Seeking justice, compromising truth? Criminal admissions and the prisoner's dilemma.

• Author: Norris, Robert J.
• Position: Miscarriages of Justice

1. INTRODUCTION

   When the body of twenty-eight-year-old Trisha Meili was found in Central Park in the early morning hours of April 20, 1989, a firestorm began. (1) At the time, New York City was rife with social problems: fear of terrorist attacks, the growing AIDS epidemic, homelessness, failing school systems, and increasing levels of crime had captivated residents' attention. (2) So when a successful white female was brutally attacked on the same night that a large group of black and Latino youths were "wilding" (3) in the park, a frenzy of media buzz and public outcry ensued. (4)

   Although dozens of youths had been involved in the activities in the park that night, (5) five were eventually targeted as the prime suspects in the rape and assault: Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson were fourteen years old; Yusef Salaam and Antron McCray were fifteen; and Korey Wise was sixteen, legally an adult in the state of New York. (6) The boys were surely frightened and confused, but, being young and innocent, certainly could not fathom the horror that was to come. (7)

   The five teens were all detained and interrogated over prolonged periods of time, some more than twenty hours. (8) All five youths eventually admitted to taking part in the rape and assault, and, despite the fact that no other meaningful evidence linked them to the crime, were convicted. (9) They all served between five and nearly twelve years. (10) It was not until 2002, when another inmate named Matias Reyes confessed to the crime and DNA testing showed him to be the perpetrator, that the Central Park Five were exonerated. (11)

   The Central Park Jogger case stands as an infamous stain on the fabric of American criminal justice, displaying the fragility and vulnerability of the system to error. Overtones of race, class, and politics color the case in ways reminiscent of pre-Civil Rights-Era cases, such as that of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s. (12) But in terms of the investigatory process, perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from the Central Park Jogger case relates to interrogations and false confessions. The NYPD detectives used a variety of techniques in their attempts to elicit confessions from the suspects, including basic intimidation and the "good cop-bad cop" routine. (13)

   Detectives also used a take on the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, meaning that each suspect was informed that the others were talking and implicating him in the crime. As Raymond Santana describes it, "[Detective] Hardigan sat down and he said, 'Look, Ray, I know you didn't do anything wrong, but the other guys, right now, they're in other precincts and they're saying that you did it.'" (14) A similar approach was used with Kevin Richardson: "And they're telling me, 'Well, you're not saying nothing, but these guys put your name in it.'" (15) Basically, the detectives were using a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma paradigm by playing the juvenile suspects against one another, a tactic that would prove to be quite effective.

   But why would seasoned law enforcement officers, so early into a major investigation and without physical evidence, press so diligently to secure confessions from a group of teenagers? Were the false confessions of these five youths knowingly coerced by rogue officers, or was this just a byproduct of a faulty, though well-intentioned, criminal investigation process?

   We do not assert to provide complete answers to these questions in this article. We do, however, step back and contend that the difficulty in assessing many criminal admissions lies, to some degree, in the fundamental nature of attempting to do so. Specifically, many situations in which an admission of guilt is sought--whether by the police through interrogation or by the prosecutor through plea bargaining--call into question the core purpose of these processes. In seeking to obtain an admission of guilt from a suspect or defendant, is the system seeking both truth and justice? Or, perhaps, is one (or both) compromised?

   After discussing these issues, we present an experimental study of one particular tactic commonly used to secure admissions: the well-known Prisoner's Dilemma. We report our study design and results, and then again broaden the discussion to what these results mean for the larger picture of criminal admissions, and the perennial debate on truth versus justice.

2. THE TENSION BETWEEN TRUTH AND JUSTICE

   It is unlikely that the detectives who interrogated the Central Park Five believed they were doing anything wrong. And, in a sense, they were correct. Given the complex social and political situation in which the heinous crime occurred, it is far more likely that the officers felt enormous pressure to solve the case quickly, and truly believed they had the guilty parties in their grasp. (16) Thus, the actions of the officers may not have seemed wrong or unethical, but wholly justified and arguably even necessary. (17) But the fact that this process could lead to a series of factual errors calls into question the core of the process itself. Those involved in the case were following the procedures necessary to pursue what they, and much of the community, perceived to be justice, but in so doing, failed to find the truth, and even indirectly contributed to future injustices as Reyes committed additional rapes and a murder. (18)

   At the heart of the tension between truth and justice is an issue of perceived meaning. In the context of a criminal case, there is ultimately one truth that really matters: a crime or set of crimes was committed, (19) and a person or group of people carried out the actions. (20) When it comes to justice, however, a question posed by Crank and Proulx serves as an important starting point: "Can justice ever be a known, or for that matter even a knowable quantity in any sort of scientific sense?" (21) Though they tackle the matter for esoteric academic purposes, the point is relevant for our discussion of criminal justice practice as well. Unlike pursuing truth through the criminal process, pursuing justice is less clear, as the meaning of justice itself is much more fluid. Rather than any sort of universal truths, the various definitions one can give for justice "at all levels, are cultural and social constructions of particular human traditions." (22)

   Crank and Proulx describe several ways in which justice might be conceptualized. They first consider Siegel's "justice process," which, as the name suggests, thinks of justice as the actual process through which offenders are captured, convicted, and punished. (23) On the other hand is the concept of social justice as described by Lynch and Stretesky. (24) According to this definition, "a society is not just if it does not provide for its members' needs, or if it perpetuates inequalities," which calls into question the racial and socioeconomic inequalities seen in American criminal justice practice. (25)

   Finally, Crank and Proulx describe a more normative approach to defining justice. (26) As they note, "[t]he Dictionary of Criminal Justice defines justice as . . . 'the purpose of a legal system."' (27) This, however, is complicated by the fact that the purpose of the legal system is not itself an objective concept, but rather a subjective determination influenced by social, cultural, political, and historical factors. (28) Much wrongful conviction research, for instance, carries an implication that the protection of the innocent should be the highest priority of the system. (29) From this perspective, the pursuit of justice would be in line with the classic "Blackstone ratio," which proposes that it is more appropriate to allow a certain number of guilty offenders go free than to wrongly convict the innocent. (30) On the other hand, historically, it has often been put forth that the primary purpose of criminal justice is efficiency in executing some standard of crime control. Rather than focus on protecting the innocent, then, this crime control perspective might emphasize processing efficiency and conviction of the guilty, and would be willing to accept some factual error rate. (31) That is, the pursuit of justice is a desire to maintain systemic "equilibrium and efficiency, sometimes to the extent that efficient processing becomes a higher priority than achieving an accurate outcome." (32)

   These different ways of thinking about the purpose of criminal justice are by no means exhaustive. (33) But the key point remains, what it means to pursue justice, and where and how finding the actual truth fits into that pursuit, is contingent on what one considers to be the fundamental purpose of the system.

   Much of the previous discussion has focused on this tension between truth and justice in an abstract way, concerned only with ultimate outcomes: convicting the guilty versus protecting the innocent. There is no doubt, however, that the importance of this discussion trickles down throughout the entire criminal justice process. And a crucially important aspect of this process is the securing of a guilty admission. As recently stated by Barry Feld, "[t]he interrogation room is the trial--confessions determine guilt." (34) At its very core, the desire to have suspects and defendants admit guilt--whether through interrogations or plea bargains--and essentially provide the basis of factual guilt the state needs to meet its burden, raises questions regarding the search for truth and the pursuit of justice.

   1. Seeking Criminal Admissions: Interrogations and Plea Bargaining

      Interrogations and plea bargaining occur at distinctly different points in the criminal process, but, as Richard Leo points out, the logic behind them is "remarkably similar." (35) Ultimately, they both are designed to induce the suspect or defendant to admit guilt in exchange for at least the perception of leniency. (36) That is, "both are based on creating resignation, fear, and the perception that the only way to mitigate punishment is...