The Reid technique of interrogation (developed by John Reid) is used throughout Oregon and the United States, and is the highly effective method of eliciting confessions from suspects, both guilty and innocent.   With the Reid technique, arm-twisting is replaced with mind-twisting.  One out of four post-conviction DNA exonerations involve a false confession.

“In 1962, Reid and his mentor, a Northwestern Law professor named Fred Inbau, co-wrote the first edition of Criminal Interrogation and Confessions. Criminologists and law historians credit their method with defining the culture of police-interrogation training for the past half-century. The procedure basically involves three stages meant to break down a suspect’s defenses and rebuild him as a confessor. First, the suspect is brought into custody and isolated from his familiar surroundings. This was the birth of the modern interrogation room. Next the interrogator lets the suspect know he’s guilty—that he knows it, the cops know it, and the interrogator doesn’t want to hear any lies. The interrogator then floats a theory of the case, which the manual calls a ‘theme.’ The theme can be supported by evidence or testimony the investigator doesn’t really have. In the final stage, the interrogator cozies up to the subject and provides a way out. This is when the interrogator uses the technique known as ‘minimization’: telling the suspect he understands why he must have done it; that anyone else would understand, too; and that he will feel better if only he would confess. The interrogator is instructed to cut off all denials and instead float a menu of themes that explain why the suspect committed the crime—one bad, and one not so bad, but both incriminating, as in ‘Did you mean to do it, or was it an accident?’”

http://nymag.com/news/crimelaw/68715/

Because of it’s demonstrated unreliability and the frequency with which it elicits false confessions, the Reid Technique has been renounced in Canada and Great Britain.  With the Oregon Supreme Court’s courageous and scientifically rigorous stand against suggestive eyewitness identifications in State v. Lawson (link to blog), the next frontier for Oregon criminal defense lawyers will be to convince judges and juries to see Reid technique-induced confessions for what they are:  unacceptably unreliable.

Watch more:

http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/truthliesandconfessions/

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50136707n

On November 29, 2012, the Oregon Supreme Court issued a landmark
opinion on the admissibility of eyewitness identification, reversing
the aggravated murder conviction of Samuel Lawson.  With the opinion,
the Oregon Supreme Court became one of the first states to make use of
decades of scientific research establishing the frequently unreliable
nature of eyewitness identification.  The opinion gives guidance to
Courts and attorneys alike, to exclude evidence and caution jurors
about unreliable eyewitness identifications.

False eyewitness identifications have long been the cause of innocent
people being convicted and executed for crimes they did not commit.
The Oregon Supreme Court cited two recent studies establishing that
approximately 75% of convictions later overturned by DNA evidence
involved eyewitness misidentification.  The Oregon Supreme Court put
into law what scientists and good attorneys have known for years –
that a witness’s confidence in their identification has nothing to do
with the accuracy of their identification, and that an eyewitness
identification must be handled with the same extreme care as other
forensic evidence such as DNA.

The case of Samuel Lawson was a powerful demonstration of the
unreliability of eyewitness identification.  There, the sole
eyewitness twice failed to pick Lawson out of a photo lineup,
insisting that she hadn’t seen the killers’ faces.  The lone
eyewitness didn’t identify Lawson in a photo lineup for a full two
years after the shootings — and did so only after she’d been taken by
a detective to Lawson’s pretrial hearing.  Only then did the
eyewitness identify Lawson, further claiming that she would never
forget his (Lawson’s) face for as long as she lived.

The Oregon Supreme Court deserves great credit for bringing the
science regarding eyewitness identification into courtrooms, and
educating jurors, lawyers, and judges about the extreme caution needed
to handle and evaluate eyewitness identification.

Oregonian
LA Times
Opinion

In March, 2011, the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission released an exhaustive study on the impact of Measure 11 since it was approved by voters in 1994.

The results of the study should lay the foundation for reform. Among the most important findings of the study: Measure 11 disproportionately targets people who are not “career criminals,” and who could be rehabilitated.   Of those convicted of Measure 11 crimes, 70 percent had no prior felony record and weren’t considered “career criminals.”

Prosecutors use the threat of a Measure 11 sentence to coerce guilty pleas.  Juries handled just 15 percent of cases involving Measure 11 crimes. Hispanics are 40 percent more likely than whites to be sentenced to prison.  Blacks are 15 percent less likely.

Oregon would need 2,900 fewer prison beds if Measure 11 hadn’t taken effect. Defendants who hire private attorneys are 25 percent less likely to be convicted of a Measure 11 charge.

Criminal Justice Commission Study:

http://media.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/other/Measure%2011%20Analysis%20030911.pdf

Oregonian Article:

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/03/report_on_oregons_measure_11_incites_fierce_debate.html