrested. At first, Mr. Bradford resisted in order to prove that he was innocent, but during the interrogation, he was not given food or even a glass of water, and the interrogation gradually became harsher. Mr. Ford said that he was becoming more and more exhausted.

The police officer also threatened Mr. Bradford and lied, saying, ``There is DNA evidence pointing to Mr. Bradford as the perpetrator.'' 'I started thinking that the only way I could get out of this was to confess, and then they would look at the evidence and find that I was innocent, and I would be released from everything,' Bradford recalled. ” states. However, the trial proceeded without DNA testing being conducted, and Mr. Bradford was sentenced to 10 years in prison based on his confession and testimony from neighbors.

In 2005, when Mr. Bradford was still in prison, the Innocence Project Northwest, a project to rescue victims of crime, conducted a DNA test taken from masks and tape left at the scene. As a result, Bradford's DNA was not detected, and instead it was found that another man's DNA remained. The Innocence Project Northwest filed a motion to invalidate Bradford's conviction, and Bradford, who was tried a second time , was finally acquitted in 2010.

However, after Mr. Bradford has already completed his 10-year sentence for the crime, he has divorced his ex-wife while he was in prison, and his life before his arrest will never return. Furthermore, although new DNA testing has shown that the true culprit is the victim's brother-in-law, he has not been arrested, meaning that justice has not been served for the victim.

In addition, in the 2007

murder of a British student in Perugia in Italy, Amanda Knox, an American woman who was her roommate, was arrested as one of the perpetrators of the murder of a British female student. It is said that reports on Mr. Knox became heated in Italy and attracted a lot of attention.

During a 53-hour interrogation at an Italian police station, Mr. Knox was left with almost no interpreters, and was left extremely exhausted and confused. In addition, the police officer lied that he had testified against Mr. Knox, and Mr. Knox, who created a false memory in the confusion, finally made a false confession.

'The people I trusted weren't ready to lie to me, weakening my innocence and ultimately leading to false charges,' Knox said in an interview. 'The police lied to me and made me feel like I was insane. They said I had amnesia and didn't remember what was really going on.' says. In the first trial, Mr. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, but in 2011, the appeals court reversed his conviction, and in 2015, he was acquitted by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Bradford and Mr. Knox are just the tip of the iceberg of cases in which police officers have lied and given false confessions. A 2004 research report showed that the more successful they are in extracting confessions from actually guilty perpetrators, the more likely similar strategies are to extract false confessions from innocent people.

In order to prevent such incidents, the Washington state legislature in the United States is debating a bill that would prohibit police officers from using deceptive tactics such as lying during interrogation to extract confessions. Mr. Bradford said, ``Bills like this place emphasis on obtaining 'correct convictions,' rather than simply obtaining convictions.There are as many real culprits who were not arrested as there are people who were convicted of false charges. and they may be committing further crimes.'

However, James McMahan, policy director for the Washington State Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Association, said there are cases where undercover investigators lie to suspects, such as lying about their age or name, to uncover the truth. Claims that there is. ``The unfortunate reality is that sometimes you have to lie to get the truth told,'' he said, defending existing investigation and interrogation methods.