Interrogative Specialists and False Confessions: Debunking the Con Artist Myth

Abstract

Within the criminal justice system, confessions are an extremely powerful form of evidence. Unfortunately, innocent people sometimes falsely confess to crimes they did not actually commit. Such travesties of justice have sparked a significant degree of academic research into the false confession phenomenon. Within the existing literature, there exists a conceptual framework that the interrogative methods and actions of law enforcement officers are a key cause of false confessions with some researchers going so far as to suggest that law enforcement interrogators act as confidence men who trick criminal subjects into confessing. However, few researchers have actually questioned law enforcement officers about false confessions and even fewer have consulted with officers who specialize in interrogation. This study is a subset of a larger qualitative case study designed to explore the experiences of 13 federal law enforcement polygraph examiners who specialize in interrogation regarding their approach to criminal interrogation and their experiences with both true and false confessions. This study focused on the personal processes federal law enforcement polygraph examiners use in reviewing Miranda rights and documenting confessions. NVivo software was used to organize the data. Common themes in interview responses were then identified and revealed that participants employ an open, detailed, and straightforward approach in reviewing Miranda rights and documenting the confessions of criminal subjects. These findings contradict the premise that law enforcement interrogators inherently operate as confidence men by tricking and manipulating criminal subjects.