false confessions

Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn is close to issuing guidelines that would suggest that police interrogations--from start to finish-- be recorded, The News Journal's Jessica Masulli Reyes reports. The reason for the move is because advocates say recording interrogations helps avoid false confessions.

Advocates also said the guidelines should be made mandatory by stating prosecutors wouldn't use statements obtained from non-recorded interrogations. Denn said law enforcement would be incentivized to follow the guidelines because "'adhering to this policy increases the odds we could successfully prosecute a case."'

The New York Times' Andrew Jacobs had an unsettling feature on the Chinese criminal justice system, writing that many convictions in China depend on confessions that are obtained through coercion. Even though President Xi Jinping has made legal reform part of his effort to boost support for the Communist Party and China's highest court have ruled against using evidence obtained through abuse, "Chinese lawyers and human rights advocates say these measures have had limited impact on a police system that for decades has made obtaining a confession the centerpiece of its efforts."

Human Rights Watch found that judges excluded evidence in just 23 cases of 432 in which defendants said they have been abused.

The Chicago City Council has voted to make $5.5 million in compensation available to at least 119 people tortured by police officers into giving false confessions, the Chicago Reporter's Adeshina Emmanuel reports. Police officers beat victims, burned them with cigarettes, handcuffed them to hot radiators, tied plastic bags over their heads and came close to suffocating victims, and electrocuted victims in their mouths and on their genitals. The measure "draws from the United Nations Convention against Torture and human rights practices around the world, especially in nations that overcame the legacy of violent, repressive regimes," Emmanuel reports.

As the trial proceeds in the murder of Etan Patz, who disappeared in 1979 while walking to a NYC bus, the Associated Press' Adam Geller reports on how confessions like the one in the Patz murder case can be clouded by defendants' mental illnesses. The presiding judge has found that Pedro Hernandez's confession to Patz's murder is admissible, but some experts said the defendant's history of mental illness "raise difficult questions about whether a suspect is exercising free will in talking to police, and greatly increase the potential for false confessions." Only the final part of Hernandez's interrogation was recorded, not the hours of questioning before he gave a videotaped recording.

Of the 300-plus people who have been cleared by the Innocence Project, a quarter falsely confessed, and 30 to 40 percent of those people were mentally ill or mentally disabled.

A New York judge has ruled that the confession of the defendant in the Etan Patz case is admissible, ProPublica's Naveena Sadasivam reports. The defendant's lawyers argued that his confession to the murder of a little boy whose face was famously plastered on milk cartons is false. New York Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley ruled that "Hernandez did have the mental capacity to waive his rights to have an attorney present and understood that he had the right to remain silent," ProPublica reports.

The Tulsa World has conducted a two-part investigation into the case built against Michelle Murphy, who was released from jail after her murder conviction was dismissed Friday. The World found that the blood and DNA found at the scene of her baby's death was not Murphy's.

She also allegedly made an incriminating statement that "'I could've been so angry I needed to take it out on somebody and ended up hurting my son.'" Murphy said during her trial that she only made the statement because a police officer told her she could see her other child if she confessed.

According to the World, The key prosecution witness, a 14-year-old who had made sexual advances against Murphy--then a young teenage mom- reacted aggressively when facing rejection. The witness killed himself accidently by autoerotic asphyxiation. His statement incriminating Murphy was admitted, but evidence about his violent behavior was not admitted.

For two months, the Philadelphia Police Department has had a new policy to stop false confessions, including putting strict limits on how long suspects can be held for questioning and preventing witnesses from being taken from a crime scene to a detective division for questioning, the Philadelphia Daily News reports. There have been a couple hiccups. The PPD issued a three-page clarification about the new interview and interrogation policy, including that it is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment to temporarily detain people found at a crime scene even though they can refuse to be taken to a detective division, the Daily News further reports.

West Virginia's MetroNews reports that the WVU Law Innocence Project is "pushing legislation at the capitol which would require all police interrogations to be video recorded. Supporters of the bill believe it will reduce the chances of false confessions and ultimately false convictions."

Recording confessions is now considered a best practice to prevent innocent people from falsely confessing to crimes they didn't commit or being wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't commit.

West Virginia has passed legislation establishing protocols to ensure investigating officers don't influence witnesses during lineups, MetroNews also reported.

ProPublica reports on how the criminal prosecution of Etan Patz's alleged killer might have been jeopardized because police did not tape the interrogation: the "interrogation room, it turns out, was fully equipped to do what a growing body of expert opinion has insisted be done in such moments: a full videotaping of a suspect’s interaction with detectives, from the start of an interrogation through any possible formal confession. Judges, defense lawyers, and even many prosecutors have come to see such comprehensive videotaping as the single most important factor in securing reliable confessions and preventing the wrongful convictions that can stem from false confessions. In New Jersey, where Hernandez was being questioned, taping interrogations in homicide cases has been required by law since 2005. The detectives, however, never turned the cameras on during what would become seven hours of interrogation. They remained off, in fact, until 2:57 that afternoon, when Hernandez was finally ready to formally confess."

ProPublica further reports that the accused killer's defense counsel is going to seek to have the confession ruled to be illegitimate.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police is urging law enforcement agencies "to adopt new guidelines for conducting photo lineups, videotaping witness interviews and corroborating information from jailhouse informants, among 30 recommendations," The Washington Post reports. The Post further reports that more than 20 states record interrogations statewide, and another 850 law enforcement agencies voluntarily record interrogations.