Scholarly Literature

There’s a growing scholarly literature on false confessions.  I particularly recommend the following:

BOOKS 

Gisli Gudjonsson, The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook (2003).

Saul Kassin & Lawrence Wrightsman, Confessions in the Courtroom (1993).

Richard Leo, Police Interrogation and American Justice (2008).

ARTICLES

Albert Alschuler, “Constraint and Confession,” 74 Denver University Law Review 957 (1997).

Danielle Chojnacki et al, “An Empirical Basis for the Admission of Expert Testimony on False Confessions,” 40 Arizona State Law Journal 1 (2008).

Steve Drizin & Richard Leo, “The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World,” 82 North Carolina Law Review 891 (2004).

Brandon Garrett, “Contaminated Confessions Revisited,”  101 Virginia Law Review 395 (2015).

Brandon Garrett, “The Substance of False Confessions,” 62 Stanford Law Review 1051 (2010).

Max Guyll, et al, “Innocence and Resisting Confession During Interrogation: Effects on Physiologic Activity,” 37 Law and Human Behavior 366 (2013).

Alan Hirsch, “Going to the Source: The ‘New’ Reid Method and False Confessions,” Ohio State Criminal Law Journal (2014)

Alan Hirsch, “Confessions and Harmless Error: A New Argument for the Old Approach,” 12 Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law 1 (2007).

Alan Hirsch, “Threats, Promises, and False Confessions: Lessons of Slavery,” 49 Howard Law Journal 31 (2005).

Alan Hirsch, “The Tragedy of False Confessions (and a Common Sense Proposal),” 81 North Dakota Law Review 343 (2005).

Saul Kassin et al, “Investigating True and False Confessions Within a Novel Experimental Paradigm,” 16 Psychological Science 481 (2005).

Saul Kassin et al, “Behavioral Confirmation in the Interrogation Room: On the Dangers of Presuming Guilt,” 9 Law & Human Behavior 42 (2003).

Saul Kassin et al, “Police-Induced Confessions: Risk Factors and Recommendations,” 34 Law & Human Behavior 3 (2010).

Saul Kassin & Gisli Gudjonsson, “The Psychology of Confessions: A Review of the Literature and Issues,” 5 Psychological Science in the Public Interest” 33 (2004).

Saul Kassin & K.L. Kiechel, “The Social Psychology of False Confessions: Compliance, Internalization, and Confabulation,” 7 Psychological Science 125 (1996).

Saul Kassin & Karlyn McNall, “Police Interrogations and Confessions: Communicating Promises and Threats by Pragmatic Implication,” 15 Law & Human Behavior 233 (1997).

Peter Kageleiry, “Psychological Police Interrogation Methods: Pseudoscience in the Interrogation Room Obscures Justice in the Courtroom,” 193 Military Law Review (Fall 2007).

Richard Leo, et al, “Bringing Reliability Back in: False Confessions and Legal Safeguards in the Twenty-First Century,” 2006 Wisconsin Law Review 479 (2006).

Richard Leo & Richard Ofshe, “Coerced Confessions: The Decision to Confess Falsely, Rational Choice and Irrational Action,” 74 Denver University Law Review 979 (1997).

Richard Leo & Richard Ofshe, “The Consequences of False Confessions: Deprivation of Liberty and Miscarriages of Justice in the Age of Psychological Interrogation,” 88 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 429 (1998).

Nadia Soree, “When the Innocent Speak: False Confessions, Constitutional Safeguards, and the Role of Expert Testimony,” 32 American Journal of Criminal Law 191 (2005).

Welsh White, “False Confessions and the Constitution: Safeguards Against Untrustworthy Confessions,” 32 Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review 105 (1997).