TRAGIC ERROR
False accusations upend lives. How can neuroscience shed light on the mechanisms of these tragic slip-ups?
The criminal-legal system is based in trying to find those who are truly guilty, for the sake of justice. There have been thousands of exonerations for incarcerated people later found innocent in the past few decades, with likely thousands more still undiscovered; psychological manipulation (which takes advantage of youth, diminished rationality in a state of fear, and the malleability of memory by putting excessive pressure on the brain), is at play here.
How Do False Confessions Come About?
The law operates on the assumption that people will not confess to something they did not do. Therefore, confessions are taken as fact. According to Psychology Today, of the over 2,500 confirmed exonerations since 1989, 12% of the defendants had falsely confessed to their crime. With hundreds of false confessions is hardly a blip; there is something deeper going on in criminal proceedings that makes confession, whether true or false, feel like a good idea.
Inarguably, the temptation of a plea deal is strong. If a defendant believes they do not have a good chance in court, they can plead guilty for a lesser sentence, even if that plea is false.
In many cases, defendants are rushed into a plea bargain through manipulative interrogation processes, particularly juveniles and adolescents. Techniques can involve feigning trust, creating false evidence, and creating sense of time running out. These are designed without psychological or biological research in mind, hoping to trap the guilty. However, in many cases of tragic error, they trap innocent people as well.
Read more about “The Psychology of False Confessions” from Psychology Today
Interrogations seek to access long-term memories. The brain does not store these memories as sealed fact, as it is working with limited capacity. Additionally, the network of the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and anterior thalamus, which all work together to create, store, and access long term memories, require healthy conditions including sleep, nourishment, and minimal stress to work correctly.
Read more about “How Should We Interrogate The Brain and the Impacts of High Pressure”
“Stressors, depending on their severity, chronicity and type, usually impair encoding of memories, disrupt consolidation of memory, and erode retrieval of memories (even of simple, straightforward, declarative and fact-based information).” - Shana O’Mara, D.Phil
False confessions have already impacted thousands, and continue to do so. Learn more below:
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One of the most famous cases of false confessions: The Central Park Five. In the 1980s, five black and brown teenage boys were arrested for the rape and murder of a white jogger in Central Park. They were coerced into confessing by the police’s interrogation techniques, thinking they had no other option. All of them spent at least six years in prison, until they were exonerated following the confession of Matias Reyes (an already convicted murderer and rapist).
This case derailed five young people’s lives as the world looked on, all because of police manipulation in place of clear evidence.
The exoneration ended in a 41 million dollar settlement. The state of New York denied any fault in the error.
New York Times: “The Central Park Five: ‘We Were Just Baby Boys’”
Recommended viewing: “The Central Park Five”, (2012 Documentary) and “When They See Us” (Netflix series depiction)
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Barbiturates, substances that target the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), put humans in a state of partial consciousness and can be used to treat epilepsy, anxiety, pain, and sleep problems. They increase the presence of GABA, the neurotransmitter that slows down brain activity. However, since barbiturates supposedly lower inhibitions by damaging focus enough to prevent lying, in some cases they have been coined “truth serums” and used in interrogation practices. This was done during the cold war by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to catch double agents working for the Soviet Union. Most recently, the use of “truth serum” was approved by a judge to be used on James Holmes, who was on trial for a mass shooting and claimed the insanity defense. The judge’s goal was to see whether Holmes actually had impaired judgment at the time of the crime. Although the serum was never used in this trial, the potential use of it shocked many experts who worry that the drug would not encourage accurate statements (and might diminish memory accuracy altogether).
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In 1989, Ada JoAnn Taylor was part of a shocking series of false confessions to the sexual assault and murder of 68-year-old Helen Wilson. She had been sexually assaulted in the past, and following coercive interrogation techniques she began to remember being present at the assault. It became clear she was confusing memories of her own traumatic past with this event; when questioned she remembered Wilson’s assault taking place at a house similar to her childhood home, but when presented with evidence that it was in an apartment building, she adjusted her memory.
The five other people convicted came from similar backgrounds to Taylor: they grew up in small white towns where police officers were like “guardians,” and most came from severely broken homes. Only a couple came to doubt their involvement after several years of imprisonment, prompting a DNA test that ended up exonerating all six of them. Even after exoneration, Taylor experienced false flashbacks of the event.
This case shows the malleability of memory, and once again the danger of coercive interrogation. The six accused people were evaluated by psychologist Wayne Price, who encouraged them to dig deep and find hidden memories. His methods likely contributed to the false memories, and provides a cautionary tale for blind trust in any sole “scientific expert” involved in criminal proceedings.
Consider…
