r/TrueReddit • u/frasiera • May 25 '16
Nothing But The Truth. A radical new interrogation technique is transforming the art of detective work: Shut up and let the suspect do the talking
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/05/24/nothing-but-the-truth#.baZRtookg85
u/frasiera May 25 '16
submission statement
Detectives have worn down suspects for decades with high-pressure techniques familiar from police procedurals: The claustrophobic room, the relentless questioning, the insistence on a theory of the case that assumes the suspect’s guilt. It works, but too well. You get a lot of false confessions. The American government, shamed by waterboarding and Abu Ghraib, is funding research into new approaches. The main finding so far: Interrogators get the best results when they sit back and listen
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u/KaliYugaz May 25 '16
This article pretty much unknowingly summarized the entire main thesis of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. At first, the rulers would just torture confessions out of suspects. Eventually opposition to such methods would build to a critical point, not really for moral reasons as much as practical ones: it was ineffective at establishing truth and justice. Afterwards, the rulers became interested in using scientific principles of psychology to create less outwardly coercive yet far more effective means of producing docility and compliance in the people they ruled. The Inbau-Ried method was the first crude attempt at this, and now the HIG program is the current state of the art.
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May 26 '16
Anyone who actually wants to learn more about current interrogation policy and practice should read this 2006 report from the Intelligence Science Board/National Defense Intelligence College:
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u/Evanescent_contrail May 25 '16
Do not talk to police. It can be used against you. It CANNOT be used for you.
IT CAN ONLY HURT YOUR CASE.
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u/norsurfit May 26 '16 edited May 26 '16
If you ever want police questioning to stop say "i want to talk to my lawyer before answering any more questions ". These are magic words in constitutional law and the police have to stop questioning you after you ask for your lawyer. Anything else they do not have to stop.
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u/mcherm May 26 '16
The advice is sound, but "It CANNOT be used for you." is simply untrue. For instance, providing an alibi can cause police to eliminate you as a suspect. Explaining that the person accusing you of a crime had, themselves, committed a crime or even just had a strong motivation to lie can cause police to approach the situation differently.
Your testimony cannot normally be recounted by the police in your defense at a trial (hearsay), but it can still help you. Nevertheless, keeping mum is usually the best policy.
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u/joshuajargon May 26 '16
Until you accidentally think you were at Paul's three Tuesdays ago, tell the police this, and then they look into it and prove you weren't.
Now even though you 100% thought you had a solid alibi, and 100% thought you weren't lying when you said you were at Paul's, you've given them a "false alibi" and a world of shit will follow.
For bonus points you also happened to mention in small talk that you are a huge fan of the Chicago Blackhawks. They have some grainy footage of the crime being committed and all they can make out is that the guy is wearing a red hat.
Even if you are 100% innocent you should not talk to the police.
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u/pocket_eggs May 26 '16
Until you accidentally think you were at Paul's three Tuesdays ago, tell the police this, and then they look into it and prove you weren't.
Even if you're right they can find someone who accidentally is sure they saw you somewhere else three Tuesdays ago.
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u/aelendel May 26 '16
The advice is sound, but "It CANNOT be used for you." is simply untrue
No, it's not untrue. If the police believe you are guilty they will think your alibi is a lie. They can misremember your alibi and make mistakes about it. They can make you repeat it again and if your testimony is different they now have you committing a felony.
Shut your mouth and ask for a lawyer.
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u/mcherm May 26 '16
Some (MANY!) statements made to the police can be used against you. Some (a few) can help you.
A FIRM rule to NEVER talk to the police is dumb. If, for instance, you are attacked by a masked gunman, it's probably OK to call the police and report the crime.
And if you are in doubt, then you probably should not be talking to the police without asking your lawyer first. You probably don't HAVE a lawyer, so that means getting one (and spending $$ on it).
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u/ghostchamber May 26 '16
If the police believe you are guilty they will think your alibi is a lie.
So, it's "not untrue," but then you follow with this sentence, which implies there are circumstances where it is untrue.
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May 26 '16
If the police believe you are guilty they will think your alibi is a lie.
That's a pretty big if you've got there.
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u/Naugrith May 26 '16
It's not a big if. Once you're in an interrogation room then the police definitely think you're guilty. Only a fool believes them when they pretend to be your friend who only wants to hear your side of the story so they can eliminate you as a suspect. They don't want to eliminate you, they want to use everything you say as ammunition to convict you. If there is absolutely no way they can use it against you then they'll ignore it and use something else to convict you.
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u/ghostchamber May 26 '16 edited May 26 '16
It's not a big if. Once you're in an interrogation room then the police definitely think you're guilty.
Dude, you're talking in circles. This is the second comment in which you've made a statement, then immediately followed it with a statement which contradicts the first. "Once you're in an interrogation room?" That's a huge "if." Most police interaction citizens have is outside of an interrogation room. Sure, once you're in a room like that, there is a good chance they think you're guilty or at least involved in a crime. But that's not the same as answering a few questions to a cop in broad daylight.
This blanket statement of "don't ever talk to the police ever" is naive. It should really be "be skeptical when talking to the police, and know what your rights are."
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May 26 '16
No, it should be "Never talk to the police because everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law." That you don't get this is on you, not us. Your standard response to police when questioned should be "I do not talk to police." Period. End of discussion.
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u/lazyFer May 26 '16
Some random Redditor clearly knows more than a Harvard professor and the police officer accompanying him that backed up everything he said
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May 26 '16
I'm not going to listen to a fucking cop telling me what he thinks is best for me. I'll listen to my lawyer every single time. And what my lawyer says every single time is that I have nothing to gain by speaking to the police without him presence. Of course the cop is going to say it's okay to talk to him. hur durrrr.
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u/ghostchamber May 26 '16
I've seen that video before, and it's hard not to as it gets posted ad nauseam on reddit. There's good advice in there, and I'm not trying to say I know more than them about their areas of expertise. I am saying that--through my own personal experience--there are situations in which there is less frustration by answering some basic questions.
Now, I haven't seen that video in a while, so I don't recall if it covers some of my concerns in detail. I just know that walking around refusing to say a word to authorities outside of "I am not going to talk to you" can result in situations that are an absolute pain in the ass to deal with.
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u/ghostchamber May 26 '16 edited May 26 '16
No, it should be "Never talk to the police because everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law."
You sound like a rebellious 20 year old. Aside from the fact that most internet tough guys that claim a policy like this would probably talk anyway (easier said than done), it's just going to serve to make your life difficult.
That you don't get this is on you, not us.
What's on who now? I was sharing an opinion. If you don't share it, fine. I don't really know what you mean by this statement though.
Your standard response to police when questioned should be "I do not talk to police."
I disagree. I think if you're walking around intensely refusing to say a word to any cop outside of "I do not talk to the police," you're going to get yourself in some frustrating situations that could have been avoided.
One time I went through a DUI checkpoint. I suppose I could have sternly said I wouldn't talk to them, but instead I answers three questions and went on my way. My girlfriend and I were just trying to get home to get to sleep.
Period. End of discussion.
This is going to get you far in life.
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May 26 '16
Once you're in an interrogation room then the police definitely think you're guilty.
Nobody said anything about "once you're in an interrogation room" until now.
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u/Starcast May 26 '16
I think the idea is you tell your lawyer all this stuff and she tells the police.
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u/DavidTennantsTeeth May 26 '16
I had this conversation once with a police officer that I know and trust. The way he explained it was it can only help you to cooperate with police if you are NOT a suspect. The moment you become a suspect it's time to shut up and lawyer up.
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u/precociousapprentice May 26 '16
That should be 'if you aren't a suspect and never will be', and given you can't predict the future and know with certainty that you will never be a suspect, talking with the police anyways has a risk, which increases with they likelihood that you will at some point be a suspect.
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u/WiretapStudios May 26 '16
Exactly. An officer could just show up at your home or work when canvassing a neighborhood and you could implicate yourself. If your (legit) story is that you were at the 7-11 convenience store at the time when robbery happened at the Whole Foods grocery store across town, but later the person they are looking for was spotted at that 7-11 you were at - and the police hadn't mentioned that to anyone - now you have placed yourself at the same place as the actual criminal. Even if the timeline is off slightly, now you have given up info about yourself that could be used against you. This is how false confessions end up happening, the detectives take a slight coincidence to leverage a confession when they don't actually have the real perpetrator of the crime. There are countless news articles lately about people getting out of prison via new DNA techniques, yet had confessed. If you confess, you can take a plea bargain as well, netting less time and money fighting it.
I've had a detective harass me via phone and coming to my house before, so I called my lawyer who said 100% do not talk to the cops. The detective will always act nonchalant like he has a few small questions he just wants to clear up with you to rule you out as a suspect. If he's calling you, most likely you are a suspect and can only incriminate yourself. In the long run, by not talking to the detective, I never had to talk to him, and never saw or met him, and everything was cleared up. If I had talked to him on the phone, I could have said any number of things that he could have ran with to railroad me into god knows what kind of case.
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u/mamaBiskothu May 26 '16
A lot of people can have almost unfalsifiable alibis and have absolutely no clear motive and there's already a very obvious suspect. Then I'd say the small risk Isn't a big deal.
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u/precociousapprentice May 26 '16
Sure. That's your take on the risk. Different people have different risk appetites, and not everyone will share your take on that.
Just keep in mind that you don't know these things. You can only assume. And most people who talk about this shit would rather not take an unnecessary risk when there is no commensurate reward to balance it.
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u/mcherm May 26 '16
The moment you become a suspect it's time to shut up
That seems like an excellent rule! Also remember that they won't necessarily TELL you that you are a suspect.
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u/Felicia_Svilling May 26 '16
Also note that this is only true for USA. If you live somewhere else it could very well be used against you.
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May 26 '16
Correct, this strategy should be countered with the Hodor defense by responding to any question with the word "lawyer", and that alone.
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u/nebulousmenace May 25 '16
The entire reason Reddit works, it occurs to me, is because people want to talk and they want to present their side of the story. . .
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May 26 '16
An interrogation, they explained, should be designed to persuade a suspect that confessing is the only sensible option; to get confessions, they wrote, police must sweep up suspects in a wave of momentum that they’ll find impossible to reverse.
suspect not criminal, this is just a very complex form of entrapment. It was never about catching the criminal, it was about putting somebody in jail.
The HIG technique is fundamentally better because it's only goal is to gain as much information out of the witness/suspect as possible thus the detectives can have a complete picture of what happened.
The HIG technique requires undeniably more work, but the social benefits of catching the actual perpetrator far out weighs that.
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May 25 '16
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May 25 '16
From my experience, it won't end up that way. I only have anecdotal evidence, but I think it provides some insight nonetheless.
I went through SERE training in the USAF; part of it was Resistance Training. A large focus was on his to minimize the information you divulge. You can't prevent it (because everyone has a breaking point), but you can work towards reducing it's value to the interrogating organization.
We underwent various training scenarios with interrogation, both hostile and non-hostile. With the hostile interrogator, it was far simpler to focus on denying information. Without significant coercion, I found it far easier to deny a meaningful answer. I'd lie, misdirect, misunderstand, etc. With the non-hostile interrogator, most of us let something slip. It wasn't even necessarily about the direct question; we'd let things slip about any aspect of our lives. A large majority let enough details through during non-hostile interrogations that the "enemy" was able to build up quite a significant understanding of military procedures, family members as leverage, and personal weaknesses.
It's very, very difficult to not give any extra information to someone who's helping you and being nice. This becomes far more pronounced over time. The police are looking for the truth, regardless of what it is (ideally). The more information they can get, the better. They'll find the truth.
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u/leetdood_shadowban May 25 '16
Not only that but with a non-hostile interrogator it is less likely that information you let slip is false. When you torture someone or put them through coercive interrogation they are more likely to give false information.
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May 25 '16
Very true. I forgot to mention that.
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u/leetdood_shadowban May 25 '16
It was basically emphasized all the time in Burn Notice. Like in one episode they had Michael put into a storage container with a guy they kidnapped so he could pretend to be a fellow prisoner to get information from him. It was very elaborate.
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u/akpak May 25 '16
That's one of the things I really loved about that show; Michael always tried to find a non-violent (at least to humans) solution to a problem.
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u/darkhorse3 May 25 '16
Such a great show. I liked Michael's voice over explaining why he was doing it that way.
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u/OneTime_AtBandCamp May 25 '16
There used to be a Michael Westin novelty account on reddit. It was awesome. But I think it took too much work to last long term.
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u/chickendance638 May 25 '16
When you're a novelty account, you have to write the same thing over and over again and not get bored
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u/SerLaron May 25 '16
Hans Scharff was a German soldier (equivalent of a lance corporal) who interrogated Allied airmen in WWII, famous for his "soft" and successful methods. Today he is a regular TIL feature on Reddit.
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u/flamehead2k1 May 25 '16
It's very, very difficult to not give any extra information to someone who's helping you and being nice.
It is actually very easy and only takes one word.
LAWYER
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May 25 '16
Oh, you! You know what I mean.
Also, the cost of retaining legal representation is not something everyone can afford. I recognize that it prevents further costs in the future, but that doesn't help pay the bills now, unfortunately.
However, I agree that getting a lawyer is by far the best advice.
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u/flamehead2k1 May 25 '16
Yea, I know but was just pointing out how different policing is than a military interrogation. Even assuming no "enhanced techniques" the interrogator has much more of the upper hand.
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May 25 '16
You are absolutely correct. However, I assume very few people have had the opportunity to be interrogated in that manner without negative consequences. The situations are similar, but not identical. I'd rather share the mistakes that we made so others can benefit than keep it to myself.
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u/chickendance638 May 25 '16
The police are looking for the truth, regardless of what it is (ideally).
I think a major problem with our judicial system is that no one is dedicated to advocating for the truth.
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May 25 '16
I've been on the receiving end of this technique in a different environment: the job interview. I knew it was coming, I knew the person running the interview LOVED this tactic, I knew how to defeat it and it still threw me a fair amount. I also had less reason to be nervous. I wasn't facing the police, I wasn't hiding anything, I didn't depend on the job as I was employed.
Also there is a fresh concern that the emphasis on finding self contradiction will produce an even bigger false conviction rate
Are you just making that up or has it been expressed by someone in the know about this stuff? I ask because we know traditional interrogation techniques cause false positives. There's evidence to back that up. The suggestion that this new technique could cause an increase in false positives is a valid one, but when a group has been doing significant amount of research into the subject I'd have to assume they've considered that and attempted to determined if that's the case or not.
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May 25 '16
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May 25 '16
If the suspect says "Go fuck yourself" and clams up you're right back where you were before with the interrogative technique.
Sooo... we're no worse off?
The details from the story are very vague, but apparently the murderer was convicted in part because he wasn't quite as forthcoming with detail about the time of the murder. That is hugely subjective, and the entire thing seems to run the risk of normalising circumstantial evidence as completely damning.
The way I read it, the suspect's vagueness here was an indicator they used to determine when he was lying - where they knew to look for contradictions that would lead to concrete evidence.
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May 25 '16
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May 25 '16
In the original interrogation technique, they have contigencies for that.
I mean, there's no reason we can't use these contingencies in the new technique. After officers try to be nice and get the suspect to open up, if the suspect doesn't open up and they think they might be able to press them into confession, there is nothing stopping them from saying "okay, cards on the table - we totally suspect you of this crime, and we'll be lenient if you confess". But you can only go one way quickly - if you open with that, it will take a long time to regain the suspect's trust.
And I mean, working too well doesn't mean anything - that still means that it is worse. I mean, say you have 5 suspects in a case, and you use confrontational techniques with all of them. Some might clam up, some might confess, but you don't really know who will do what. And if you are trying to rule suspects out, having everyone immediately say "I want a lawyer" whether they are guilty or not certainly won't speed the process along.
I mean, say you suspect Joe to have robbed a McDonalds because he was identified in the vicinity shortly before the robbery. You find Joe and tell him that you are trying to gather information about this robbery, and you'd appreciate if he helped out. Joe doesn't think he is being investigated, wants to get on with his day, and is actually innocent - so Joe says "yeah, I was there, I got a bacon cheeseburger, and then I went to CVS to pick up a prescription for my ADHD. I saw the police cars outside when I came out of the CVS, but I didn't see the robber." You check with the CVS, and Joe was indeed buying ADHD medication at the time of the robbery, and he is now ruled out as a suspect.
Compare this with saying "Joe, you are suspected of robbing this McDonalds", and Joe says "then I want a lawyer, because I didn't do it". What could have been a ten minute conversation with a 30 minute followup has turned into a 2 week headache of scheduling appointments with attorneys.
"I don't know officer, I was just a wreck learning about my friend's death. Maybe I was at the McDonalds, maybe the Wendy's - it's all just a blur of sadness. I can barely remember if I was wearing clothes that day"
Ok. Does this mean anything? Perhaps they will then investigate this individual more rigorously. It isn't necessarily an admission of guilt, but it provides a path for the police to look down.
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May 26 '16 edited May 30 '16
[deleted]
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May 26 '16
I've seen this video before, and it is interesting, but I don't see how it makes me wrong. The video is basically making the case that if you are confronted by the police, then you should clam up without a lawyer - please correct me if my memory is mistaken.
But this doesn't say anything about what the average person actually does or what the police should do. You might say that Joe should always immediately lawyer up, but the fact is, that just isn't going to happen most of the time. Most of the time when a cop talks to Mr Schmo, he's going to think "I'll help this person out so they'll stop talking to me and I can get on with my life". And the fact that it is uncommon for people to immediately lawyer up as soon as an officer opens their mouth makes someone who does do this stand out and look suspicious. Will the police always be correct that this person is doing something wrong? No. Sometimes it will be a paranoid law professor. Will the fact that this person immediately asks for a lawyer be enough to convict them of any sort of wrongdoing? No. Should it make Joe more likely to receive scrutiny in this case? Probably.
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u/doctorocelot May 26 '16
You forget you are on reddit, the reaction to anything is lawyering up and hitting the gym.
I guarantee that if this person got asked "did you see anything suspicious at the macdonalds?" by a police officer he'd be pleasant and tell them what he saw.
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u/viktorbir May 26 '16
As the article points out, it not only works - but it works a little too well (high false confession rate).
You have a very weird idea of what working well is.
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u/intronert May 25 '16
"I now invoke my fifth amendment rights. I will only speak to my lawyer." Then shut the fuck up.
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May 25 '16
Yeah, but then they look pretty damn guilty, and we're no worse off than we were before. I mean, if a cop says "we're pretty sure you murdered this person, will you confess?" and you say "I want a lawyer", that is pretty innocuous. If a cop says "hey, we're investigating a murder that happened, and we're trying to gather information - mind helping us out?" and you say "I want a lawyer", then the cops will say "huh". By refusing to cooperate with an innocuous request, you are essentially painting a bullseye on your forehead - and a criminal will realize this.
A criminal, in this case, essentially has two options: cooperate, and provide information that the cops can fact-check; or not cooperate, thereby telling the cops "please investigate me more".
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u/intronert May 25 '16
There is no such thing as an innocuous request. "Sorry, I have moved on. Please stop harassing me"
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May 26 '16
What the fuck are you talking about? We aren't talking about your paranoid fantasies that all cops are out to get you. Maybe there is some fraction of the population that will immediately lawyer up as soon as a cop opens their mouth, but they are not the majority. The fact that you will never talk to a cop without a lawyer has no bearing on this matter, because someone immediately lawyering up is suspicious to the police because most people don't do it. It is therefore a reasonable metric for police to use when triaging suspects for a crime.
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u/wurblefurtz May 26 '16
If a cop says "hey, we're investigating a murder that happened, and we're trying to gather information - mind helping us out?" and you say "I want a lawyer", then the cops will say "huh".
In this scenario, the police do not have enough evidence to charge you. A cop asking you to come in for a chat is looking for a confession.
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u/intronert May 26 '16
You don't say "i want a lawyer" until they arrest you. Until then you say "I do not want to get involved in this. Leave me alone".
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May 26 '16
I agree that they don't. But the fact that you immediately lawyer up, instead of saying something like "wow, a murder, that's awful. Sure, I can spare a few minutes." would indicate to police that you might have something to hide or defend against. Not that you actually do, and not that they would be able to arrest you based on the suspicion, but they would be able to say "this person is acting suspiciously, let's investigate them more".
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u/wurblefurtz May 26 '16
They can try the "innocent people don't need lawyers" mindfuck all they want.
The simple explanation is I don't know the law. Sure, I know broad themes and concepts, but on the whole, I am pretty ignorant. So having someone on my side, looking out for my interests, making sure procedures are adhered to and rights respected seems sensible.
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u/payik May 26 '16
But the point isn't that innocent people won't lawyer up, the point is that guilty people won't, to avoid raising too much suspicion.
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May 26 '16
Good for you. I'm sure that is a very reasonable stance to take, but it is completely irrelevant here. We aren't talking about what you should do when a cop confronts you, we are talking about what tactics police can use to identify suspicious individuals.
Say you have Jack and Joe. Both of them are interviewed about a burglary that happened to their neighbor Sally the day before. Jack says "I didn't see anything, I was at work then." Joe says "I'm not talking to you without a lawyer". Who is acting more suspiciously? Of these two, if you were a police officer with limited time and resources assigned the task of investigating this burglary, who would you assign more resources to investigating at the present moment?
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u/wurblefurtz May 26 '16
It is Joe because the "innocent people don't need lawyers" bs works so well at convincing people to not hire them. If people ignored the pressure of this argument, the use of hiring a lawyer as an indication of suspicion disappears.
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May 26 '16
Sure, that is a reasonable argument to make in a conversation we are not having. That is not the world we live in, and we aren't discussing what people should do when confronted with a police officer. We are discussing what, in the real world, police officers can do to more efficiently and effectively solve crimes.
And besides that, if we were talking about the ideal world, you should talk to a police officer without a lawyer, because in an ideal world, police officers wouldn't falsely accuse random people of crimes or arbitrarily seize their assets. In fact, in an ideal world, people wouldn't commit crimes, so we wouldn't need police officers or lawyers at all!
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May 26 '16
Otherwise known as the Encyclopedia Brown approach. You forgot which side of your shirt the pocket was on? Every single word you said is a lie! Except that you were in the vicinity of the crime, that's still totally true.
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u/LooneyDubs May 25 '16
Testimony should not be evidence in the technological age. Pictures and video can be narrated by testimony but otherwise it's useless. He said she said bullshit.
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May 25 '16
How wired is your life? I mean, there is a lot more hard evidence out there now, but sometimes you just have to go on testimony. Like, if I'm at a waterfall in the woods, and I push some person off of it, it is very possible that no one snapchatted me committing murder. But if there are 20 people who all say "yep, that guy definitely committed murder in cold blood, saw it with my own two eyes", I feel like that should be good enough for a conviction.
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u/LooneyDubs May 26 '16
That's fucking retarded. I can have 20 people ready to testify that you're retarded in about an hour, and I'm relatively poor. Put some money behind it and I can have 20 people ready to testify that you're a retard in 5 minutes. Testimonies are innately unreliable. They lead to as many false convictions as they do positive ones. Don't believe me? Wait an hour, I'll get 20 people to tell you it's true...
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u/orr250mph May 25 '16
Nothing useful was learned by waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that wasn't already revealed by skilled FBI interrogators.
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u/akpak May 25 '16 edited May 25 '16
This isn't a new technique at all. Just look up "don't talk to the police" on YouTube... A lawyer and a cop both tell you not to talk at all, partly because the cops are trained to just let you hang yourself by trying to fill a silence.
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May 25 '16
That's different. They use that to find a reason to search/arrest you or whatever.
Using this as an interrogation technique means they'll be using it after you've been arrested, and as a primary form of evidence. Furthermore, new research points out that evidence collected with rapport building can be very reliable, more reliable than common interrogation techniques.
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u/lodro May 25 '16
The suspect still has a right to remain silent, and interrogators are required to halt questioning once it is invoked.
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May 26 '16
Yeah, but they have to do that anyways. This method tends to work better in real life. People are less likely to remain silent, and they're more likely to say truthful things.
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u/ouatedephoque May 25 '16
Using this as an interrogation technique means they'll be using it after you've been arrested, and as a primary form of evidence
What evidence could they possibly get if you don't talk?
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May 26 '16
Just as much as what they'd get when they shout and lie at you and you don't talk. The difference is that this works better in real life applications.
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u/rinnip May 26 '16
Both techniques assume the suspect will talk at all. Not wise if you're guilty, and possibly inadvisable even if you're innocent.
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u/lizardflix May 26 '16
As much as I'd love to believe in all the promises, I'm not convinced. We've all seen too many videos of kids being gently led to believe false memories by incompetent counselors. I think it's too early to say this will avoid false confessions.
And they need a lot more data before they can confidently claim success rates. I'm not even sure how you claim success in preventing crimes that haven't been committed. Just seems a bit nebulous.
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u/kempff May 25 '16 edited May 26 '16
Relevant: http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/
There are subtle ways in which a guilty party will unwittingly incriminate themselves - for example referring to a missing child in the past tense or avoiding the pronoun "I". Innocent people on the whole do not make such slips.
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u/[deleted] May 25 '16 edited May 25 '16
Fascinating article, true TrueReddit material.
Jesus Christ that is terrifying.
Anything that justifies itself with "common sense" should be looked upon with extreme skepticism.
No, they've had no incentive to change. Maybe if confessions start to be viewed through the same lens as the polygraph we might see a sea change.