Dan Lassiter

Ohio University

The Illusion of Voluntariness in Videotaped Confessions

Lazenby Hall, Room 34, at 4:00 PM
on Thursday, October 15, 1998

             Within the criminal justice system, there is a growing trend toward utilizing videotape technology to record and to present confession evidence. An apparent advantage of videotaping a confession is that such a procedure should make it possible for trial fact-finders to determine more objectively and accurately whether a confession was voluntary or coerced, and consequently, whether it should carry any weight in their decisions concerning the guilt or innocence of a defendant. However, despite the seeming objectivity associated with the making and subsequent evaluation of a videotaped interrogation and confession, the literature on salience effects in causal attribution suggests that certain aspects of this process could inadvertently bias or prejudice judgments of voluntariness and guilt. Consistent with this literature, our research shows that, relative to other confession-presentation formats (e.g., audiotapes and transcripts), videotapes that are recorded with the focus on the confessor tend to produce judgments of greater voluntariness and guilt. In light of both a recent U. S. Supreme Court ruling stating that the improper use of involuntary confessions may in certain instances be considered "harmless error," and the fact that actual criminal interrogations are usually videotaped with the focus on the confessor, these findings have important legal implications.

Dan Lassiter

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