False confessor Jeffrey Deskovic was recently released from prison after a DNA exoneration.  He had served 16 years. The judge who vacated his conviction said "There
is no relief for your immeasurable loss that I may offer you."  Such an apology may seem hollow at this point, but is commendable when compared to the way public officials, judges included, often react in similar situations.  One thinks of the trial judge in the case of Eddie Lee Lloyd, a manic-depressive man who, during his interrogation in the psychiatric ward of a hospital, was ruthlessly manipulated into a false confession. After DNA exonerated Lloyd (who had served 17 years), the judge said in open court: “Even though he might have lied about what he did, the fault falls on him.  The fault lies with no one else.” 

 

One point should be added, germane to capital punishment.  At Lloyd’s sentencing, the judge expressed regret that, under Michigan law, Lloyd could not be put to death. 

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In that Michigan case I last posted about, there was one additional piece of evidence that the trial court and court of appeals relied on in finding that the third-party’s confession was false: “[his] demeanor on the videotape of one of his statements was considered by several experienced police officers to be inconsistent with the emotional reaction and body language of confessions to serious crimes.” 

 

Here we go again, with police pretending they can detect truthfulness or deceit just by observing people. The myth of human lie detection contributes mightily to false confessions, because police often subject people to ruthless interrogations based on a pre-screening interview in which they determine guilt based on body language and verbal cues. Those interrogations, in turn, produce false confessions. But note that in this case the police claimed that observing body language enabled them to spot a false confession.  Is it a coincidence that the confession they detected as false was not by the defendant?  And that their determination (accepted by the trial court and court of appeals) meant that the person actually convicted of the crime would not be given a new trial? The deck seems stacked.

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A decision last month by the Michigan Court of Appeals highlights the perversity of the courts’ treatment of confessions. The defendant, convicted of murder, requested a new trial based on newly-discovered evidence – a third party confessed to the murder. However, the trial court found (and the court of appeals agreed) that the new confession was probably false and therefore not a basis for a new trial for the defendant. The trial court and court of appeals found that the confession was vague, omitted key details, and contradicted known facts about the crime. Fine. But why is it that these problems with confessions don’t seem to bother courts when it’s the defendant who confessed?

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Last week another false confessor was freed in Chicago. Robert Wilson, who served 9 years of his 30-year sentence for attempted murder, was released when his victim, who identified him at trial, fully recanted and insisted that he was not the culprit. Thus the case brought together two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions: a misidentification and a false confession.

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