false confessions

Kim interviews Fred Lamb and takes a fresh look at the case.

Kim talks to someone who confessed to Shelli’s murder from a jail in Arizona.

Have you ever been falsely accused of something? Many of us think there’s only one way we’d act in such a situation: we’d defend ourselves. We’d do whatever it takes to clear our name — and above all else, we’d never, ever confess to something we didn’t do. But psychologist Saul Kassin says that’s a myth. This week, why we sometimes act against our own self-interest — even when the stakes are at their highest.

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The investigation into the murder of a prominent couple on their Nebraska farm is upended after the discovery of a small, gold ring at the crime scene. Keith Morrison has chosen this episode as one of his most memorable classic episodes.

Every year, police across the U.S. get thousands of criminals to confess to their crimes. The trouble is, the procedure that almost all departments use is grounded in bad science and can produce false confessions. Learn about ways of making you talk in this classic episode.

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Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) is the co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and the co-host of the Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions podcast.

What We Discuss with Laura Nirider:

• Two to five percent of people currently serving time in prison have been falsely convicted.
• False confessions and admissions are present in 15 to 20 percent of all DNA exonerations.
• The United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows police to lie about evidence during interrogations.
• Why so many people are coerced into providing false confessions during interrogations that are gentle compared to the more "hands on" approach taken by police in decades past.
• How Laura is working to clean up interrogation techniques so they're still effective in solving crimes without trapping innocent people in the system.
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/456

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Lynching was the sharpest blade in the arsenal of white supremacy for decades, until American police replaced it with the death penalty. In this episode, Prop and Robert trace the evolution of police torture, and how the legacy of 'the third degree' persists in law enforcement to this day. 

FOOTNOTES:

1. History of the KKK in Oklahoma
2. Tulsa, Oklahoma, Race Riot
3. Tulsa Timeline
4. The Color of the Third Degree: Racism, Police Torture, and Civil Rights in the American South, 1930–1955
5. ACCUSED TORTURER JON BURGE DIED LAST WEEK, BUT HIS LEGACY OF BRUTAL, RACIST POLICING LIVES ON IN CHICAGO
6. CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE: EXPLAINED

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every year, police across the U.S. get thousands of criminals to confess to their crimes. The trouble is, the procedure that almost all departments use is grounded in bad science and can produce false confessions. Learn about ways of making you talk.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.