Juan Rivera’s return to Lake County for the first time since his January release from prison headlined a panel discussion Sunday at Lake Forest College on the legal ramifications of false confessions.
Rivera, who was represented on appeal by co-counsel from Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, was imprisoned for more than 19 years for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1992. After he was convicted three times by jury, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled in December to reverse the convictions because Rivera’s DNA did not match that which was found in the girl’s body.
The body of evidence that prosecutors used to convict Rivera included a confession of committing the crime. Rivera said he does not remember the confession but knows from court records he was interrogated by 11 detectives over the course of 26 hours. He described the interrogation as being “beaten up verbally.”
“I’m angry, I’m disappointed that I lost half my life,” Rivera said. “I got stabbed twice in prison because of this case. I had to fight for my food, for my clothes, for my manhood. This is a struggle that I go through every day.”
Rob Warden, the center’s executive director, said at the panel that the issue of false confessions often escapes public scrutiny because people are unable to grasp the concept.
“Of all of the factors that we have seen in wrongful convictions, I think that false confessions are probably the most difficult to comprehend,” Warden said. “You can’t imagine that you would ever confess to a crime you didn’t commit. I can’t imagine that I would either.”
Still, Warden said, suspects can be “literally brainwashed” into thinking they have committed the crime at hand. He suggested the best way to reduce false confessions is to limit the amount of time allowed for interrogations to four hours, citing Rivera’s marathon session and the center’s research, which indicates accurate confessions come relatively quickly while false confessions like Rivera’s often span a long period of time.
Another panelist, Jed Stone, a Waukegan, Ill. defense attorney, offered his own solutions to the problem. He called for a requirement that every confession be videotaped. He also said interrogations should be performed by those unfamiliar with the facts of the case because investigators often reveal information to the witness, using leading questions or other methods and then cite those details in court as evidence only the guilty party could have known.
Stone said one reason even juries can be fooled by false confessions is an “us versus them” mentality in the criminal justice system.
“If we see people as expendable, there will be injustice,” he said. “If we see people as brothers and sisters, we can avoid injustice.”
