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You are here: Home / Miscarriages of Justice / Follow-up False Confessions Post

Follow-up False Confessions Post

October 1, 2013 By Alice

Photography AdSAfter posting “False Confessions: Why & How” I got an email from Mr. Joseph Buckley, President of John E. Reid and Associates. He wanted to alert my readers to a few things.

  • A technique is a tool and the tool is only as good as the one handling it. In other words: yes, false confessions happen but the technique alone did not extract those words.

This is reflected in this Police Chief Magazine article, from vol. LXXVI, no. 10, October 2009. I quote: “A popular training program, the Reid technique, has been used to educate more than 500,000 law enforcement and security officers since 1974. The techniques taught at training seminars like Reid’s have been the foundation of the police interview process. Frequently, defense attorneys also undergo training in these same interviewing techniques in order to be able to subject the police interviewers to vigorous review and cross-examination.

Although Reid and others have advanced the art of the interview, police agencies need to do more to provide in-house training, thereby capitalizing on the skill and experiences of their own investigative staff.”

  • The Reid technique is indeed used by police to question suspects however, it is also used to find the innocent. Mr. Buckley told me that John E. Reid and Associates collaborates with the New York Innocence Project to actively help exonerate the innocent. An example for that is here: “Frank Sterling is set to be exonerated today in Rochester 18 years after he was wrongfully convicted of murder, according to the Innocence Project, which represents him along with local attorney Donald Thompson. DNA testing implicates Mark Christie. In January 2010, after the DNA testing was complete, Christie met with Potkin and Richard Byington, an instructor for John E. Reid and Associates, the world’s largest trainer of interview and interrogation techniques to law enforcement agencies, and confessed to the crime. Twice in April 2010 he met with representatives for the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office and again gave detailed confessions that included facts about the crime that are not publicly available (including the weapon used to kill the victim).” A more detailed article about this case can be found here.
  • On the website from John E. Reid and Associates you can find more information about their work. Take a look at these eight power point presentations. The presentations range from the application of the technique to what the courts say and of course, a review of many of the statements that false confession experts often make about the Reid Technique followed by an evaluation of the accuracy of those  statements. If you have the time to go over all eight PPP, let me know your thoughts in the comment box below this post.

There are several books with information (as per previous post) about false confessions. I like to highlight a few more:

  • If you are interested in false confessions and people with retardation or other developmental disabilities, check the works from Robert Perske and Donald S. Connery.
  • The books about the Guildford Four by both Gerry Conlon and Robert Kee are good to combine with Gisli Gudjonsson’s “The psychology of interrogations, confessions and testimony.”
  • The case of the Ford Heights Four investigated by David Protess & Rob Warden and Charles L. Yeschke’s “The art of investigative Interviewing” are worth reading.

I hope that this post gives you an even better overview of available literature on false confessions.

Last, thank you, Mr. Buckley, for reading my blog!

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Filed Under: Miscarriages of Justice Tagged With: Actual Innocence, Evidence, False Confessions, interrogation techniques, John E. Reid and Associates, Joseph Buckley

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Author Notes

On this website, I write about old, unsolved cases. Most are from the pre-DNA era and are in need of renewed media attention. I only do research and leave the active investigation of these cases to the professionals.

My posts are about homicides, missing and unidentified people, wrongful convictions, and forensics as related to these cases.

On book reviews: I only review select works of true crime, crime fiction, and historical fiction/mysteries. The stories have to fit my website's theme and research. It remains my prerogative to not review a book.

My database has over 325 cases listed by the victim’s last name. You will find a brief description there as well. The database will always be free to the public to use. You cannot buy ad space on my website, ever.

All writing suggestions that come in by email are added to my to-do list in the order in which they were received. Please be patient. My to-do list is very long but no case gets dropped and I will get back in touch.

Defrosting Cold Cases is NOT an organization. It is my brainchild.

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Thank you,

Alice de Sturler

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Copyright: Please add a link back if you use my work. Let your readers know where you found your information. I do the same for you. If you need help with this, just contact me. Thank you, Alice de Sturler

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