Why would an innocent person confess to a crime?

Today I read a 2005 Scientific American article that discussed why so many innocent people confessed to committing crimes.

The pages of legal history reveal many tragic miscarriages of justice involving innocent men and women who were prosecuted, wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to prison or to death. Opinions differ on prevalence rates, but it is clear that a disturbing number of cases have involved defendants who were convicted based only on false confessions that, at least in retrospect, could not have been true. Indeed, as in the case of the Central Park incident, disputed false confessions have convicted some people notwithstanding physical evidence to the contrary. As a result of technological advances in forensic DNA typing--which enables the review of past cases in which blood, hair, semen, skin, saliva or other biological material has been preserved--many new, high-profile wrongful convictions have surfaced in recent years, up to 157 in the U.S. alone at the time of this writing.

Typically 20 to 25 percent of DNA exonerations had false confessions in evidence. Why would an innocent person confess to a crime? A scan of the scientific literature reveals how a complex set of psychological factors comes into play . . . [One of those factors is the tendency] toward compliance or suggestibility in the face of two common interrogation tactics--the presentation of false incriminating evidence and the impression that giving a confession might bring leniency. In short, sometimes people confess because it seems like the only way out of a terrible situation.

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Would you like your young daughter to be the next Dream Girl USA?

If you'd like your young daughter to be the next Dream Girl USA, take a look at this photo essay published by the St. Louis Riverfront Times. The National Little Miss Dream Girl Pageant gave this photographer wide access to many aspects of the pageant. These photos contained in the…

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The other kind of prostitute: sex for a sandwich.

Not all hookers are like "Kristen," the gorgeous, high-living prostitute allegedly employed by Eliot Spitzer.  Not all prostitutes work for wealthy and powerful executives or politicians.   Not all prostitution is provided under the supervision of a sophisticated club like the Emperor VIP club.   A friend of mine, Geri Dreiling, wrote…

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