PUBLISHER'S NOTE: For years, this Blog has has been reporting on the dangerous inherent in use of the Reid method of interrogation which has been used in criminal justice jurisdictions around the world - even as mounting scientific research demonstrated its flaws and the number of exonerations based on false confessions steadily increased. It is therefore a most significant event when Wicklander-Zulawski, which describes itself as "a world leader in interview and interrogation training services for federal government agencies, law enforcement organizations and corporations," announces that it will no longer offer training in the controversial method. Wicklander-Zulawski's far-reaching move will hopefully assist the numerous people convicted on the basis of false convictions obtained through use of the Reid method who have not yet been exonerated - and will open the door to less confrontation and thereby less risky interrogation methods. John E. Reid and Associates have marketed there interrogation materials aggressively over the years. The following Marshall Project post contains Reid and Associates response to Wicklander-Zulawski's staggering move.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
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COMMENTARY: "Good interrogations shouldn't prompt false confessions, by Jarvis DeBerry, published by the Times-Picayune on March 8, 2016. Jarvis DeBerry is deputy opinions editor for NOLA.COM | The Times-Picayune.
GIST: "The news this week from one of the largest police consulting forms that it will stop teaching the Reid technique during interrogations is meant to decrease the number of people who falsely confess to crimes they didn't commit. According to reporting from The Marhsall Project, when polygraph expert John Reid introduced a new interrogation technique in the 1940s it was considered progressive. It was meant to replace the beatings that police doled out to suspects they were demanding conf But Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, a group that says it has worked with a majority of police departments in the United States, announced this week that the Reid method is outdated. "Confrontation is not an effective way of getting truthful information," the company's CEO and president, Shane Sturman, told The Marshall Project.........Examples abound of criminal suspects caving in under pressure and saying that they did something that evidence later proves they didn't do. One of the points made in the new 6-part documentary about Bronx teenager Kalief Browder is that the system puts pressure on suspects to confess and plead guilty and that many people do so because they can't take the interrogation tactics any longer. In 2012, here in Louisiana, Damon Thibodeaux was released from prison 16 years after he confessed to raping and strangling to death a 14-year-old girl. When Thibodeaux was released, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick released a statement that said, "I have concluded that the primary evidence in this case, the confession, is unreliable." In 2007, Harvey's Travis Hayes was released 10 years after he confessed to being the get-away driver after the murder of Bridge City grocer. In a 2009 law journal article, a law professor describes Hayes' case as "the most naked, uncorroborated false confession I've ever seen." I can't say for sure what methods were used to get those false confessions out of Thibodeaux and Hayes, but there's a good chance that the law enforcement officers who questioned them used the confrontational techniques that are now being rejected by the police consulting firm. If there are interrogation techniques that better get at the truth without the same risk of false confessions, those are the techniques our officials should be using."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/
