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Expert: Yogurt Shop Case a Prime Example of False Confessions

At a meeting this morning of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' Criminal Justice Integrity Unit, University of San Francisco academic Richard Leo expounded on his research into police interrogations and the causes of false confessions. (See Grits' prior discussions of Leo's work here, here, here, and here.) What follows is a recap from my notes:False confessions are exceptions, said Leo, not the norm, but they are caused by flaws in policing techniques that make them much more likely to happen. As has been discussed previously on Grits, most police interrogation training in the United States is based on the so-called "Reid method," which teaches there are three stages to the process of questioning suspects: Behavior analysis, the interview, and the interrogation...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).