Schatz Samson J
Stanford Law Rev. 2018 Feb;70(2):643-90.
False confessions happen. At least 245 people have been exonerated from convictions in cases featuring confessions that were simply not true. Confessions offer a narrative that allows law enforcement, and society in general, to neatly resolve cases with apparent clarity and closure. And yet the pressures officers place on suspects to provide that closure weigh disproportionately on the vulnerable, including individuals with intellectual disabilities. These individuals are disadvantaged at every step of the custodial interrogation, and they face heightened risks of falsely confessing. Moreover, the principal judicial safeguards against false confessions--assessing a suspect's Miranda waiver and determining whether a confession was voluntarily given within the bounds of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause--provide little protection for the innocent with intellectual disabilities. Few pieces of scholarship focus specifically on the heightened risks faced by individuals with intellectual disabilities throughout the process of police interrogation. This Note describes the various ways these individuals are disadvantaged. And it offers an additional data point illustrating the vulnerability of people with intellectual disabilities. This Note analyzes the 245 individuals (as of June 2, 2017) on the National Registry of Exonerations who have falsely confessed. Over one-quarter of them display indicia of intellectual disability. This percentage dwarfs the prevalence of people with intellectual disabilities in the general population and even exceeds most estimates of the proportion of the prison population suffering from intellectual disabilities. This Note concludes with several policy and doctrinal suggestions to better protect individuals with intellectual disabilities from the risks of false confession.
虚假供述确实存在。至少有245人因虚假供述而被定罪后又被宣告无罪。供述提供了一种叙事方式，使执法部门乃至整个社会能够看似清晰明了地了结案件。然而，警察为了结案而向嫌疑人施加的压力，对包括智障人士在内的弱势群体造成了过重的负担。这些人在羁押讯问的每一个环节都处于不利地位，他们面临着更高的虚假供述风险。此外，防止虚假供述的主要司法保障措施——评估嫌疑人放弃米兰达权利的行为以及确定供述是否在第十四修正案正当程序条款的范围内自愿作出——几乎没有为无辜的智障人士提供保护。很少有学术研究专门关注智障人士在警方讯问过程中面临的更高风险。本笔记描述了这些人处于不利地位的各种方式。它还提供了一个额外的数据点，说明了智障人士的脆弱性。本笔记分析了国家宣告无罪登记处（截至2017年6月2日）中245名虚假供述的人。其中超过四分之一的人显示出智障迹象。这一比例远远高于普通人群中智障人士的患病率，甚至超过了大多数对监狱中智障人群比例的估计。本笔记最后提出了几项政策和理论建议，以更好地保护智障人士免受虚假供述的风险。
