The Innocence Project estimates that approximately 25% of their cases resulting in exoneration after examination of DNA evidence involve people who made incriminating statements, including confessions, about crimes they did not commit. Why do innocent people confess? What is it about law enforcement methods, interrogation techniques, and trial procedures that make it possible for our justice system to convict not only the truly guilty but also the truly innocent? And how can we bring about effective systematic change, permitting law enforcement officials to seek “the golden standard” of the true confession, yet root out the false positives?
The Temple Law Review’s 2012 Symposium, False Confessions: Intersecting Science, Ethics, and the Law, will explore the intersections between social science, ethics, and the law to find answers to these pressing questions. The Symposium will take a multidisciplinary approach, featuring leading scholars and practitioners who will provide their insight in the interest of raising awareness, explaining new developments in the law and their scholarly research, and suggesting new policies to deal with the life-altering consequences of False Confessions.
Featured speakers include Saul Kassin of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Byron Halsee, a DNA exoneree. To register, please visit http://sites.temple.edu/lawreview/symposia/2012-symposium/.