Contribution to Book
Mental Health and False Confessions
Representing People With Mental Disabilities
(2017)
Abstract
This chapter reviews various mental disorders and discusses how the vulnerabilities that are typical of these disorders multiply the effectiveness of the interrogation tactics that produce coerced confessions and increases the risk of eliciting false and unreliable confessions. The chapter also describes how attorneys can use scholarship about false confessions to explain to courts and juries how and why coerced and false confessions occur and their effect in the American criminal justice system.
Keywords
- mental health,
- disability law,
- criminal law,
- false confessions,
- wrongful convictions,
- criminal procedure,
- interrogation
Disciplines
Publication Date
August, 2017
Editor
Elizabeth Kelley
Citation Information
William C. Follette, Richard Leo and Deborah Davis. "Mental Health and False Confessions" Representing People With Mental Disabilities (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/richardleo/61/