Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

The Psychology of False Confession: Research and Theoretical Issues 181
7. A careful analysis of the post-admission statement, which reveals striking
errors and omissions, rendering the confession unconvincing and inherently
improbable. (See, for example, the case of David MacKenzie, Chapter
18; Leo & Ofshe, 1998a.)
A retracted confession consists of the suspect or defendant declaring that the
self-incriminating admission or confession he made is false (i.e. the confession
is recanted). As a result the confession may be disputed at the defendant’s
forthcoming trial. This does not necessarily mean that the confession is false,
because guilty people as well as innocent people do retract their confession
before the case goes to court.
In some circumstances a confession may be disputed at the trial even when
the suspect has not formally retracted it. This probably happens more often
in adversarial proceedings where the onus is on the prosecution to prove their
case rather than establishing guilt or innocence by inquisitorial means. In such
a case the confession may be ruled inadmissible in court because of legal technicality
(e.g. breaches of existing codes of practice). With the English Courts
becoming more receptive to expert psychological evidence, there appears to be
a growing trend for lawyers to dispute confession evidence even when the defendant
is not claiming he made a false or coerced confession (Gudjonsson, 1999b).
This is where the legal profession can misuse expert testimony by trying to
get the client acquitted on the basis of mental problems, which are not always
relevant or salient to the credibility of the confession (Gudjonsson & MacKeith,
1997).
A suspect or defendant may also dispute that he actually made the confession
in the first place. He or she may allege that the police fabricated the
confession. In such instances the police may allege that the defendant made the
confession but refused to sign it (Graef, 1990). Even if the suspect signs the selfincriminating
statement he may allege that the police officers made the statement
up and he just signed it.
Oral confessions, or so-called ‘verbals’, pose great problems. These consist of
the police alleging that the suspect stated orally that he or she had committed
the crime or implying that he or she was somehow involved. Many instances of
such ‘verbals’ have been shown to be fabricated by the police. In the words of
one British police officer,
There are lots of side steps in the police. They rarely stick to testimony. The classic
case is verbals. One of the magistrates actually said, ‘Well, it’s very hard for this
court to believe that the PCs, Sergeants, the Inspectors all collaborated to produce
this evidence’. Of course this is precisely what they’d bloody done (Graef, 1990,
p. 278).
Verbal confessions to people other than the police can be allowed in evidence
and require no corroboration in English law. A good illustration of this is what
happened in a trial concerning the attempted murder of the well known English
boxing promoter Frank Warren. Terry Marsh, a former world boxing champion,
was charged with the attempted murder of Mr Warren. Marsh was alleged to
have made a verbal confession about the attempted murder to another prisoner
whilst on remand in prison. In the summing up the judge, Mr Justice Fennell,
stated with regard to the prisoner’s evidence about Marsh’s confession: