A false confession is an admission of guilt in a crime in which the confessor is not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental disorder or incompetency of the accused. Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and unlikely event, they occur on a regular basis in case law, which is one of the reasons why jurisprudence has established a series of rules to detect, and subsequently reject, false confessions. These are called the "confession rules." Plea agreements typically require the defendant to stipulate to a set of facts establishing he is guilty of the offense; in the United States federal system, before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea.
Read more about False Confession: Causes, Taping Interrogations and Confessions
Famous quotes containing the words false and/or confession:
“if thou slip thy troth and do not come at all.
As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall:
To please both thy false heart, and rid myself from woe,
That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so.”
—Unknown. The Lady Prayeth the Return of Her Lover Abiding on the Seas (l. 19–22)
“The confession of our failings is a thankless office. It savours less of sincerity or modesty than of ostentation. It seems as if we thought our weaknesses as good as other people’s virtues.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)