Summary Of The Documentary 'Making A Murderer'
After viewing the non-fiction media documentary, Making a Murderer, and listening to the nonfiction media podcast, Serial, I have realized some problems with the American justice system that these cases address. Although there may be no way to completely eliminate bias, there are some ways to solve, rectify, or diminish some of these problems. Some of these problems consist of: wrongful convictions, false confessions, unethical interrogations, mental incapacity, biases/disparities in race, gender, socioeconomic status, eyewitness accounts, false positive or tampered forensics, unethical prosecutorial practices, etc.. Almost all of these are addressed in “Making a Murderer”. One of the biggest issues is false confessions. I believe that Brendan Dassey’s initial confession with the interrogators is a false confession. They were designed originally for seasoned adult criminals, and what you see on the tape is them being used on a 16-year-old with intellectual disabilities. As a result, you see these powerful psychological tactics designed for adults absolutely steamroll Brendan.This child has been interviewed 4 times
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within 48 hours after consistently denying being guilty. This in turn invoked Brendan to confess because he was being hounded and hounded twice a day. There are high percentage rates on false confessions within youths. A staggering 69% of youth ages 12 to 15 who were exonerated had given false confessions.
Now there may be one way to prevent these problems from occurring.
While some may think that bringing in the parent during interrogations of a minor would help, it can actually make matters worse. Mostly because adults don’t understand how police interrogative tactics work. Sometimes the police may lie and say, “We found your fingerprints at the scene.” This in turn leads the parents to side with the police and say, “Tell them why they’re there.” or “Tell them the truth.” This just gives the child all the more reason to tell the police what they want just to get out of the interrogation thinking they may go home or they won’t be convicted. Instead, the police should inform the minor that they are entitled to a lawyer because most youths don’t know their miranda rights. This will significantly reduce the amount of false convictions with young
teens.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/making-a-murderer-and-the-huge-problem-of-false-youth-confessions-20160108
within 48 hours after consistently denying being guilty. This in turn invoked Brendan to confess because he was being hounded and hounded twice a day. There are high percentage rates on false confessions within youths. A staggering 69% of youth ages 12 to 15 who were exonerated had given false confessions.
Now there may be one way to prevent these problems from occurring.
While some may think that bringing in the parent during interrogations of a minor would help, it can actually make matters worse. Mostly because adults don’t understand how police interrogative tactics work. Sometimes the police may lie and say, “We found your fingerprints at the scene.” This in turn leads the parents to side with the police and say, “Tell them why they’re there.” or “Tell them the truth.” This just gives the child all the more reason to tell the police what they want just to get out of the interrogation thinking they may go home or they won’t be convicted. Instead, the police should inform the minor that they are entitled to a lawyer because most youths don’t know their miranda rights. This will significantly reduce the amount of false convictions with young
teens.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/making-a-murderer-and-the-huge-problem-of-false-youth-confessions-20160108