Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Winter 1998
Criminal Law

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FALSE CONFESSIONS: DEPRIVATIONS OF LIBERTY AND MISCARRIAGES OF JUSTICE IN THE AGE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERROGATION

by Richard A. Leo and Richard J. Ofshe

Excerpt

In 1995, in Portland, Oregon, police extracted false confessions from Rick Nieskins and Christopher Cole to the 1991 murder of John Sewell.1 Both men were charged with homicide, and both spent thirteen months in jail awaiting trial – even though two other men had been convicted of Sewell's murder in 1991 and had always maintained that they acted alone.2 Prosecutors eventually dropped charges against Nieskins after records showed that he could not have committed the crime because he was at a homeless shelter in Seattle at the time of the killing.3 Once they acknowledged Nieskins' false confession, prosecutors admitted that Cole also could not have been involved in the crime and dropped charges against him.4

Footnotes

1. Bryan Smith, Suspects' Confessions May Hide Truth, Oregonian, Feb. 23, 1997, at D1.

2. Id.

3. Id.

4. Id.