POST:"More than a mistake: The manipulation inherent in false confessions," by Samantha Adams, published by "The Innocence Project of Florida" on January 27, 2015.
GIST: "Unfortunately, there are also instances where wrongful convictions are more than a mistake. While some wrongful convictions can be at least partially explained away by human error, other cases show signs of outright manipulation. A strong indicator that some sort of deception or coercion was inherent in the wrongful conviction is the existence of a false confession. Police interrogations are a common source of manipulation leading to false confessions. In a recent study, psychologists Stephen Porter and Julia Shaw found that not only is it surprisingly easy to create false memories of committing crime, but also that many of the methods that lead to the creation of these false memories are commonly employed in police interrogations as part of the Reid technique. For example, interrogations following the Reid technique are designed to be accusatory and to elicit a confession from the suspect, and often make use of false evidence and social pressures. All of these methods were employed by Porter and Shaw in their study, and contributed to the creation of the participants’ false memories. In other words, police interrogations are not always intended to correctly identify the culprit; rather, the police often assume that the suspect is guilty and do whatever it takes to force a confession out of him or her, including manipulating the suspect’s memory and producing a false confession. Eddie Joe Lloyd’s case provides an even more straightforwardly deceitful example of how police interrogations can lead to false confessions.........Too many innocent people are being manipulated to falsely confess and subsequently convicted based on these false confessions. The fact that players in the criminal justice system are actually working in ways to encourage these false confessions is an unfortunate truth that must be recognized in the fight against wrongful convictions."
The entire post ban be found at:
http://floridainnocence.org/content/?p=11734
See also: Joseph Buckley, President of Reid and Associates, defends "The Reid Technique" in a letter sent to The Charles Smith Blog in response to another post;
It
is often stated that the Reid Technique "shows no interest in learning
the truth, but the goal is to seek a confession." We clearly state the
exact opposite in our book Criminal Interrogation and Confessions (5th edition 2013) on page 5: "The
purpose of an interrogation is to learn the truth. A common
misperception exists in believing that the purpose of an interrogation
is to elicit a confession.... If the suspect can be eliminated [from
suspicion] based on his or her behavior or explanations offered during
the interrogation, the interrogation must be considered successful
because the truth was learned."
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-reid-technique-joseph-buckley.htmlPUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
