False Confessions and the Constitution: Safeguards against Untrustworthy Confessions
![handle is hein.journals/hcrcl32 and id is 113 raw text is: FALSE CONFESSIONS AND THE CONSTITUTION:
SAFEGUARDS AGAINST UNTRUSTWORTHY
CONFESSIONS
Welsh S. White*
A suspect so deferential and compliant when police grill him
about a murder that he confirms their suspicions and confesses
to the killing: what could be better? It's a cop's dream.
Unless the suspect is innocent .. .
Introduction
In a segment of the television program 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace
presented the case of Richard Lapointe, who was convicted of the rape
and murder of his wife's grandmother in 1989.2 Lapointe, who was brain-
damaged, confessed to the crimes after being questioned by police for
nine hours. During the course of the interrogation, detectives lied about
the evidence against him, suggesting that scientific evidence established
his guilt.3 In an interview with Wallace, Lapointe asserted his innocence
and explained his reason for confessing: I just wanted to leave the police
station. I was there long enough.'4 Wallace's analysis of physical evidence
found at the scene of the crime5 and interviews with eyewitnesses support
Lapointe's innocence.6 Wallace concluded that Lapointe was convicted
almost entirely on the basis of his confession, reporting that the jurors
said they refused to believe that anyone would confess to a crime he did
not commit.7 At the conclusion of the segment, Wallace stated that the
Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
'Paul Frisman, Easy Confessions Make Tough Law, CONN. L. TRIB., Sept. 18, 1995,
at 1.
2 For a complete examination of the Lapointe case, see CONVICTING THE INNOCENT:
THE STORY OF A MURDER, A FALSE CONFESSION AND THE STRUGGLE TO FREE A WRONG
MAN (Donald S. Connery ed., 1996) [hereinafter CONVICTING THE INNOCENT].
3 See 60 Minutes: Did he do it? (CBS television broadcast, June 30, 1996), available
in WESTLAW 1996 WL 8064916, (observing that the police hung fake evidence exhibits
on the wall including DNA tests-positive; pubic hair-positive; fingerprints-posi-
tive); see also State v. Lapointe, 678 A.2d 942, 949 n.16 (Conn. 1996) (discussing
deceptive stratagems).
4 60 Minutes, supra note 3.
5 For example, gloves found on the bed and on the floor of the crime scene were shown
to be too large to fit Lapointe's hand. See id.
6 Two eyewitnesses stated they saw a tall man running from the scene of the crime.
Lapointe is five feet two inches tall. See id.
7 See id; see also CONVICTING THE INNOCENT, supra note 2, at 22 (quoting the jury
foreman as saying that [t]he confession was at least 75 percent of it and stating that
the foreman and others didn't believe Lapointe would confess so he could go to the
bathroom or go home). After recounting the story of Lapointe's case, Wallace identified](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/hcrcl32&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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False Confessions and the Constitution: Safeguards against Untrustworthy Confessions
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