On the power of secondary confession evidence

Abstract

Research on primary confessions has demonstrated that it is a powerful form of evidence. The goal of the current research was to investigate whether secondary confessions – the suspect confesses to another individual who in turn then reports the confession to the police – could be as persuasive. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants read a murder trial containing an eyewitness identification, a secondary confession, and character testimony, and made midtrial assessments of the evidence. Results indicated that the secondary confession was evaluated as the most incriminating. In Experiment 3, participants read summaries of four criminal trials, each of which contained a primary confession, a secondary confession, eyewitness identification, or none of the above. The two confession conditions produced significantly higher conviction rates. Our findings suggest that secondary confessions are another powerful and potentially dangerous form of evidence.

Keywords:

• secondary confession
• jury decision-making
• evidence
• attribution
• jailhouse informants

Notes

1. Evidence order was counterbalanced in a pilot study. The results did not differ as a function of the order of evidence presentation. Consequently, we did not manipulate the order of evidence in Experiments 1 or 2.