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31 Law & Psychol. Rev. 53 (2007)
Explaining Juvenile False Confessions: Adolescent Development and Policy Interrogation

handle is hein.journals/lpsyr31 and id is 57 raw text is: EXPLAINING JUVENILE FALSE CONFESSIONS: ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT AND POLICE INTERROGATION Christine S. Scott-Hayward* I. INTRODUCTION In May 1998, sixteen-year-old Allen Chesnet cut his hand while work- ing in his Maryland basement.' A reporter noticed Allen's bleeding hand while researching a story on a murder victim who lived nearby.2 Suspect- ing Allen's involvement in the murder, the reporter called the police.3 Allen was questioned, released, and then brought in for additional ques- tioning the following day.' The police began by showing Allen photos of the gruesome murder scene. Then, in an attempt to elicit a confession, one of the police officers deceived Allen, faking a telephone call from the state crime laboratory which supposedly confirmed that Allen's DNA matched the DNA of blood found at the crime scene.' Soon afterwards Allen Chesnet confessed and although many of the details of his confession were incorrect, he was charged with murder.6 A few weeks later, preliminary DNA tests showed that the blood at the crime scene was not Chesnet's and suspicion began to focus on a man about whom police had received a tip just hours after the murder.7 Neverthe- less, Chesnet spent six months in jail before the charges were finally dropped.' The police actions in this case raise many questions, including: Why did police suspicion center on Chesnet? Further, why did he confess to a crime he did not commit? Yet, the Chesnet case is scarcely anomalous; it is just one of a number of recent, well-publicized cases where young peo- * Ph.D. Candidate, Institute for Law and Society, New York University. Thank you to Jerome H. Skolnick, James B. Jacobs, Annalisa Miron and Francesca LaGuardia for their helpful comments and suggestions. 1. Del Quentin Wilber, Teen Tormented by an Erroneous Charge of Murder: Jailed Six Months in Woman's Killing, He Seeks $18 Million, BALTIMORE SUN, Apr. 23, 2001, at IA, available at 2001 WLNR 1038576, cited in Steven A. Drizin & Richard A. Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N.C. L. REV. 891, 970 n.446 (2004). 2. Wilber, supra note 1. 3. Id. 4. Id. 5. Id. 6. Id. 7. Id. 8. Id.

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