Studies On The Effects Of Police Deception In Interrogations

Many people are surprised to learn that our appellate courts have ruled that it is fine for police officers to use deception when they interrogate suspects. What that means is detectives can lie about evidence or witnesses they have in order to get a suspect to confess. These are old interrogation techniques and the courts have given their approval for years. Psychologist have recently concluded a study that tested how jurors felt about deceptive police interrogations and the findings are interesting.

The study showed that jurors were not effected when defense attorney’s exposed the false evidence ploys used by detectives. Jurors felt the evidence was compelling and convicted. The study did show that jurors were more likely to hand out lighter sentences in cases where false evidence ploys were used to obtain a confession.

What if the defendant has falsely confessed to the authorities? We are seeing more and more cases reversed because of false confessions. The study revealed that jurors had a very hard time believing someone would confess to something they did not do. The findings did show that jurors were more likely to believe that a defendant falsely confessed only if they heard from an expert.

The bottom line is if the criminal lawyer is going to convince a jury that her client has falsely confessed they better have a qualified expert ready to present to the jury or else they face almost certain conviction.