What 'Making A Murderer' Can Teach Us About Teens And False Confessions 

Brendan Dassey appears in court in 2007, in Manitowoc, Wis. Dassey, then 17, was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, second-degree sexual assault and mutilating a corpse.

Netflix\'s latest true crime documentary, "Making A Murderer," has raised a lot of questions about guilt and innocence, and not just in the case of its principal subject Steven Avery. Avery was convicted of a 2005 murder he says he didn\'t commit, but many viewers are also horrified by the treatment of Avery\'s teenaged nephew and convicted accomplice, Brendan Dassey. 

Dassey, who has an IQ of 70, was 16 at the time of his arrest. In a videotaped confession after an 

excruciating, four-hour interrogation without a parent or a lawyer present, he told detectives that he raped and brutalized photographer Teresa Halbach. Dassey later recanted his confession, but his conviction and subsequent life sentence largely hinged on his admission. Many viewers are up in arms over the footage and in the past few weeks, thousands signed a petition demanding Dassey get a retrial.

Whether or not Dassey did in fact play a role in the crime for which he was convicted, research has shown that teens are extremely vulnerable to admitting to crimes they didn\'t commit. A 2003 study found that teenagers were far more likely than young adults to falsely confess. In the experiment, published in the journal

Law and Human Behavior, 88 percent of 15- to 16-year-olds admitted to crashing a computer when researchers presented them with fake evidence. In comparison, only 50 percent of young adults took responsibility for the computer crash in the same situation.

Precedent has borne this out, most famously in the 1989 case of five black and Hispanic teenagers, ages 14 to 16, who were coerced into falsely confessing to beating and sexually assaulting a jogger in New York City\'s Central Park. Although the teens recanted their confessions, they served a combined 41 years in prison before they were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2002.

Coerced confessions kick the legs out from a criminal justice system that we like to believe is based on truth and impartiality. But what circumstances, exactly, can lead a person to falsely take responsibility for a crime? And why are teenagers so vulnerable to interrogator coercion?

We called Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University and author of

, to learn more about why teens are particularly vulnerable to false confessions. 

Dassey walks to the courthouse to hear the verdict in his case in 2007 Manitowoc, Wis. After being found guilty, the then-17-year-old was given a life sentence based in part on a confession that he later recanted.

Q: The Brendan Dassey case is heart-wrenching. Is it common for teenagers to confess to a crime and then to recant? 

A: There is research that shows teens are more vulnerable to false confessions than adults. First, teenagers tend to be oriented toward the immediate. When an interrogator has a teenager, [he] will frequently say things like \'If you just admit that you did it, I’ll let you go and you can go see your mom.\' They don’t think about the longer-term consequences of confessing. They just think, ‘How can I get myself out of this situation right now?’  

The second is that teenagers are more likely than adults to comply with what they think authority figures want them to do. If the interrogator sets up the situation where it’s clear what they want you to say, teenagers are more willing to kind of go along with that.

Those two things combined make teenagers much more likely to admit to things that they haven’t done.

Q: Is there a cutoff age when young people mature and become less suggestible? 

A: By the time people are 16, they’re not any more susceptible to these things than adults are. But that’s for normal individuals tested under ideal conditions.

When you put [teenagers] under stress or fatigue them, their intellectual abilities break down faster than adults do. Under the conditions of an interrogation, where it’s obviously very stressful -- it’s emotionally arousing -- the reasoning abilities of teenagers are more likely to break down.

A confession is one of the most damning things in a trial, and one of the things that juries are likely to believe. Laurence Steinberg

Q: The documentary points out that Dassey reads at a fourth-grade level and has an IQ of 70, indicating he\'s in the range for having an intellectual disability. 

It’s not surprising that he acted the way he acted. In this particular case, this kid isn’t so smart. That’s what he says about himself a couple of times during the episode. He doesn’t have a mature ability to figure out why this person wants him to say what he wants him to say.

Intellectual disability impairs [people\'s] capacity to look at things from somebody else’s point of view, which makes them less able to figure out, ‘What is this person trying to manipulate me into doing here, and why is he trying to manipulate me?’ 

Q: What are common interrogation tactics that can lead to false confessions?

A: With a kid, one thing they do is dangle some kind of immediate reward. The second thing is that they often lie to them, telling them that if they confess the court or the judge will go easy on them. That’s a very common tactic and of course, it’s not true.

A confession is one of the most damning things in a trial, and one of the things that juries are likely to believe. When an interrogator says something like, ‘If you just admit that you did it, I’ll tell the judge you were cooperating with me and he’ll go easy on you,’ that’s not true.

They way most of us raise our children helps to explain why kids fall for this. As parents, we say, \'I don’t care if you did it or not, I just want you to tell me the truth.\' That tactic comes into play in interrogations.

A third is to just lie. It’s allowable under American law for interrogators to lie to people who they are questioning. They will often say that they have evidence that the kid did it, when they don’t have evidence at all. So they’ll say something like, \'Look, you can stay here all night long and tell me that you didn’t do it, but I have a photograph that shows that you did do it,\' or \'We found your fingerprints all over this gun,\' even if they didn’t. Kids are more gullible.

Dassey is escorted into court for his sentencing 2007. In December, the Netflix documentary "Making a Murderer" reignited interest in his case and sparked petitions alleging that Dassey, now age 26, was coerced into giving a false confession.

Q: Did you notice any of these tactics being used on Dassey in the show?

A: The interrogator clearly doesn’t stop until he gets the answer that he wants to get. Brendan starts by denying it, and then [the interrogator] says, \'No. No, go on. Tell me. I know you were there. What did he do to her head?\' Remember that part where he keeps saying that?

Then [Dassey] starts to figure out: \'Well, he wants me to say something about what I did to her head. Maybe I’ll say something like that.\'

He’s not thinking ahead at all. He’s not thinking this is going to come back to bite him at a later stage. He wants to get out of that situation.

Q: What\'s one of the biggest misconceptions about false confessions?

A: People who’ve never been in that situation find it very hard to fathom why someone would admit to doing something bad that they hadn’t done. But if you’ve ever read transcription of interrogations or watched videotapes, you can understand why. We would all like to think, \'Well, I wouldn’t do that if I was in that situation.\' An adult would be less likely to do it, but adults give false confessions all the time, also.  

Q: Is there a turning point in false confessions when people tend to break under pressure? 

A: It’s a combination of stressing the person out, exhausting the person through a very long interrogation and dangling some potential reward for confession in front of him, like a promise of leniency. I’ve read about cases where they keep a kid until he’s really hungry and say \'Look, come on. I’m your friend here. I just need you to say this. And if you say this, we’ll go get something to eat.\'

You put the person in a weak or vulnerable state. You persuade them that you know what the facts are and you promise them something in return for confessing.

Another tactic is to try to persuade the person that they simply don’t remember what they did. You see that in cases where a crime was committed when somebody was drinking. You say, \'I know you don’t remember it, but lots of times when we drink, our memories aren’t so good. Maybe you had a little blackout experience there, but you did it. We have people saying that you did it, so you must have done it. So why don’t you just admit it?\'

A: It’s incredible. In the United Kingdom, it’s against the law for interrogators to lie, but that’s not the case in the United States.

Q: In the closing arguments at Dassey\'s trial, prosecutor Tom Fallon says "People who are innocent don\'t confess." 

A: Most law enforcement officers believe that by the time they get to interrogating somebody, that they’re probably guilty. Their tactic is frequently to try to get them to admit rather than to find the truth. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

10 Major Crimes That Shocked the Nation (SLIDESHOW)

"Young L.A. Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two" -L.A.\'s Daily News

On January 15, 1947, the remains of Elizabeth Short, were found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. What made this discovery the stuff of tabloid sensation, however, was the Glasgow smile left on the aspiring actress\' face--made with 3-inch slashes on each side. This, coupled with Short\'s dark hair, fair complexion and reputation for sporting a dahlia in her hair, dubbed her "The Black Dahlia" in headlines. What followed was a media circus filled with rumors and speculation about the promiscuous 22-year-old\'s checkered past. What haunts theorists to this day, apart from the victim\'s uniquely nightmarish visage, is that the case remains unsolved after some 200 suspects were interviewed and ultimately released--making it one of Hollywood\'s most lurid legends.

"Young L.A. Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two" -L.A.\'s Daily News

"I Am Not Guilty - Thus Lizzie Borden Pleads Before Judge Hammond at New Bedford." -Boston Journal

"Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one."

So goes the lurid nursery rhyme to one of the most mystifying crimes of the century. The nature of the deaths of Andrew J. Borden and his wife, Abby, are trumped only by the identity of the alleged perpetrator: their daughter, Lizzie. Inexplicably found "not guilty" in contrast to the era\'s zeitgeist of swift justice, Lizzie\'s legacy--guilty or not--has become immortalized as one of the most perplexing cases of parricide in history.

"Texas Mother Charged with Killing Her 5 Children" -CNN

In a case of mother-gone-mad that startled a nation, Andrea Yates, to her few friends and neighbors, was known as a mere recluse suffering from postpartum depression leading up to the birth of her fifth child. That all changed on June 20, 2001, when she snapped, drowning five of her children in their home\'s bathtub. She was convicted in 2002 of capital murder, carrying a sentence of life in prison with possible parole. As of July 2006, however, a Texas jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

"Buttafuoco Admits to Sex with Amy Fisher" -New York Times

Known as the "Long Island Lolita," Fisher became involved with Joey Buttafuoco in May of 1991. Shortly after the two began a sexual relationship (she, 16, while he, 35, was married with two children), his presence and influence in her life became all she cared for. In what he\'s since denied to this day, Buttafuoco would go on to help an obsessive Fisher plan the murder of his wife, culminating in Fisher putting a bullet in Mary Jo Buttafuoco\'s head, but failing to kill her. In the highly publicized trial that ensued, Fisher accepted a plea deal for 15 years in prison in exchange for a testimony against Joey, who faced and served out charges of statutory rape.

With a face that graced the covers of nearly every news and gossip rag during the winter of \'96, it\'s hard to suggest the death of child beauty pageant queen JonBenét Ramsey had little effect outside the city of Boulder, Colorado. Found dead from a blow to the head and strangulation in the family\'s basement, coupled with a ransom note left on the staircase asking for $118,000 (conveniently or coincidentally, nearly the same amount Mr. Ramsey received as a bonus that year), as well as no obvious signs of forced entry into the house, the evidence was overwhelmingly stacked against parents John and Patsy, who managed to maintain their innocence throughout the investigation. The case reopened in 2010, but critics cite poor handling of the crime scene as obstructing what remains a mystery regarding the events of that Christmas day.

"F.B.I. Joins Probe in Slaughter of 8 Nurses" -Nashua Telegraph

Tattooed with "Born to Raise Hell" on his arm, Richard Speck made good on his mantra through a history of violence, theft, alcoholism, and spousal abuse, but made his infamy known to all when, on July 13, 1966, he walked into a dormitory armed with a knife. After leaving 8 student nurses dead in his wake, only one, Cora Amurao, was spared--hiding under a bed until 6 a.m. Speck was found guilty of murder and died of a heart attack in prison. As one of the most press-worthy crimes of the decade, the grim events were used most recently as the backdrop for an episode of

"Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered" -Los Angeles Times

Perhaps the most terrifying figure in American crime to have never actually killed anyone himself, Charles Manson founded a "family" of wayward individuals who hailed him as a prophet. So strong was his manipulation, he ordered, on the night of Aug. 8, 1969, four of his followers to kill everyone at the residence of 10050 Cielo Drive--including Roman Polanski\'s wife, Sharon Tate, and her unborn child. Tate was stabbed 16 times, and her blood was used to write "pig" on the house\'s front door. The next night, Manson accompanied six of his family to the residence of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, only to help bind them before ordering their deaths. In 1971, Manson and three of his fellow defendants were found guilty of murder in the first-degree and several other crimes. At the time, it was the longest murder trial in American history, spanning nine and a half months, as well as the most expensive, estimating $1 million. Manson was denied parole for the 12th time in April 2012.

"Lindbergh Baby Kidnapped from Home of Parents on Farm Near Princeton; Taken from His Crib; Wide Search on" -The New York Times

) and dubbed "the biggest story since the Resurrection" by famed journalist H.L. Mencken, the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh\'s infant son continues to fascinate theorists today. Charles Jr. was discovered missing from his second-floor bedroom on March 1, 1932, along with a note demanding a then-unimaginable $50,000, igniting a media frenzy like no other. The tabloid pandemonium prompted many tips and leads, but none as concrete as a package containing the boy\'s pajamas and another message demanding the ransom. After some misdirection from the presumed kidnapper, Lindbergh\'s child was soon after discovered in the woods along a road near the family residence. Notwithstanding the evidence stockpiled against the easily vilified illegal German immigrant Bruno Hauptmann (who was sentenced), speculation prevails as to the true identity of the caper responsible in this tragic tale of one of America\'s greatest heroes.

Still fresh in the minds of many and not to easily be forgotten, the trial of Casey Anthony turned Orlando, Florida into anything but the "happiest place on earth." Following a series of lies, misdirection and manipulation by then-22 year old Casey, Caylee\'s skeletal remains were found five months into the investigation, setting the stage for what could only be described as the most incessantly publicized and shocking trial in recent memory. The media had a field day that went on for months: Highlighting the young, pretty, party girl image used against her in court as the prosecution tore apart an aimless defense--or so it seemed. After resorting to throwing her family under the bus, incriminating people entirely made-up ("Zanny the Nanny"), and fabricating elaborate stories for the police, Casey was found not guilty of murder due to evidence deemed mostly circumstantial and not meeting the burden of "beyond reasonable doubt," inciting much debate regarding whether true justice was served.

Known and heralded as the "trial of the century," former football star and actor O.J. Simpson found himself in the middle of the nation\'s biggest, most-televised trial following the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, but not before fleeing an all-points bulletin in his Ford Bronco with 20 units in tow, interrupting game 5 of the NBA Finals. By enlisting a dream team including Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, and Robert Kardashian, the defense claimed Simpson was merely a victim of police fraud with regard to contaminated DNA evidence, while famously quipping "If it [the glove] doesn\'t fit, you must acquit." On October 3, 1995, an estimated 100 million people from around the world tuned in to watch the jury hand down a verdict of not guilty, consequently resulting in an estimated loss of $480 million in productivity and inciting an ongoing discussion of race in the judicial system that continues to this day.

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