Lost proof of innocence: The impact of confessions on alibi witnesses.

Why confessions trump innocence.

As illustrated by the story of Amanda Knox and many others wrongfully convicted, false confessions often trump factual innocence. Focusing on consequences, recent research suggests that confessions are powerfully persuasive as a matter of logic and common sense; that many false confessions contain richly detailed narratives and accurate crime facts that appear to betray guilty knowledge; and th...

Running head: ALIBI TIMING AND ALIBI WITNESS MOTIVATION The effect of evidence timing and witness motivation upon juror evaluations of alibi witnesses and defendants Running head: ALIBI TIMING AND ALIBI WITNESS MOTIVATION

On the psychology of confessions: does innocence put innocents at risk?

The Central Park jogger case and other recent exonerations highlight the problem of wrongful convictions, 15% to 25% of which have contained confessions in evidence. Recent research suggests that actual innocence does not protect people across a sequence of pivotal decisions: (a) In preinterrogation interviews, investigators commit false-positive errors, presuming innocent suspects guilty; (b) ...

The Psychology of Confessions: A Review of the Literature and Issues.

Recently, in a number of high-profile cases, defendants who were prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced on the basis of false confessions have been exonerated through DNA evidence. As a historical matter, confession has played a prominent role in religion, in psychotherapy, and in criminal law-where it is a prosecutor's most potent weapon. In recent years, psychologists from the clinical, persona...

The Devil in Confessions.

It is a humbling experience to go to the Web site of the Innocence Project (http://www.innocenceproject.org), a nonprofit legal clinic at the Cardozo School of Law that handles cases in which postconviction DNA testing of evidence has provided proof of innocence. A recent visit to the site led me to the case of Eddie Joe Lloyd, who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of a 16-year-old girl in...