Criminal confessions: overcoming the challenges - interview and interrogation techniques

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

The suggestion that investigators interrupt an admission of guilt in a homicide case to debate whether a suspect committed a premeditated or spontaneous murder is unrealistic. The final disclosure of case facts and laboratory results will provide details to reveal the most likely version of events. Seasoned interviewers know that the interview and interrogation phase constitutes only one portion of the entire investigation.

CATEGORY 5: CONSEQUENCES

Challenge: Promising Coercive End-of-Line Benefits

Investigators move into clearly coercive territory when giving clear and substantial identification of end-of-line benefits to confession. The coercive aspect comes from investigators' statements that remaining silent will lead to greater penalties, but confessing to a minimized scenario will result in reward. (22) Investigators may openly suggest that suspects will receive the most serious charge possible without a consent to the offered lesser interpretation of their actions. (23) Many interviewers blatantly and precisely will state the suspect's expected penalty in unmistakable terms, such as the death penalty versus life imprisonment or life imprisonment versus 20 years. Similarly, investigators may threaten harm via investigation or prosecution of a third party, such as a wife, brother, or child, if suspects reject the lessened scenario. Some critics accurately have identified these tactics as being coercive enough to make innocent people confess to a crime that they did not commit.

Interview Principle: Use Psychology Versus Coercion

The interview and interrogation system generally recognized as the most widely used and adapted in the United States follows the limitations imposed by the ethical standards, as well as the dictates, of the courts. (24) U.S. courts have allowed investigators the breadth of creativity in interviewing suspects, but any coercive investigative acts are offensive to the skilled professional. Successful interviewing does not hinge on coercive techniques because talented investigators have a ready reservoir of productive, acceptable, and psychologically effective methods. Blatant statements by investigators depicting the worse-case scenario facing a suspect who does not accept a lesser responsibility are coercive and unnecessary. In general, these statements follow the pattern of "If you don't cooperate, I am personally going to prove your brother was up to his eyeballs in this murder. He will go down hard." Statements of this type are clearly coercive and less effective than the use of psychological techniques of r ationalization, projection, and minimization.

However, a distinction exists between blatant statements and subtle references offered for interpretation as the suspect chooses. Suspects engage in a self-imposed, personal decision-making process that incorporates their life experiences, familiarity with the criminal justice system, and their time-tested psychological processes of rationalization, projection, and minimization. Suspects may explain reasons for the crime (rationalization), blame others (projection), or lessen their culpability and express remorse, even if unfelt (minimization). Guilty suspects attempt to describe their criminal acts as understandable, in a manner that places them in a better position to obtain the desired lenient treatment. They eagerly listen for any opportunity to look good. Investigators are not responsible if suspects choose to offer an explanation of guilt that places them in what the suspects perceive as a favorable position. Investigators achieve part of their goal because the suspect must admit culpability to achieve this desired perceived position.