Criminal confessions: overcoming the challenges - interview and interrogation techniques

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Nov, 2002 by Michael R. Napier, Susan H. Adams

The questioning process does not become contaminated when investigators initiate the interview with open-ended questions. Investigators have not told suspects the details of the crime or subsequent investigation and, thereby, have preserved the evidence. After listening to the narrative responses to the open-ended question, skilled investigators will probe with additional open-ended questions and will ask direct, closed questions later.

Displaying crime scene photos to suspects prior to obtaining admissions appears to have limited usefulness. By showing graphic details of the crime, suspects receive information that, when parroted back, give substance to their confessions. Crime scene photos may include holdout information, which primarily serves to validate confessions. However, from a psychological perspective, few, if any, suspects will be shocked into confessing when they see reminders of their gruesome acts.

CATEGORY 4: OPTIONS

Challenge: Creating False Reality

Some critics allege that police use techniques that create a false reality for suspects by limiting their ability to reason and to consider alternative options. (16) Some argue that the police intentionally present only one side of the evidence or options available to suspects, namely only the ones that benefit the police. Once suspects accept a narrowed option, inferred benefits coerce them, such as avoidance of a premeditated murder charge in favor of describing the crime as an accident. The obvious benefit of accepting a suggested lesser alternative leads suspects to be coerced into a false confession out of fear of the police and possible prosecution.

Interview Principle: Adjust Moral Responsibility

The interviewer should question suspects, not provide legal counsel. (17) The investigator's purpose does not include providing options for guilty suspects to conceal their involvement.

Experienced investigators understand the following aspects of confessions:

* Confessions are not readily given.

* Full confessions originate with small admissions.

* Guilty suspects seldom tell everything.

* Most offenders are not proud of their violence and recognize that it was wrong.

* Guilty suspects omit details that cast them in a harsh, critical light.

* Offenders usually confess to obtain a position they believe to be advantageous to them. (18)

Astute interviewers use rationalization, projection, and minimization to remove barriers to obtaining confessions. (19) These represent the same techniques that suspects use to justify and place their sometime abhorrent behaviors in terms that assuage their conscience. Thus, these psychological techniques serve two purposes. They allow investigators to protect society by identifying guilty suspects. And, they also provide face-saving opportunities for suspects to make it easier for them to confess.

These techniques initially downplay the suspects' culpability by omitting their provocative behavior, blaming others, or minimizing their actual conduct. In certain circumstances, investigators might need to suggest that the suspects' criminality was an accident (20) or the result of an unexpected turn of events, which the victims might have provoked. Investigators attempt to obtain an admission or to place the suspect near the scene or with the victim. From the original admission of guilt, experienced investigators refine their techniques by using all of the case facts to point out the flaws and insufficiency in the original admission and to obtain a fuller, more accurate description of the suspect's criminal behavior. (21) Practiced interviewers use the initial admission as a wedge to open the door to additional incriminating statements.