False Confessions Happen, Too Often

Lonnie Soury
October 4, 2010

New York State may just have the most wrongful convictions of any state in the nation, and false confessions comprise almost 50% of all exonerations in the state. Robert Kolker of New York Magazine , with the assistance of Falseconfessions.org, explores one case, that of Frank Sterling, and the larger question: Why do innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit?

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, confessions are the most compelling piece of evidence that can be brought into a trial, and statistics support the fact that when a confession, whether true or false, is introduced in a trial for consideration by a jury, they almost always convict.

Recently back from Arkansas, where I spent the afternoon with Damien Echols on death row in the infamous West Memphis 3 case, one is reminded that he was convicted based upon a false, coerced confession from a local teen that implicated Echols and his co-defendant, Jason Baldwin, even though the “confession” was barred from Echols”s trial. Nevertheless, jurors heard about it on news reports, and the jury foreman in the case felt it was his duty to inform his fellow jurors about the confession even though the constitution forbade them from considering it as evidence.

Is there a way to stop jurors from considering a false confession and convicting an innocent person? Not likely. In 800 jurisdictions nationwide, some form of recording of interrogations is required. But law enforcement must be mandated to videotape interrogations from the beginning to the end, so jurors can see the truth about false confessions, be exposed to the tricks that are routinely played on defendants in the interrogation room, and decide for themselves whether someone is telling the truth when they confess.