A
forced confession is a confession obtained by a suspect or a
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
er under means of
tortureTorture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may be motivated to inflict torture on others for similar reasons to those of a state; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of...
of some kind, or
duressDuress or coercion is a possible legal defense, one of four of the most important justification defenses, by which defendants argue that they should not be held liable because the actions that broke the law were only performed out of an immediate fear of injury...
.
Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession may or may not be valid in revealing the truth. The person being interrogated may agree to the story presented to him or even make up falsehoods himself in order to satisfy the interrogator and discontinue his suffering.
For centuries the Latin phrase "
Confessio est regina probationum" (In
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
: Confession is the Queen of evidence) justified the use of forced confession in the European legal system.
A
forced confession is a confession obtained by a suspect or a
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
er under means of
tortureTorture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is:In addition to state-sponsored torture, individuals or groups may be motivated to inflict torture on others for similar reasons to those of a state; however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of...
of some kind, or
duressDuress or coercion is a possible legal defense, one of four of the most important justification defenses, by which defendants argue that they should not be held liable because the actions that broke the law were only performed out of an immediate fear of injury...
.
Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession may or may not be valid in revealing the truth. The person being interrogated may agree to the story presented to him or even make up falsehoods himself in order to satisfy the interrogator and discontinue his suffering.
For centuries the Latin phrase "
Confessio est regina probationum" (In
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
: Confession is the Queen of evidence) justified the use of forced confession in the European legal system. When especially during the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
acquiring a confession was the most important thing during preparations before a trial, than the method used to get the confession seemed irrelevant,
de factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established"...
sanctioning the use of torture to extract forced confession.
By the late 18th century, most scholars and lawyers thought of the forced confession not only as a relic of past times and morally wrong but also ineffective as the victim of torture can confess to anything just to ease his suffering.
Developments in the 20th century, notably the
Universal Declaration of Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Guinness Book of Records describes the UDHR as the "Most Translated Document" in the world...
, greatly reduced the legal acceptance of forced confessions. However, for most of legal history they have been accepted in most of the world, and are still accepted in some jurisdictions.
Modern day usage
Since 2001, as part of its War on Terror the United states using the CIA operates a network of off shore prisons, called
black siteIn military terminology, a black site is a location at which a black project is conducted. Recently the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, generally outside of US territory and legal jurisdiction...
, Probably the most infamous of which is Guantánamo Bay detention camp.
State officials have admitted to the press and in court to be using various torture techniques (authorizes by the District attorney) to interrogate suspects of terrorism, sometimes after
Forced disappearanceA forced disappearance occurs when force is used to cause a person to vanish from public view, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty , thereby placing the victim outside the protection of law.According to the Rome Statute of the International...
.
When this systematic act was made public by the international media the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
,
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
, the international press and various human rights movements condemned this practice.
The US supreme court did not discontinue its usage and repeatedly ruled against hearing citizens that underwent forced confessions, even after they were found innocent, claiming that a trial will constitute a breach of national security.
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22201res20051206.html
A famous case study of
Khalid El-MasriKhalid El-Masri is a German citizen who was kidnapped, flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months as a part of the War on Terror. Afterwards he was released...
is a good example of this. He appealed several times aided by different international human rights movements and lawyers, yet the US Supreme Court retained its usage of forced confession techniques, and denied a hearing of the evidence.