13 Oct Fisher & Byrialsen Examples of False Confessions GMB SEO Blog Narrative

Famous False Confession Cases

Korey Wise Case in 1989

One of the most prominent historical examples of a false confession occurred in what has come to be known as the Central Park Five Case. Fisher & Byrialsen represented Korey Wise of the Central Park Five, who falsely confessed to the rape and attempted murder of a young female jogger in New York’s Central Park in April 1989.
After hours of coercive interrogation tactics, the sixteen-year-old Korey Wise confessed to a crime he had not committed. As a result, Korey Wise was exonerated after serving almost 14 years in prison when the actual perpetrator came forward. That person's DNA matched evidence from the 1989 crime rape kit collected by the Innocence Project from cases involving DNA exonerations. This evidence shows that in the United States, false confessions are present in almost 25 percent of cases where the accused gets exonerated.

Amanda Know Case in 2007

Another widely publicized example of a false confession was the case of Amanda Know, a twenty-year-old student studying abroad for a semester in Perugia, Italy. In 2007, Amanda’s roommate in Perugia was found raped and murdered in their shared home. On nothing more than a hunch, the police suspected Amanda and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of the crime. The Italian police interrogated Amanda for four days before finally getting her to confess to a crime she had not done. It took four years of intense battles in the Italian courts before Amanda was finally set free and all charges dismissed.

Malthe Thompson Case in 2015

Malthe Thompson is another example of a false confession case with which Fisher & Byrialsen was involved. In 2015 Mr. Thompson was accused of molesting every child in the prominent New City Pre-School where he was a summer intern. Mr. Thompson was interviewed by law enforcement, who deceptively told him that they had video of him molesting the children. Being from Denmark, a country where it is illegal for law enforcement to lie during interrogations, Mr. Thompson wrongly believed that the police must be telling the truth. It must have happened if they had video of an alleged crime.
His statement to the police was something like – “if you say there is video, then I must have done it, but I have no memory of it.” Unfortunately, this scenario is not uncommon in false confessions. Thankfully for Mr. Thompson, with the help of false confession experts like Saul Kassin, Ph.D., and a great legal defense team, the charges against Mr. Thompson were eventually dropped.

Voluntary False Confessions

One may wonder what the common thread is in false confession cases. Generally, the answer is police misconduct and interrogation techniques, like the Reid technique, that has contributed to false confessions.
Interrogation methods – like the Reid technique – encourage lying to suspects about the existence of inculpatory evidence when there is none. In addition, this technique minimizes the crime or consequences to make someone feel more comfortable admitting to something they did not do. Making suspects believe that they will go home if they tell the interrogator what they want to hear is commonly used. Interrogators often refuse to accept the suspect’s statements of innocence. These are only some of the many other deceptive techniques used to coax false confessions out of innocent people.