Scott Henson of “Grits for Breakfast” will be testifying this morning at the Texas Legislature in favor of a bill requiring more taping of police interrogations.  

The best resource on the electronic recording of “custodial interrogations” and the curious phenomenon of false confessions is a recently released study by the Justice Project. 

Why would anybody in their right mind confess to a crime they didn’t commit?

Nobody in their right mind would own up to somebody else’s wrongdoing; that’s why interrogation techniques are designed to coerce suspects into an altered state of consciousness.  Isolation, threats, promises, lies, isolation and sleep deprivation are some of the methods employed to this end. 

According to the Justice Project study, most false confessions are made after interrogation sessions exceeding 6 hours, 39% of false confessions are made in sessions lasting between 12 and 24 hours, and 11% are recorded after sessions in excess of 24 hours.

Recording interrogation sessions would discourage methods from the Twilight Zone end of the spectrum.

The Justice Project report also focuses on the unremarkable link between diminished mental capacity and false confession.  People who are mentally retarded or mentally ill can be highly vulnerable to suggestion.  Few people have the capacity to maintain an independent perspective in the face of extended and ferocious allegation.  This is particularly true for the simple and the confused.

But why restrict the recording of confessions to suspects?

What about eye witnesses?

Most of the Texas men exonerated during the past decade were the victims of false eyewitness testimony.  Many of these witnesses were sincerely wrong; others were intentionally manipulated by lineups and photo arrays designed to make the “right” identification all but inevitable.

Desperate investigators and prosecutors have the godlike ability to create compelling evidence ex nihilo, out of nothing.

You begin with a vulnerable pool of potential witnesses; the simple, the mildly retarded, the drug addicted and the desperate.

You issue threats.  Failure to cooperate, you suggest, will trigger a lengthy prison term: obstruction of justice and perjury are serious feloniesm etc.

Then you lay on the blandishments and false promises.  There could be a healthy reward if you cooperate.  “Why don’t you save us all a lot of time and trouble by telling the truth.  We’ll sit here all day long if we have to; so why not make it easy on yourself?”

These carrot and stick techniques aren’t always effective against strong willed and tough minded individuals–but weak and frightened people will say almost anything to get out of the interrogation room.

If interviews with potential witnesses were recorded the reliability of eyewitness testimony would improve markedly.

If all interviews were recorded, police officers would play by the rules and would possess a strong defence against false accusations of abuse.

Would recorded interviews make it harder to solve heinous crimes? 

Not at all.  It might make it harder to close out difficult cases; but resolution via false conviction damages innocent lives and undermines respect for the law.