How the Innocence Project Plans to Stop False Confessions

¶ … video is very shocking because it basically exposes how law enforcement officers will use duress or "wear down" a suspect and provide that suspect with details of a crime so that the suspect can later "confess" in detail about the crime that he/she committed -- when in actuality the story was essentially fed to the suspect by the officers who think (or not) that they have found the guilty party and just need to coerce him (over a number of hours -- not recorded on videotape) using whatever tactics they deem necessary (the judge and jury never see these tactics because they are not recorded but it may be surmised that they border on torture, which should invalidate any confession then and there).

What is most infuriating is that these officers essentially act as judge and jury themselves in that they determine the guilt of their suspect and then "get him" to go along with their finding. It is not the way law enforcement agents should: their job is to gather evidence, not to make it up.

What I learned from this video about how and why false confessions occur is that officers will "interrogate" a suspect for a long time until the person is so worn down that he will do whatever the officers want, including confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Why this happens is a little bit of a mystery but it may be surmised that it happens because officers think they have found their man and just need to break him through interrogation and "feeding" of info tactics.

This is definitely a problem because it fosters false confessions which lead to unjust convictions and innocent persons going to jail, sometimes for a long time. This is not justice and should be prevented at once. How can a justice system allow such activity to go on and still take itself seriously? It cannot. Therefore, it is very important that the Innocence Project succeed in its aims of to enforce a law that officers must tape an entire interrogation process.

However, as the Project notes, this is still not enough of a solution because as is the case now, how is one to know whether the officers taped the whole interrogation or just the parts that they want the jury to see? Therefore, it is up to a judge to hold a hearing before the confession evidence is submitted in order to determine if proper protocol was followed and that that entire interrogation is there.

This solution however could be cumbersome and if an interrogation process is long it might be difficult for a jury to have to sit through that, or even, a judge in order to determine if this was a proper interrogation or one in which duress was utilized.

The problem is deeply rooted in the justice system, I fear, and while these are good steps to take, I think there is a problem in the justice culture in our country that pays lip service to the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty but that in reality is the other way around -- guilty until proven innocent. That is a very dangerous and deadly.