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False Confessions Pros And Cons

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False Confessions
One of the biggest problems that our criminal justice system is facing is false confessions, whether they are coerced or done for attention. In an article written by the Innocence Project, it states "More than 1 out of every 4 people wrongfully convicted but later exonerated by DNA evidence made a false confession or incriminating statement."(1). What would lead someone to open their lives to judgment and persecution, by confessing to a crime that they didn 't commit? There are many possible reasons, ranging from duress, ignorance when it comes to community laws, and mental impairment. Some individuals also don 't have the mental capacity to understand just what they are admitting to, and the training for interrogations …show more content…

A common reason that individuals have confessed to crimes they haven 't committed, is due to being under extreme duress or coerced by investigators determined to get to the bottom of cases. (2) Once an investigator has decided that an individual is guilty, it becomes less about the actual crime and more about this individual molding their idea of what happened to that of the investigators. Investigators will withhold food and water. Sometimes interrogating for hours. (2) As time progresses individuals become more desperate and some individuals will even begin to believe that what investigators are telling them is the truth. A perfect example of this is the case of Marty Tankleff. A young man, who after hours of manipulation in the interrogation, believes that he blacked out and attacked his parents, killing his mother while placing his father in a coma, in which he would never wake up, and ultimately …show more content…

The last one I would like to discuss in this paper is the credibility of a false confession given by an individual without the mental capacity to understand not only what he is saying, but his vulnerability of being manipulated by investigators. As also discussed in Dr. BLANKS article. Individuals with a lower IQ or mental capacity are inclined to be more easily persuaded, that is even more in cases involving youth. An excellent example of this would be the Brendan Dassey case as presented by the Netflix series "Making a Murderer". A case in which a young man 's ability to truly understand what is being explained to him is inhibited by his low IQ. He not only waives his rights for legal counsel in the initial interrogations but without legal council is guided into giving his

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