A false confession is defined as admission of guilt for a crime which the confessing entity is not responsible (Frenda et al., 2016). More often people who do false confession do so voluntary, or are coerced to do so or are mentally incapacitated. Voluntary false confession describes individuals who confess out of their own will. They are however, used as sacrificial lambs to cover for crimes committed by other persons. Coerced false confession occur when an individual is promised some gains or rewards after the confession (Frenda et al., 2016). In other words, individuals are lured to give a false statement for rewards. Research studies reveal that false confession occurs on regular basis in a court of law. However, cases of false confession are more experienced in correction facilities and juveniles than they are experienced in adult jails (Frenda et al., 2016). False confession is considered an illegal undertaking and the individual confessor is likely to face legal consequences for lying in a court of law. This paper aims to discuss how false confession contributed to wrongful prosecution of the15-year-old Brenton Butler. Read more

The story of Brenton Butler is told in a documentary titled Murder on a Sunday Morning, a French-American documentary that was directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. According to the documentary, the the15-year-old Brenton Butler was wrongfully accused of murder in a Florida -based court (Knight Light Media, 2020). This follows the events that took place on May 7 2000 in Jacksonville, Florida when a 65-year-old lad identified as Mary Ann Stephens was shot in the head right before her husband. Brenton Butler was arrested ninety minutes after the shooting. Reports took it to the public that a black American teenager robbed and killed an elderly white tourist at a Florida hotel (Knight Light Media, 2020). On the day Butler was appearing to court, he had bruises on his face and thorax and he said that police officers beat him up and forced him to take a false confession.

In this documentary, the media, the police, and the public all want Butler jailed. However, Patrick McGuinness notices something is a miss and launches a hunting for the real culprits identified as detective Williams, Glover, and Darnell (Knight Light Media, 2020). Through this documentary, we see that Brenton Butler went through wrongful prosecution due to coerced false confession. In other words, although Butler did not shoot Mary Ann Stephens, he was coerced to confessed that he did and was prosecuted. This is because he was threatened and beat by the police thoroughly before appearing to court.

Article 1 analysis

Paton et al. (2018) in their research article noted that the tactics used during interrogation can influence false confession. This means that the approaches followed by an interviewer is more likely to determine the interview’s outcome. The participants in this study were individuals falsely accused of theft and the interviewer used a friendly tone. The United States law permit interrogators to use all manner of techniques including stress inducing tactics, suggestive techniques, and confrontational techniques. This means that interrogators are more likely to induce the outcomes as they dominate the conversation. However, the interrogators may also use techniques that lure individuals to provide truthful information about events.

The authors used 120 participants some of who were students. The participants were selected at random and assigned one of the eight selected experiment conditions. In the first experiment, four male undergraduate students were selected and asked to respond to an advert looking to recruit confederates for a research project. The investigators in this experiment were trained on how to interview participants in each of the eight experiment conditions. This is after each of the participant was charged on account of false theft allegations. The four participants were filmed during the interview conducted through a stern and friendly manner. In this experiment, the investigator placed all the vouchers on the table next to the participant. He could then leave the room for two minutes in pretense of speaking to another participant. On return and after the respondent had filled the questionnaire, the investigator counted the vouchers and reported that one of them was missing. He could then falsely accuse the participant of theft while in the real sense no voucher was missing.

The confederate took the tensed opportunity to ask questions about the ‘theft’ and noted each respondent’s response. In the friendly condition, the interviewer could sympathize with participant and say “Don’t worry” and “I’m sure you didn’t realize that this was a big deal.” In the harsh condition, the interviewer could as the question “Did you take the missing voucher?” for six times and this prompted the desired response. The authors of this article noted that majority participants took responsibility of the missing voucher, which technically was a false confession. This experiment is similar to the case featured in the Murder on a Sunday Morning because in both participants were coerced to give a false confession.

Article 2 analysis

According to Frenda et al. (2016) false confession is commonly seen in criminal investigations and in the context of interrogation. This is because false accusations account for between 15 to 25 percent of wrongful convictions in the United States. The authors of this article focused on psychological coercive interrogation strategies as it is linked to increased likelihood of false confession. Frenda et al. (2016) argues that sleep deprivation interferes with people’s ability to anticipate and measure the consequences of their actions. The article also noted that individuals are likely to make false confessions when interviewed between 12.00 am and 8. 00 am (Frenda et al. 2016).

Participants in this study were assigned computer-based task in a computer laboratory. They were also doing writing exercises and filling questionnaires and the three tasks were conducted separately. The participants were repeatedly asked not to press the escape button because doing so would result in the loss of important study data. The authors ensured that the participants either slept for eight hours in the laboratory bedrooms or stayed awake all along. The following morning, the participants were presented with a personalized statement that falsely accused them of pressing the escape button in their first visit to the library (Frenda et al. 2016). This means that they erased important study data. They were then asked to read the document and type their name to confirm its accuracy. The article noted that 8 out of the 44 rested participants wrote their manes on the statement. Similarly, 22 out of the 44 participants who had been deprived sleep also wrote their names on the stamen (Frenda et al. 2016).

The authors concluded that sleep deprivation has a strong relationship with false confession as seen in the experiment. As seen, most of the participants who had not rested agreed to sign the statement agreeing that they pressed escape button in the computers while in the real sense they did not. On the other hand, most of the participants who had rested read the statement and did not sign. This experiment presents a similar idea with the case of Brenton Butler, who was coerced by intimidation and physical beatings to agree that he shot and killed a White woman. The only difference is that in this experiment, the participants were influenced by sleep deprivation.

Article 3 analysis

Keatley, Marono, and Clarke (2018) posited that confession forms the backbone of the legal system as it influences the jury to passing verdict. The authors studied a 17-year old male, Brendan was arrested as a suspect in a murder, mutilation of a corpse, and sexual assault when he was 16. Brendan denied all the claims at first but eventually made a full oral and written confession to the crime crime (Keatley, Marono, and Clarke, 2018). For this reason, the accused faced the consequences of homicide, rape, and mutilation and of a corpse. However, the jury ruled out the intellectual capacity of the accused during the court proceedings.

In conducting this study, Keatley, Marono, and Clarke (2018) ascertained that one of the interrogators asked a lot of factual questions. Another interrogator in this case is seen to have repeatedly offered reassurance to Brendan and all he could do is to agree with interrogator. The authors noted that techniques such as lading questioning and giving information that does not require a definite answer reduced Brendan’s perception of the severity of crime (Keatley, Marono, and Clarke, 2018). This means that offering assurance of the teenager influenced him to make a false confession about the allegations. Although innocent of any of the accusations, Brendan was lured to make a false confession orally and in writing. A verdict was passed based on his false confession.

Overall evaluation

Eyewitness identification refers to the evaluation of evidence received from a person who witnessed an event before being allowed to witness in a court of law. Eyewitness identification is not a reliable source of evidence as people are prone to forgetting certain experiences and details that may have a veering in a case. Eyewitness misidentification is considered the greatest cause of wrongful convictions in the United States accounting for more than 75 percent of the cases. False confession is the admission of a crime that one did not commit. False confessions are more likely to happen in juvenile and correction facilities than they happen in adult prisons. More often, false confession is influenced by intimidations stemming from a senior authority, reward, or coercion. False confession is considered a criminal offense and one may be forced to pay a penalty for lying in court of law.

Recommendations

The prosecution of Brenton Butler could have been improved through several ways. Firstly, jury could have taken time to listen to both sides of the story. From what it appears, the interests of the public, the police, and the media were considered at the expense of the accused. This means that the teenager could have been interrogated on what exactly happened before being made to appear before court. Secondly, the jury could have gone out of his way to find why Brenton Butler had bruises on his face and thorax. This is because he did not have any of them at the time he was apprehended. Ignoring this concern led to the wrongful prosecution of the innocent boy. Thirdly, the jury could have asked for evidence on the type of gun used in the murder, whether the gunshot was made at close range, and maybe get closed-circuit television footages of the hotel. This could have helped him to pass a verdict based on factual evidence.