Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

254 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
to oppressive interviewing. The police interrogated Miller for about 13 hours
in total. He confessed towards the end of the interrogation period and was
convicted along with two other defendants, neither of whom made confessions.
He denied involvement in the murder on over 300 occasions. According to their
Lordships on appeal, two of the officers were ‘tough and confrontational’ and
Miller was ‘bullied and hectored.’ A detailed analysis of Miller’s interrogation
was discussed in Chapter 4, whereas the psychological and legal aspects of the
case are discussed in Chapter 19.
The words ‘said or done’ in Section 76(2)(b) do not include anything that is
said or done by the person making the confession (Richardson, 2001). It was
held in R. v. Goldenberg (88 Cr.App.R. 285) that this has to be something external
to the person making the confession and is something likely to have
influenced him or her to confess. Goldenberg was a heroin addict who was
arrested and charged with conspiracy to supply diamorphine. After being in
custody for five days, he requested an interview with the police and confessed
to the offence. The defence argued at trial that the confession should be ruled
inadmissible under Section 76(2)b because the defendant would have been inclined
to ‘say or do anything’ to obtain bail. The judge rejected the defence
submission and the defendant was convicted. On appeal the conviction was
upheld:
In the circumstances of the present case the Court was satisfied that on the proper
construction of Section 76(2)(b) the judge’s ruling as to the admissibility of the
evidence of the police interview was correct; further, the judge was right to rule
against a submission that the prejudicial effect of the evidence outweighed its
probative value (p. 285).
This case is commonly used to indicate that a confession resulting from a
disturbed mental state without proof of impropriety by the police may not necessarily
be excluded under Section 76(b). The implication is that self-induced
or inherent factors that undermine unreliability have to be dealt with under
Sections 78 and 82 and at the discretion of the judge.
In the case of Harvey ([1988], Crim.L.R. 241), Section 76(2)(b) was successfully
invoked for a personality disordered woman of low intelligence who confessed,
allegedly in order to protect her lesbian lover from prosecution after
hearing her confessing to murder. The confession was the only evidence against
her. This case, which was heard at the Central Criminal Court, is interesting
because there was no inducement to confess and a ‘person in authority’ did not
elicit the confession (i.e. it was given voluntarily to a police officer). Nevertheless,
the judge held that
...he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the confession was not obtained
as a result of hearing the lover’s confession (p. 242).
The jury was directed to acquit.
In another case (R. v. Moss, Court of Appeal, March 9, 1990), the Court of
Appeal held that the confession of a man with borderline IQ should not have
gone before the jury. The crucial confession was elicited after the man had