Department of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, NY, USA.
Law Hum Behav. 2012 Apr;36(2):151-7. doi: 10.1037/h0093975.
In Arizona v. Fulminante (1991), the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for appellate judges to conduct a harmless error analysis of erroneously admitted, coerced confessions. In this study, 132 judges from three states read a murder case summary, evaluated the defendant's guilt, assessed the voluntariness of his confession, and responded to implicit and explicit measures of harmless error. Results indicated that judges found a high-pressure confession to be coerced and hence improperly admitted into evidence. As in studies with mock jurors, however, the improper confession significantly increased their conviction rate in the absence of other evidence. On the harmless error measures, judges successfully overruled the confession when required to do so, indicating that they are capable of this analysis.
在亚利桑那州诉富尔明ante 案（1991 年）中，美国最高法院为上诉法官对错误认定的、胁迫获得的自白进行无害错误分析打开了大门。在这项研究中，来自三个州的 132 名法官阅读了一份谋杀案摘要，评估了被告的罪责，评估了他的供述是否出于自愿，并对暗示和明确的无害错误措施做出了回应。结果表明，法官认定一份有高压手段的供述是胁迫的，因此不当采信为证据。然而，与模拟陪审员的研究一样，在没有其他证据的情况下，不当供述显著提高了他们的定罪率。在无害错误的衡量标准上，法官在被要求这样做时成功推翻了供述，表明他们能够进行这种分析。
