Confessions and Interrogations

• Body movements (eye contact, gesturing, fidgeting) are not reliable indicators of lying

Confessions and Interrogations

• 25 states and the District of Columbia legally mandate the video recording of interrogations
• In Illinois, written confessions from minors are prohibited when there is no guardian or attorney present
• In Illinois, written confessions from minors are prohibited when there is a failure to waive Miranda rights
• In Illinois, written confessions from minors are prohibited when coercion or unfair interrogation is used
• Interrogation techniques more likely to make the guilty confess, but not the innocent, include: showing evidence, manipulating context, building rapport, and strategic questioning
• Tactics that increase the likelihood that guilty persons will confess but do not increase the likelihood that innocent persons will confess are confrontation with evidence, minimizing the crime, and offering sympathy and understanding
• Illinois implemented policy changes to reduce false confessions by banning deceptive interrogation tactics for minors and adding mandatory video recording of custodial interrogations
• The interrogation decision-making model explains how suspects decide whether to confess or deny involvement in a crime during an interrogation
• Suspects assess evidence, consequences, interrogation tactics, and personal factors in the interrogation decision-making model
• Alford v. North Carolina ruled that a defendant can plead guilty while still maintaining their innocence if they believe it is in their best interest to avoid a harsher sentence
• An Alford Plea allows a defendant to plead guilty to a charge without admitting guilt, accept conviction, and acknowledge prosecution has enough evidence to convict

Deception

• Potential ways to increase detection of lies are through devil’s advocate questions, turn-taking in interviewing, imposing cognitive load, unanticipated questions, and repeating questions
• Duping delight is the pleasure a liar feels after successfully lying
• Othella error is when a truthful person seems anxious/nervous and gets mistakenly judged as being a liar
• Ostrich effect is the tendency to avoid negative or distressing information by burying its head in the sand
• Self-fulfilling fakery is when someone pretends to have a trait or skill so convincingly, they start to actually develop it over time
• Over half of the states in the USA ban any use of polygraph evidence in court
• Truthful individuals tend to answer questions in a direct, relevant, and clear manner
• Subjective impressions are stronger than objective measures, as people often rely on their gut feeling or perceived confidence when judging deception, even though this is not always accurate
• Ways to increase deception detection includes asking unexpected questions, encouraging longer responses, paying attention to verbal and nonverbal responses, and looking for emotional leakage
• Peer et al. (2014) found that partial confessions can actually increase a person's feelings of guilt rather than reducing them
• People who give partial confessions often feel worse than those who fully confess
• Observers usually see partial confessions as suspicious