COMMENTARY: "False confessions and the lessons of the Fairbanks Four," by Marcelle McDannel, published by the Alaska Daily News, on January 3, 2106. (Marcelle McDannel has been working in criminal law for almost two decades, both as a prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney. She currently practices criminal defense statewide. Her crime fiction blog can be found at askmsmurder.net, where you can also find more information and excerpts from the Vent interrogation transcript.)

PHOTO CAPTION: "Transcripts from the case of the Fairbanks Four show in vivid detail why police interrogation techniques usually used on adult suspects can produce false confessions when used on juveniles."

GIST: "Detective Aaron Ring was just hours into his investigation of the vicious beating of John Hartman on a street corner in downtown Fairbanks when patrol officers arrested an Alaska Native teenager. The teen, Eugene Vent, had been found stumbling down the street about four blocks from the location of the attack. Ring had no evidence identifying a suspect in the assault, which ultimately caused the death of Hartman. Vent had been drinking all night. Around the time of his arrest, he had a blood alcohol level of .158. He was 17 years old, still drunk, tired and hungry as he was brought into an interview room. It was around 5:30 in the morning. Vent had been up all night. Detective Ring had a decision to make: whether to interview or interrogate Vent. Ring chose the latter -- a decision that would have profound implications for the investigation into the murder of John Hartman, which just resulted in the reversal of the murder convictions of Vent and the other members of the “Fairbanks Four” after 18 years of incarceration. “Interrogation” and “interview” are not synonyms; they have very different purposes and employ very different tactics. Interviews are used in an investigation to gather information -- objective facts -- by asking open-ended questions and allowing the witness to supply the evidence. Police conduct interviews when they don’t yet know the answers to the questions they are asking. Interrogations, on the other hand, are designed to extract confessions where police already have other concrete evidence connecting the suspect to the crime. Most officers are trained in specific interrogation techniques that are intended to be used against seasoned adult criminals. Because interrogations are so coercive, there’s a danger in using them, rather than an investigation, to solve a crime: They can produce false confessions that blind officers to other objective evidence. According to the Innocence Project, one out of four people who have been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated through DNA evidence made a false confession or incriminating statement. The statistic is even higher for teens, who are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of coercive interrogation techniques. This vulnerability is categorically shared by every teen, no matter how intelligent or mature because it is rooted in physiological differences in their brains. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls decision-making and judgment, is far less developed in the teenage brain, making it much less effective in regulating impulsive behavior by putting a brake on reactions to fear and stress. In a high-stress environment like an interrogation, a teen is far more likely to say anything -- true or not -- just to get it to stop, ignoring the long-term consequences of that decision. That’s why groups like the International Association of Chiefs of Police advocate strict limitations on the interrogation of teenagers. They recommend, for example, that teens should only be interrogated for an hour before a substantial break; that a friendly adult, such as a parent, guardian or child advocate, should be present; that interrogations should not occur in the middle of the night; that police should not resort to deception about the evidence; and that they should not feed the suspect facts about the investigation. Detective Ring violated every single of one these recommendations. His interrogation is like a textbook study on how not to question a teenager. During the first hour or so of the interrogation, Vent insisted over and over that he had nothing to do with the beating of John Hartman: that he was not in the area, that he’d never seen Hartman before. But Ring refused to accept his denials, repeatedly telling the exhausted, drunk teen that he was not telling the truth and that the interrogation would only end when he did. Here’s a sample of that technique from the transcript of the interrogation: (Read from story at the link below for portions of the transcript for portions of the interrogations that make the author's point. HL)......... Unfortunately, unlike many jobs, mistakes made by those who investigate, prosecute or defend crimes like homicides can have severe consequences, even when they are made in good faith. When interrogations produce false confessions, not only do innocent people lose years of their lives, but police also fail to identify killers who may continue to do great harm. Two of the individuals now suspected in the Hartman case, Bill Holmes and Jason Wallace, have been convicted of three subsequent unrelated murders. Whenever there is a catastrophic failure of justice, it’s tempting to want to move on as quickly as possible. The state Department of Law leveraged the freedom of the Fairbanks Four for a deal where the state does not have to admit that anyone -- police or prosecutors -- made any mistakes. But failing to learn from the mistakes of the Fairbanks Four case would be a disservice, not only to those young men who lost their youth to Alaska’s criminal justice system, but also to the safety of our community."

https://www.adn.com/article/20160103/false-confessions-and-lessons-fairbanks-four

See the Innocence Project' take on the Fairbank's Four:" Last year, George Frese, Eugene Vent, Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease—also known as the Fairbanks Four—were released from prison after their convictions for the 1997 murder of teenager John Hartman were reversed. The four young men were convicted based on the false confessions of Frese and Vent, who also implicated Roberts and Pease in the crime. An opinion piece written by criminal defense attorney Marcelle McDannel and published in yesterday’s edition of the Alaska Dispatch News examines the suggestive interrogation tactics that were used to solicit Vent’s confession and illustrates why specific interrogation practices should be adopted when questioning youth."
http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/police-interviews-versus-interrogation-2018fairbanks-four2019-case-illustrates-important-distinction

PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.

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Harold Levy: Publisher;
The Charles Smith Blog

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Sunday, January 17, 2016