Week 2: Confessions Flashcards
(18 cards)
Are confessions admissable if you’re drunk or high?
Yes, if there were no coercive interrogation tactics.
People v. Cox (1990) context
Man, David Cox, activates a burglar alarm trying to break into a condo. Owner finds a man not in the house but sitting by the pool of the condo and engages in conversation with him and the police officer. At trial, Cox said that he’d taken meth and thought he saw God in the window. Said he didn’t run off because he was being chased by the devil and felt safe.
What did Cox argue in People v. Cox?
Argues at trial that his confession shouldn’t be admissible as evidence because he was under the influence of drugs
Why might coercive tactics be inadmissable as evidence?
because we want to deter bad behavior on the police’s side.
People v. Thomas (2014) context
Adrian Thomas and his wife awake to find their infant son unresponsive. Infant is rushed to hospital and later pronounced dead. Doctor claimed the child had a traumatic head injury or sepsis (competing explanations). Police tell Thomas that he had to tell him what happened in order for the doctor’s to save his life. Throughout the interrogation, the officer is suggesting to Thomas what he needs to tell the officer
Also threatened to arrest his wife although they didn’t believe she did anything. Says he’ll take he fall for his wife and admits
Jury convicted Thomas of depraved indifference murder, sentencing him to 25 years to life.
What is the main issue in People v. Thomas?
Were the police representations reasonable or did they render the confession the product of undue psychological coercion (i.e. was it voluntary or involuntary)
At what point does police deception or coercion make a confession involuntary?
What two tactics are most relevant when determining the voluntariness of Thomas’ confession?
- Threat to remove his wife (if a confession is to be rendered involuntary, the relationship matters - e.g. different to threaten wife vs a roommate)
- Child’s life is in your hand
What did the highest court in New York rule?
They tried Thomas again without his confession and found him not guilty
Factors to consider in determining the voluntariness of a confession (8)
- Did the police physically harm or threaten to harm the suspect (or offer to protect the suspect from a credible threat of harm)
- Did they threaten a harsher sentence or promise leniency
- Did they threaten to arrest or jail family members or make threats regarding the health and safety of the suspect’s children
- Was the interrogation unduly lengthy?
- Are you deprived of sleep, food, and water? May make you more susceptible to pleasing police.
- Did police exploit young age, low IQ, lack of education, or mental state?
- Did they inform the suspect of their right to remain silent? (Only required to read rights once you’re arrested and if there’s an interrogation)
- Did the police fabricate tangible evidence
If in florida, confession is involuntary
If in california or nevada, this factor falls under the totality of the circumstances
What is a justification for coercive tactics?
Without them, how are we going to get a confession? Without a confession you are far less likely to get a conviction and therefore more likely to let guilty people go free.
Explain the “I’d know a false confession if I saw one” first experiment and the result
Massachusetts inmates asked to provide a false confession for the crime that they committed that got them in prison and a crime they didn’t commit
Confessions recorded
In two experiments, researchers show college students and police investigators (half of police investigators had received special training)
Police were more confidence that they were right but only had about 40% accuracy, college students had about 55%
Explain the “I’d know a false confession if I saw one” second experiment and the result
Repeated the experiment but this time told the police there were 5 truthful and 5 false
Still very confident that they were right but still not better than chance (same for college students)
What might explain ther results in the “I’d know a false confession if I saw one” first experiment?
Maybe part of the explanation for why detectives were inaccurate was that their real world experienced interfered with how they interpreted these confession while students may understand theres an equal distribution of true and false (based on exposure to how experimental methods work)
Why are members of a jury inclined to believe confessions, even if they’re false?
Most people would believe that if they were in that position, they wouldn’t falsely confess.
How does the level of pressure in an interrogation affect confessions?
You’d think that confessions obtained in low pressure situations are more reliable
*How well do jurors understand the difference between high pressure and low pressure situations
Explain the test procedure and the results.
-Read a transcript of a guy who supposedly killed his wife in a fit of rage
-Mr. Wilson was not directly linked to the crime
-In the high pressure condition, Mr.Wilson was handcuffed and interrogated
Mr.Wilson believed the police pressured him to reply and that he was coerced to confess
-In the low pressure situation, Mr.Wilson confesses and claims he did so because he was in a state of shock
Jurors were more likely to judge the confession as voluntary in a low pressure sitatuation (75% vs 28%)
Supports that jurors can distinguish between high pressure and low pressure interrogation and claimed that a confession found under high pressure situations are less likely to be voluntary
Jurors were more likelt to be influenced by a confession when it was in a low pressure setting (about 40% vs 60%)
Despite this, the percentage of those who would vote guilty when the confession came from a low pressure vs high pressure setting was about the same (Low pressure: about 28%, high pressure: about 23%)
These studies undermine that police would know a confession when they see one and that we should trust the jurors to give the appropriate weight on the credibility of confessions
Why might police resort to coercive tactics and be unwilling to admit they’re wrong
Sunk cost fallacy leads to tunnel vision
What right (besides right against coerced self-incrimination) did the interrogators violate in People v Thomas?
by acting coercively, they rendered his right to reamin silnet valueless
