Bluhm Blog

"Show me the way to go home"

Time and time again, when children are asked why they falsely confessed to serious crimes, the answer is the same:  "I thought they'd let me go home if I just told them  what they wanted to hear." Although a specific promise that a child could go home would be considered a promise of leniency and likely result in the confession being suppressed, police officers rarely make such specific promises -- they are far more subtle.  The child is not told he can go home but it is implied with suggestions that the child will receive "help" if he confesses or that the "juvenile system is geared toward rehabilitation" or "you have your whole life ahead of you, noone is going to treat you the same way as if you were an adult who committed the crime."  To a desperate child, overwhelmed by the stress of a confrontational interrogation, all of these tactics mean one thing -- if I confess, then this will stop and I'll be able to go home.  John Reid and Associates, the leading trainer of interrogators teaches its officers that it is okay to imply leniency as long as you don't specifically promise it.  In other words, getting a suspect to reason that leniency will follow from a confession is perfectly fine because we, as police officers, can't be responsible for what a suspect thinks.  This is pure hogwash.  The whole point of these tactics is to manipulate the suspect's perception of his situation -- to get him to feel hopeless -- and then to motivate the suspect to confess by making him think that it is in his best interests to do so. 

The 14 year old boy who placed himself at the crime scene of Amy Yates murder when he was 12 is now talking about why he gave a "confession".  " I thought if I told them something they'd let me go, the boy told the Atlanta Journal Constitution but now says he learned a new lesson: "NEVER SAY YOU DID SOMETHING YOU DIDN"T DO."

Even the so-called confession reeks of the Reid technique which includes suggesting to a suspect that the crime was an "accident" instead of intentional or impulsive rather than premeditated.  The explanation given by the boy was no doubt his attempt to minimize his involvement in response to police suggestion:  The boy told detectives he was chasing Amy when the little girl's neck hit his arm "real hard."  " I was chasing her around a tree and she was going to act like she was going to jump in the creek, and she stopped and I accidentally hit her 'cause I couldn't stop real quick and she fell in."   

Conviction VACATED in Yates Case

JUDGE VACATES PLEA IN AMY YATES CASE -- Finding that the confession of an eighteen year old mentally disabled boy was trustworthy and would have likely prevented trial counsel from recommending that his client take an Alford plea (an admission that there is sufficent evidence to convict but maintaining actual innocence), Judge Daniel P. Camp of the Carroll County court vacated the guilty plea of J.A, who at the age of 12 was charged with the murder of 9-year old Amy Yates.  The decision is a thorough and well-reasoned decision one which all but eviscerates the State's case against J.A. It also puts the State in a real pickle.  Although the State can retry J.A., the confession was the only evidence against him, and the judge has deemed the new confession to be admissible, reliable and corroborated by the other evidence in the case.  At the very least, this confession should create reasonable doubt as to J.A.'s guilt.  But the real problem for the State is that their position in court claiming that the new confession was unreliable, makes it very difficult for them to try the 18 year old for the murder.  Will the community stand for allowing a man who murdered a 9 year old girl to remain in the community?   Stay tuned to new developments in this case, including the probable release of J.A sometime early bext week.  

The decision which can be read here at:   [INSERT pdf link]