Kassin, S.M. & Sukel, J. (1997). Coerced confesions and the jury: An experimental test of the "harmless error" rule. Law and Human Behavior, 21, 27-46.

 INTRODUCTION

• Three issues concerning confessions were discussed.
• the methods used by the interrogator to obtain the confession
• whether the confession is coerced or voluntary
• whether the jury can disregard a confession that is ruled inadmissible
• Previous research indicates that jurors may not be able to disregard coerced confessions, even when instructed to do so by the judge.
• The Fundamental Attribution Error was proposed as a potential cause of this inability.
• The purpose of the present study was to investigate coerced confessions and the jury's ability to evaluate or ignore confessions of this type in a trial.
• Hypothesis
• a confession, whether coerced or voluntary, will increase conviction rates
• this increase in conviction rates will be present even with instructions from the judge to disregard the confession
• a confession will cause jurors to view other evidence as more incriminating

EXPERIMENT 1

• Subjects real a transcript about a man charged with the murder of his wife and neighbor. This transcript contained only circumstantial evidence.
• 2 (high-pressure vs. low-pressure interrogation) x 2 (admissible vs. inadmissible confession) factorial design plus a no-confession control.
• Conditions
• high-pressure: suspect was handcuffed and the detective waved his gun and yelled while obtaining the confession
• low-pressure: suspect confessed right away
• admissible: confession was allowed into evidence
• inadmissible: confession was stricken from the record and the jury was told to disregard it.
• no-confession control: suspect denied that he committed the crime
• Results
• rated high and low pressure interrogations as expected. Rated interrogation pressure as lower with an admissible confession
• the majority of participants remembered whether or not the confession was admissible
• rated the confession as more voluntary under the low pressure and admissible conditions
• rated the confession as having more influence on their verdict under the low pressure and admissible conditions
• overall, guilty verdicts were higher in the confession conditions than in the control condition
• did not rate other evidence as more incriminating with a confession

EXPERIMENT 2

• Transcript was changed to include eyewitness testimony. The eyewitness reported seeing the defendant running from the house with a possible weapon.
• The conditions and results were the same as for experiment 1.

DISCUSSION

• Subject's memory for whether the confession was voluntary and admissible was intact.
• Subjects said a coerced, inadmissible confession did not influence their decision, but their guilty ratings show otherwise.
• They still rated confession conditions as guilty more than should be expected if they were able to ignore the coerced confession.