Comparing Judicial Instructions About Confession Evidence in a Criminal Case

URI / Handle

Most false confessors will plead, or will be found, guilty at trial in the U.S. DNA exonerations indicate that false confessions are the second leading cause of wrongful conviction. Jurors have an incomplete understanding of the factors that affect confession evidence. This study sought to sensitize mock jurors to factors that can increase or decrease the strength of confession evidence, by way of a novel set of modified (“enhanced”) jury instructions. The enhanced instructions combined best-practice standard (“general”) criminal case instructions with empirical findings about factors occurring before, during, and after an interrogation that impact confession reliability. Participants (N= 314) read a weak or strong murder trial transcript online, followed by general or enhanced jury instructions. The key evidence in the trial was the defendant’s confession, gathered by police using either coercive (weak case) or appropriate (strong case) tactics. The cases differed in 11 key details. For example, in the weak case, police employed coercive tactics, such as lying about the existence of incriminating evidence against the suspect, whereas in the strong case, the police ensured the suspect’s sobriety prior to the interview and recorded the interview in its entirety. Altogether, 64% of the general instruction group convicted the defendant in the weak case and 74% in the strong case—a 10% difference that was not statistically significant. In contrast, 60% of the enhanced group convicted thedefendant in the weak case and 78% in the strong case—an 18% difference that was significant. The enhanced instruction participants were 1.47 times more likely to render a guilty verdict in the strong case than the weak case compared to the general instruction participants. This is the first study to demonstrate that jury instructions can sensitize jurors to confession evidence, without making them more skeptical about confession evidence in general. However, 30% of participants who considered the confession to be involuntary still convicted the defendant, and the enhanced instructions did not lower convictions for involuntary confessions. Implications are discussed for educating jurors and legal professionals about confession evidence.
Details
Title

Comparing Judicial Instructions About Confession Evidence in a Criminal Case

Contributors

Safer, Martin A. (Advisor); O'Donnell, Christina (Author); Clawson, Deborah (Other); Howard, James (Other); Cook, Anita (Other); Kromkowski, John (Other)

Degree Information

Degree awarded: Ph.D. Psychology. The Catholic University of America

Extent

338 p.

URI / Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:28313

Advisor

Safer, Martin A.

URI / Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:28313

Other

Clawson, Deborah; Howard, James; Cook, Anita; Kromkowski, John

Subject

Psychology; confession; decision-making; false confessions; interrogation; juror; jury instructions

Created

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

Abstract

Most false confessors will plead, or will be found, guilty at trial in the U.S. DNA exonerations indicate that false confessions are the second leading cause of wrongful conviction. Jurors have an incomplete understanding of the factors that affect confession evidence. This study sought to sensitize mock jurors to factors that can increase or decrease the strength of confession evidence, by way of a novel set of modified (“enhanced”) jury instructions. The enhanced instructions combined best-practice standard (“general”) criminal case instructions with empirical findings about factors occurring before, during, and after an interrogation that impact confession reliability. Participants (N= 314) read a weak or strong murder trial transcript online, followed by general or enhanced jury instructions. The key evidence in the trial was the defendant’s confession, gathered by police using either coercive (weak case) or appropriate (strong case) tactics. The cases differed in 11 key details. For example, in the weak case, police employed coercive tactics, such as lying about the existence of incriminating evidence against the suspect, whereas in the strong case, the police ensured the suspect’s sobriety prior to the interview and recorded the interview in its entirety. Altogether, 64% of the general instruction group convicted the defendant in the weak case and 74% in the strong case—a 10% difference that was not statistically significant. In contrast, 60% of the enhanced group convicted thedefendant in the weak case and 78% in the strong case—an 18% difference that was significant. The enhanced instruction participants were 1.47 times more likely to render a guilty verdict in the strong case than the weak case compared to the general instruction participants. This is the first study to demonstrate that jury instructions can sensitize jurors to confession evidence, without making them more skeptical about confession evidence in general. However, 30% of participants who considered the confession to be involuntary still convicted the defendant, and the enhanced instructions did not lower convictions for involuntary confessions. Implications are discussed for educating jurors and legal professionals about confession evidence.

Type

Text; Dissertation

Local

ODonnell_cua_0043A_10616

Publisher

The Catholic University of America

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