Bill rightly aims to prevent false confessions from minors

Over the past decade the state of Connecticut has, to its credit, enacted legislation that has substantially reduced the likelihood of someone being wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit.

In 2011 Public Act No. 11-174 stipulated that any statement of a person under investigation or accused of a major felony made as a result of a custodial interrogation at a place of detention shall be presumed to be inadmissible as evidence in a criminal proceeding unless an electronic recording was made of the interrogation.

And in 2012, following the recommendation of a task force on eyewitness identification and in order to reduce what the Innocence Project and others had found to be the most frequent contributing factor in wrongful convictions — eyewitness misidentifications — Public Act No. 12-111 stipulated that a blind or doubleblind sequential procedure for presenting photographs to an eyewitness be used rather than a simultaneous presentation of an array of photographs.

While eyewitness misidentifications are, by far, the most frequent cause of wrongful convictions — the Innocence Project reports that such misidentifications were a contributing factor in 63% of the wrongful convictions that were subsequently reversed because of DNA or other evidence — another important contributing factor is a false confession, which occurred in 27% of the wrongful convictions that were subsequently reversed.

Not surprisingly, young people are especially prone to confessing falsely to a crime they didn’t commit. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, a cooperative effort by several law schools that reports on the contributing causes of the more than 3,000 exonerations that have occurred since 1989, while 10% of the wrongful convictions of those who were 18 or older at the time of the crime involved a false confession, 34% of the wrongful convictions of those who were under age 18 at the time the crime rested, at least in part, on a false confession.

And breaking down the latter group, the Registry reports that while 27% of those who were 16 or 17 at the time of the crime and were wrongfully convicted falsely confessed to having committed the crime, 54% of those who were 14 or 15 at the time of the crime and were wrongfully convicted falsely confessed. And 78% of those under 14 at the time of the crime and wrongfully convicted falsely confessed.

The Judiciary Committee of the General Assembly this month conducted a hearing on legislation — Raised Bill No. 1071, An Act Concerning Deceptive or Coercive Interrogation Tactics — that, if approved, would reduce the likelihood of a wrongful conviction occurring in the future by prohibiting deceptive or coercive interrogation tactics that could lead to a false confession that could contribute to a wrongful conviction, especially among those who are under the age of 18 and, as the data above suggested, more likely than older persons to confess falsely to a crime they didn’t commit.

The bill includes a long list under “deception or coercive tactics” that would cause any admission, confession or statement made during a custodial interrogation to be presumed to be involuntary and inadmissible in any proceeding, including deprivation of physical or mental health needs that include but aren’t limited to food, sleep, use of a restroom, prescribed medications; use or threatened use of physical force; impairment of the physical or mental condition of the person being interrogated to the extent of undermining the person’s ability to make an informed choice whether to make a statement; arrest or threatened arrest of another person; use or threatened use of enhanced penalties; or violation of the person’s constitutional rights.

In addition, if the person being interrogated is under 18, the bill includes, under “deception or coercive tactics” that would cause any admission, confession or statement to be presumed to be involuntary and inadmissible in any proceeding, communication of false facts about evidence that were known or should have been known to be false, false statements or misrepresentations of the law, or false or misleading promises of leniency or some other benefit or reward.

Almost 50 officials and members of the public submitted testimony to the committee and there was widespread support for it, especially for the full set of provisions that would apply to those under the age of 18.

Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, noting that in 2021 Illinois became the first state in the country to prohibit police officers from using deceptive interrogation tactics on juveniles, suggested the scope of the bill be limited to juveniles.

And the Division of Criminal Justice likewise indicated that it “fully supports” the portion of the bill which applies exclusively to persons under 18 and suggested changing the title of the bill to “An Act Concerning Deceptive or Coercive Interrogation Tactics, which seeks to curtail the use of deceptive or coercive interrogation tactics by law enforcement officers during the custodial interrogation of persons under eighteen years of age.”

This is an important bill. Hopefully, the Judiciary Committee and then the General Assembly will approve it in the form suggested by Sen. Looney and the Division of Criminal Justice.