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:
“Our chaotic economic situation has convinced so many of our young people that there is no room for them. They become uncertain and restless and morbid; they grab at false promises, embrace false gods and judge things by treacherous values. Their insecurity makes them believe that tomorrow doesn’t matter and the ineffectualness of their lives makes them deny the ideals which we of an older generation acknowledged.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, has a conception of Pyrrhonism.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)