Professor Xavier University Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Abstract Text: Social science has long acknowledged that juvenile status is a risk factor for false confession, as are the confrontational strategies widely used by U.S. police. The interplay of these risk factors is highlighted in the overrepresentation of juveniles among exonerees who were found to have falsely confessed. Courts have determined that age as a risk factor for false confession is within the “common knowledge” of jurors; thus, jurors are expected to accurately weigh whether a confession is false. In this study, participants (n = 131) listened to an audio recording of verified false confession and rated the overall coerciveness of the interrogation and the coerciveness of six different types of commonly used interrogation strategies. Half of the participants were told the suspect was a juvenile (n = 67) and the other half (n = 64) were told the suspect was an adult. Coerciveness ratings of the overall interrogation and five out of the six interrogation strategies did not differ by suspect age. However, participants’ ratings of interrogation and most of the specific strategies were in a range indictive of being coercive regardless of suspect age. Only one coerciveness rating (of context manipulation) was significantly higher for the juvenile suspect. Ratings of false confession likelihood significantly differed by participant ratings of overall interrogation coerciveness; participants who rated the overall coerciveness of the interrogation to be low perceived the likelihood that the confession was false to be lower than participants who rated the overall coerciveness as high. Furthermore, participants who perceived the confession to be false were more likely to render a verdict of Not Guilty than participants who did not perceive the confession to be false. Implications of these findings are discussed.
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