Guilt Assessment After Retracted Voluntary and Coerced-Compliant Confessions in Combination with Exculpatory or Ambiguous Evidence

We investigated how voluntary confessions, coerced-compliant confessions, and no-confessions influenced guilt assessments in combination with other exculpatory or ambiguous evidence. In three experiments (total N = 808), participants studied case information and provided guilt assessments. As expected, in Experiment 1 and 2a, i) voluntary confessions to protect a family member elicited stronger guilt attributions than no-confessions and ii) ambiguous evidence led to stronger guilt attributions than exculpatory evidence. In Experiment 2b, voluntary confessions to protect a group-member (but not to protect a family-member) elicited stronger guilt attributions than no-confessions. Exculpatory eyewitness evidence elicited stronger guilt attributions than exculpatory DNA evidence and participants assigned more weight to exculpatory DNA than eyewitness evidence. Participants were able to discount coerced-compliant confessions when they received information about the interrogations (Experiments 2a/b), but did not consistently consider risk factors for (voluntary) false confessions outside the interrogation room when assessing guilt.

本研究探讨了自愿供述（voluntary confessions）、强迫顺从式供述（coerced-compliant confessions）与无供述三种情形，结合其他开脱性或模糊性证据时，对罪责评定的影响。本研究共开展三项实验，总样本量为808名被试，所有被试均阅读案件信息并完成罪责评定。正如预期，在实验1与实验2a中：i）为保护家人作出的自愿供述，相较无供述情形可引发更强的罪责归因；ii）模糊性证据相较开脱性证据，可引发更强的罪责归因。在实验2b中，为保护群体成员（而非保护家人）作出的自愿供述，相较无供述情形可引发更强的罪责归因。开脱性目击证人证据相较开脱性DNA证据，可引发更强的罪责归因，且被试对开脱性DNA证据的权重赋值高于目击证人证据。当被试获取讯问相关信息时（实验2a、2b），能够对强迫顺从式供述进行折扣考量，但在评估罪责时，并未始终考虑讯问室外（自愿）虚假供述的风险因素。