Forced confession
A forced confession is an involuntary admission of guilt elicited through coercive tactics, including physical torture, psychological manipulation, threats to oneself or loved ones, prolonged isolation, or promises of leniency, rather than through genuine recollection or voluntary disclosure.[1][2] Such confessions often result in false statements, particularly among vulnerable individuals like juveniles, those with intellectual disabilities, or persons under mental duress, as coercive interrogation erodes resistance and induces compliance or internalized belief in fabricated guilt.[3] Historically, forced confessions have been instrumental in authoritarian and totalitarian systems to manufacture evidence for purges, show trials, and suppression of dissent, as seen in Stalinist Soviet interrogations where physical beatings and sleep deprivation compelled defendants to affirm pre-scripted narratives of conspiracy, enabling mass executions without substantive proof.[4] In legal traditions predating modern reforms, such as medieval inquisitorial processes, torture was systematically applied to extract admissions presumed reliable under duress, though empirical unreliability was later evidenced by recantations and exonerations upon cessation of coercion.[5] Psychologically, coercion exploits suggestibility and memory distortion, with peer-reviewed analyses showing that high-pressure tactics like minimization of blame or maximization of evidence can lead innocent suspects to confabulate details, contributing to wrongful convictions in up to 25% of DNA-exonerated cases involving confessions.[6][2] Contemporary democratic systems largely deem forced confessions inadmissible due to their causal link to miscarriages of justice, prioritizing voluntariness tests and recording mandates, yet persistence in non-transparent regimes underscores their utility for ideological control over factual truth-seeking.[3][4]Definition and Conceptual Framework
Core Definition and Characteristics
A forced confession is an involuntary statement in which an individual admits to criminal guilt as a result of coercive pressure exerted by interrogators or authorities, overriding the person's free will and rendering the admission unreliable as evidence of actual wrongdoing.[7][8] Legally, such confessions violate due process protections, as established in U.S. Supreme Court precedents like Brown v. Mississippi (1936), which prohibited confessions obtained through physical torture, and extended in cases like Miranda v. Arizona (1966) to require safeguards against psychological coercion during custodial interrogations.[9] In international law, forced confessions contravene prohibitions against torture under the UN Convention Against Torture (1984), which defines them as acts inflicting severe pain or suffering to obtain information or confessions.[10] Core characteristics include the application of duress—ranging from physical threats and violence to psychological tactics such as prolonged isolation, deception about evidence, minimization of consequences, or promises of leniency—which can induce even innocent suspects to comply by confessing to escape immediate harm or perceived inevitability of conviction.[2] Empirical analyses of wrongful convictions reveal that coerced confessions often exhibit internal inconsistencies, lack corroborating details, or contradict physical evidence, as documented in DNA exoneration cases where false confessions contributed to 29% of reversals since 1989.[11] Psychologically, these confessions arise from compliance (external pressure yielding a strategic falsehood without belief in guilt) or internalization (where repeated suggestion leads the confessor to doubt and adopt a false memory of guilt), with laboratory experiments demonstrating that innocent participants confess at rates up to 69% under simulated high-pressure interrogations.[12][6] The evidentiary unreliability of forced confessions stems from causal mechanisms where coercion disrupts rational decision-making, prioritizing short-term relief over long-term truth, as supported by studies showing confessions as the most potent factor in juror convictions—outweighing DNA or eyewitness testimony—yet frequently proven false post hoc through forensic reexamination.[13] Unlike voluntary admissions, forced ones lack autonomy and are presumptively inadmissible in courts requiring proof of voluntariness beyond reasonable doubt, though detection challenges persist due to unverifiable private interrogations and biases favoring perceived suspect guilt among law enforcement.[14] This unreliability underscores systemic risks, with over 375 U.S. exonerations linked to false confessions as of 2023, disproportionately affecting juveniles, intellectually disabled individuals, and those with mental health vulnerabilities who succumb more readily to coercive dynamics.[11]Distinction from Voluntary and False Confessions
A voluntary confession occurs when an individual admits guilt to a crime of their own free will, absent any threats, promises, or coercive pressures that could undermine autonomy.[15] In legal frameworks, such confessions are deemed admissible if they reflect unconstrained choice, as established in U.S. Supreme Court precedents requiring proof of voluntariness under the Due Process Clause.[9] These differ fundamentally from forced confessions, which involve external duress—ranging from physical harm to prolonged isolation—rendering the admission involuntary and presumptively unreliable, regardless of its factual accuracy.[16] False confessions, conversely, entail statements of guilt for offenses not committed by the declarant, a phenomenon documented in wrongful conviction cases where such admissions contribute to approximately 25% of DNA exonerations.[11] Psychological typologies, notably Saul Kassin's framework, categorize them into three types: voluntary false confessions, rare instances where individuals self-incriminate without interrogation pressure (e.g., seeking notoriety or shielding others); coerced-compliant false confessions, where innocents yield to interrogative tactics to escape immediate distress while privately maintaining innocence; and coerced-internalized false confessions, where suggestive coercion leads suspects to doubt and reconstruct memories, genuinely believing their guilt.[6] [17] Forced confessions distinguish from both by prioritizing the coercive mechanism over voluntariness or veracity: they may extract true admissions from culpable individuals broken by duress, yet empirical analyses reveal coercion elevates false confession risks through compliance and memory distortion, as laboratory paradigms simulate interrogation yielding fabricated details in 40-50% of innocent participants under high-pressure conditions.[18] Unlike voluntary confessions, which assume rational agency, forced variants violate causal preconditions for authentic self-disclosure, often mirroring totalitarian inquisitions where reliability collapses under sustained adversity.[19] In contrast to false confessions' focus on inaccuracy, forced confessions underscore inadmissibility in jurisprudence, as tribunals reject them to deter abusive state power, even if corroborated by external evidence.[20]Types of Coercion Involved
Coercion in forced confessions primarily manifests in two broad categories: physical and psychological. Physical coercion entails the direct application of violence or credible threats thereof to compel a statement, often overriding the subject's will through fear or pain. In the 1936 case of Brown v. Mississippi, three Black men were subjected to severe beatings and whippings by law enforcement until they provided confessions, which the U.S. Supreme Court later deemed involuntary due to the brutality employed.[6] Such methods have historically included torture techniques like whipping, as documented in legal precedents prohibiting their use in extracting reliable testimony.[6] Psychological coercion, by contrast, leverages mental manipulation without overt physical harm, exploiting vulnerabilities such as suggestibility, fatigue, or isolation to elicit compliance. Techniques include prolonged interrogations, presentation of false evidence (e.g., fabricated polygraph results), and promises of leniency, which can lead to coerced-compliant confessions where the subject knows their innocence but capitulates to end the pressure.[6] In more severe instances, intense suggestion may result in internalized false confessions, where the subject doubts their memory and adopts a fabricated narrative of guilt, as seen in cases involving hypnosis or memory distrust.[6] Empirical studies identify these tactics as key risk factors, particularly when applied to juveniles, individuals with intellectual disabilities, or those in extended isolation.[6][11] Additional forms include sensory and physiological deprivation, such as withholding sleep, food, or access to counsel, which amplify psychological strain and mimic physical exhaustion effects. Threats extending to family members or loved ones further constitute coercive leverage, documented in interrogation analyses as heightening compliance rates without direct bodily harm.[21] These methods, while varying by context, share a causal mechanism of eroding resistance through sustained pressure, often yielding statements of dubious evidentiary value.[2]Historical Development
Ancient and Medieval Practices
![Peinliches Verhör][float-right] In ancient Greece, testimony from slaves was generally only deemed credible if obtained under torture, reflecting a legal tradition that distrusted unfree individuals' statements without physical compulsion to ensure truthfulness.[22] Similarly, in the Roman Republic and early Empire, torture (quaestio) was routinely applied to slaves during interrogations to elicit confessions or evidence, as their testimony held no weight absent such coercion; free Roman citizens were largely exempt until the 2nd century CE, when exceptions expanded under emperors like Hadrian.[23] Roman jurist Ulpian, writing in the early 3rd century CE, explicitly critiqued the practice, observing that extreme pain often compelled false confessions rather than reliable admissions, undermining its evidentiary value.[24] Medieval European legal systems broadened the application of coercive methods beyond slaves, integrating torture into both secular and ecclesiastical proceedings to secure confessions for crimes ranging from theft to heresy. The 1252 papal bull Ad extirpanda issued by Pope Innocent IV formally authorized limited torture—without shedding blood or mutilation—for extracting admissions from suspected heretics, marking a pivotal endorsement in canon law that influenced inquisitorial processes across Christendom.[25] In the Medieval Inquisition, established in the 13th century, interrogators employed devices like the rack or strappado suspension to break suspects, prioritizing confession as the "queen of proofs" in heresy trials, though guidelines restricted its use to once per case and forbade application to children or the infirm.[26] A notable instance occurred during the 1307 suppression of the Knights Templar, where French authorities under King Philip IV subjected hundreds of members to torture—including threats of burning and prolonged heating on hot irons—prompting widespread confessions to fabricated charges like idolatry and sodomy; over 100 later recanted upon release from duress, highlighting the method's propensity for compliant but untrue statements.[27] Secular courts, such as those under the peinliches Gericht in the Holy Roman Empire from the 13th century, similarly mandated torture for serious crimes when circumstantial evidence existed, aiming to resolve cases through forced admissions rather than solely circumstantial proof.[28] Despite contemporary awareness of torture's unreliability—evidenced by recantations and juristic debates—the practice persisted, driven by the causal belief that sufficient pain would compel honesty, though empirical outcomes often yielded coerced narratives over factual guilt.[29]Early Modern and Enlightenment Shifts
In the Early Modern period, spanning roughly the 16th to 18th centuries, the routine use of judicial torture to extract confessions persisted across much of continental Europe, particularly in inquisitorial systems where confessions served as the "queen of proofs" for serious crimes like heresy and witchcraft.[30] However, notable regional variations emerged, with England largely abolishing judicial torture by the 1640s, retaining only limited exceptions such as peine forte et dure (pressing to death for refusing to plead), which was eliminated in 1772; this shift reflected growing reliance on witness testimony and circumstantial evidence over coerced admissions, influenced by common law traditions emphasizing voluntariness.[31] In parallel, the decline of witch hunts after their peak in the late 16th and early 17th centuries—exemplified by events like the Würzburg trials (1626–1629), where over 900 executions followed tortured confessions—highlighted empirical doubts about the reliability of such statements, as many recantations occurred post-torture and prosecutions waned amid skepticism from Protestant reformers and Catholic moderates questioning the devil's evidentiary role.[32] By the 17th century, broader transformations in penal practices contributed to reduced reliance on torture for confessions, including the rise of "extraordinary punishments" like preliminary imprisonment and fines, which diminished the need for physical coercion in routine cases, as seen in German territories where torture remained legal but its application decreased due to magisterial confidence in alternative proofs.[33] This era also witnessed a gradual theological and cultural pivot, with changes in Christian doctrine—such as Protestant emphasis on scriptural evidence over sacramental confession and Catholic internal critiques—eroding the doctrinal justification for torture, leading to fewer executions overall and a preference for deterrence through public punishment rather than inquisitorial extraction.[34] Empirical observations from failed prosecutions, where tortured confessions led to inconsistent accusations or lacked corroboration, further undermined their credibility, fostering proto-empirical approaches to evidence in jurisdictions like Sweden, where torture persisted into the early 18th century but faced mounting legal scrutiny.[35] The Enlightenment accelerated these trends through rational critique, culminating in systematic philosophical assaults on forced confessions. Cesare Beccaria's Dei delitti e delle pene (1764) argued that torture was logically flawed: it presumed guilt before proof, inflicted disproportionate suffering on the innocent who withstood it (thus evading justice), and coerced false admissions from the guilty or weak, rendering confessions unreliable as evidence; Beccaria advocated proportionality, publicity, and certainty of punishment over coercion, influencing reforms that prioritized preventive deterrence.[36][37] Voltaire, amplifying these ideas through campaigns like his defense in the Calas affair (1762), where a Protestant's coerced confession under torture led to wrongful execution, publicized the causal unreliability of such methods, decrying them as barbaric relics antithetical to reason and humanity; his advocacy helped galvanize public opinion against secret accusations and physical extraction.[30] These intellectual currents prompted concrete abolitions, such as Tuscany's ban on judicial torture in 1786 under Grand Duke Leopold (Beccaria's patron), France's suspension in 1788 (formalized in 1789 during the Revolution), and Prussia's restrictions under Frederick the Great from 1740 onward, marking a pivot toward evidentiary systems valuing voluntariness and corroboration over compelled testimony.[35] By the late 18th century, English courts formalized exclusions of involuntary confessions, as in Rex v. Warickshall (1783), deeming them inherently suspect due to the coercive context's distortion of truth.[38] This era's shifts thus laid foundational causal realism in jurisprudence, recognizing that pain-induced statements often reflected compliance rather than factual guilt, paving the way for modern inadmissibility rules.[39]19th and 20th Century Institutionalization
In the nineteenth century, formal judicial torture for extracting confessions had been abolished across much of Europe, with nations like Prussia ending the practice in 1754, France in 1789, and others following suit by the early 1800s, shifting reliance toward testimonial evidence and circumstantial proof in adversarial systems.[4] However, informal coercion persisted in policing, particularly in the United States, where late-century urban police forces increasingly employed physical beatings, sleep deprivation, and threats to obtain suspect admissions, marking an early institutional embedding of extralegal pressure within detective work amid rising crime detection demands.[4] These tactics, precursors to formalized methods, were rationalized as necessary for clearing cases reliant on confessions, with Supreme Court precedents from the era, such as Hopt v. Utah (1884), upholding admissions unless overt brutality was proven, thus embedding coerced statements in evidentiary norms despite growing critiques of reliability.[40] The early twentieth century saw the "third degree"—a term denoting systematic coercive interrogation involving prolonged isolation, psychological duress, furniture-throwing intimidation, and covert physical abuse—become routinized in U.S. police departments, especially in cities like New York and Chicago, where it yielded high confession rates but fueled false admissions, as documented in over 100 reported cases of abuse by 1910.[41] The 1931 Wickersham Commission report exposed this institutionalization, revealing widespread use across 191 surveyed departments, prompting partial reforms toward less visible psychological tactics by the 1940s, though physical coercion lingered until Miranda v. Arizona (1966) mandated warnings.[42] In parallel, totalitarian states weaponized forced confessions for ideological control: in Stalin's Soviet Union, the NKVD institutionalized torture protocols during the 1936–1938 Great Terror, extracting fabricated admissions from over 1.5 million arrests to legitimize purges, with methods including beatings, sleep deprivation, and threats to family, resulting in approximately 681,692 executions based on such statements.[43] Nazi Germany's Gestapo similarly systematized brutal interrogations from 1933 onward, employing torture like waterboarding and electric shocks in facilities such as Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse to coerce confessions from political dissidents, Jews, and resistance members, integrating these into the regime's terror apparatus to fabricate evidence for show trials and concentration camp internments.[44] These practices, documented in postwar trials like Nuremberg, underscored confessions' role in propaganda, where public recantations reinforced state narratives, contrasting with Western shifts but highlighting how institutional structures in repressive systems prioritized compliance over truth, often yielding internalized false beliefs under sustained duress.[45] By mid-century, international scrutiny, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, began eroding overt institutional tolerance, though psychological coercion evolved as a subtler successor in various contexts.[4]Methods of Obtaining Forced Confessions
Physical Coercion Techniques
Physical coercion techniques in the context of forced confessions primarily involve the deliberate infliction of acute pain or bodily injury to break the will of the interrogated individual and compel an admission of guilt, often regardless of its veracity. These methods were systematized in judicial processes from the medieval period onward, particularly following the authorization of torture by Pope Innocent IV's 1252 bull Ad extirpanda, which permitted limited physical torment to extract truths from suspected heretics in ecclesiastical courts.[46] Such practices spread to secular authorities, where devices and manual applications were employed to target vulnerable body parts, exploiting the human physiological response to unbearable agony. Empirical accounts from trial records indicate that confessions obtained under these conditions frequently included fabricated details to end the suffering, highlighting the causal unreliability of pain-induced statements.[47] The rack, a contraption featuring a sturdy wooden frame with rotating cylinders at each end, exemplifies mechanical stretching as a coercion tool. Victims' wrists and ankles were fastened to the rollers, which were turned to gradually extend the body, tearing muscles, dislocating joints, and potentially rupturing ligaments—inflicting pain that historical sources describe as prompting rapid capitulation. Introduced in Europe by the 15th century and utilized in England's Tower of London during the 16th and 17th centuries, the rack was applied to political prisoners like Guy Fawkes in 1605, who confessed to the Gunpowder Plot after repeated sessions, though subsequent retraction underscored the method's propensity for eliciting compliant falsehoods.[48] Another prevalent technique, the strappado, involved binding the suspect's hands behind their back, attaching a rope to the wrists, and hoisting the individual toward the ceiling before releasing them to drop partially, jerking the arms upward and often dislocating shoulders or causing brachial plexus damage. Employed extensively during the Spanish Inquisition from the late 15th century, this suspension method was intended solely to procure confessions rather than serve as punishment, with inquisitorial guidelines restricting its duration to avoid permanent maiming while ensuring sufficient torment to override resistance. Records from Inquisition archives reveal its use on thousands, yielding admissions that inquisitors viewed skeptically yet relied upon for convictions.[49] Thumbscrews, vise-like devices clamping the thumbs or fingers between metal plates tightened by screws, compressed digits to the point of crushing bones and severing nerves, targeting high-sensitivity areas for immediate effect. Originating in early modern Europe around the 16th century, these portable instruments were favored for their simplicity and reusability in both religious and civil interrogations, as evidenced by artifacts dated 1601–1850 preserved in museum collections, which were deployed to force revelations or confessions from prisoners. Prolonged application could render hands unusable, but the acute pain typically elicited pleas and statements within minutes.[50] Manual beatings with cudgels, whips, or iron bars constituted a foundational physical coercion approach, predating specialized devices and persisting across eras due to their accessibility. In medieval inquisitorial proceedings, flogging targeted the soles of the feet (falanga) or back, causing swelling, lacerations, and systemic shock to provoke disclosures; similarly, in 20th-century contexts like Burundi's 2015 security operations, agents used iron bars for blunt trauma to extract political confessions. These rudimentary yet effective methods relied on cumulative injury to erode endurance, often corroborated by medical examinations of victims showing fractures and contusions consistent with coerced compliance.[51]Psychological and Interrogative Methods
Psychological interrogation methods target the subject's cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities to erode resistance and prompt confessions, often prioritizing compliance over voluntary disclosure. These approaches exploit principles such as inducing regression, amplifying fears of uncertainty, and fostering dependency, as outlined in declassified intelligence manuals like the 1963 KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation guide, which emphasizes non-physical disruption of the subject's psychological equilibrium through controlled environments and interpersonal dynamics.[52] Isolation from external stimuli and social support is a foundational tactic, creating a sensory and informational vacuum that intensifies disorientation and reliance on the interrogator for resolution.[53] Prolonged questioning sessions, extending up to 18-20 hours in documented cases, leverage fatigue to diminish critical thinking and heighten suggestibility, with interrogators alternating pressure and rapport to prevent total breakdown while sustaining momentum toward admission.[40] Deception plays a central role, including fabricated evidence presentations—such as false witness statements or forensic results—to convince the subject of the futility of denial and trigger self-doubt.[54] Theme development, a key element in accusatory models like the Reid Technique developed in the 1940s, involves interrogators offering morally palatable rationalizations for the crime (minimization, e.g., portraying it as accidental) or exaggerating consequences (maximization, e.g., inevitable severe punishment), aiming to lower the psychological barrier to confession.[55] Threats of prolonged detention or harm to loved ones, coupled with implied promises of leniency for cooperation, further manipulate perceived costs and benefits, often without explicit physical action but through verbal escalation of dread.[53] In resistant cases, psychological coercion escalates via controlled regression techniques, such as disrupting sleep-wake cycles or imposing monotonous routines to foster childlike dependency, as theorized in coercive frameworks where "the threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion itself."[56] These methods, while varying by context—law enforcement versus intelligence—share a reliance on exploiting human responses to stress, with empirical analyses indicating their design prioritizes breaking will over ascertaining truth.[57]Psychological Mechanisms and Evidentiary Reliability
Mechanisms Leading to Compliant or Internalized Confessions
Compliant false confessions occur when individuals, typically innocent, provide admissions of guilt primarily to terminate an aversive interrogation experience, without genuinely believing they committed the offense.[58] This mechanism is driven by situational coercion, including prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, which erode resistance through physical and mental exhaustion; interrogators' minimization techniques that downplay the crime's severity; and maximization tactics emphasizing inevitable conviction without confession.[59] Empirical laboratory studies replicate this by subjecting participants to accusatory questioning and false evidence, resulting in compliance rates of 42-69% among innocents who sign incriminating statements to escape pressure, even while protesting innocence internally.[60] The psychological underpinning is public compliance without private acceptance, akin to Asch's conformity experiments but amplified by high-stakes authority and perceived inescapability. Interrogative ploys like the Reid technique's nine-step process—featuring confrontation, theme development, and evidence presentation—systematically isolate suspects, fostering a cost-benefit calculation favoring temporary admission over continued suffering.[3] Real-world analyses of documented cases, such as those exonerated via DNA, indicate that compliant confessions often contain minimal post-admission details, reflecting superficial acquiescence rather than recalled events.[58] Internalized false confessions represent a more profound distortion, where suspects not only comply but adopt the interrogators' narrative as their own belief, often reconstructing memories to align with suggested guilt. Central to this is memory distrust syndrome, precipitated by authoritative assertions of irrefutable evidence (real or fabricated), which undermine confidence in one's original recollection and prompt cognitive dissonance resolution through self-attribution of fault.[59] Mechanisms include repeated exposure to false details during "evidence" presentation, leading to source misattribution—where implanted information is misremembered as self-generated—and confabulation, the unconscious fabrication of plausible details to fill mnemonic voids.[60] Experimental paradigms, such as those simulating computer errors blamed on participants, demonstrate internalization when conditions involve rapid event pacing, accusatory witnesses, and no immediate disconfirmation, with 20-35% of innocents later reporting false memories of causation.[60] Vulnerability escalates with interrogator claims of forensic proof (e.g., nonexistent DNA matches), exploiting lay underestimation of memory fallibility and overreliance on perceived expertise, as corroborated by meta-analyses of suggestibility effects.[6] Unlike compliant cases, internalized confessions yield detailed, seemingly corroborated narratives, complicating evidentiary detection but highlighting causal pathways from external suggestion to internalized belief via iterative doubt and reconstruction.[58][3]Empirical Data on False Confession Rates
In wrongful conviction cases documented through post-conviction DNA testing, false confessions have been identified in approximately 28% of exonerations as of 2020.[61] This figure rises significantly for homicide convictions, where 61% of 137 DNA-based murder exonerations involved false confessions, including 33 cases of self-confession and 20 involving co-defendant admissions.[61] Among those who falsely confessed in DNA exonerations, 51% were aged 21 or younger at arrest, highlighting vulnerability among juveniles and young adults. The National Registry of Exonerations, which tracks over 3,600 exonerations since 1989, attributes false confessions to about 13% of cases overall as of 2024, with 455 instances documented among 3,608 exonerations.[6] In its 2024 annual report covering 147 exonerations, false confessions factored in 15% (22 cases), often alongside official misconduct (71% of cases) and perjury (72%).[62] These data derive from verified exonerations, where innocence is proven via DNA, vacated convictions, or official pardons, but represent only detected false confessions; undetected cases likely inflate the true prevalence, as confessions powerfully sway juries and investigators.[2] Survey-based estimates suggest broader occurrence: In one study of individuals interrogated by police, 12.4% reported having falsely confessed at some point.[63] Experimental simulations of interrogations yield false confession rates of 15-30% under coercive conditions mimicking real police tactics, such as prolonged questioning and minimization of guilt.[57] Peer-reviewed analyses, including those by Saul Kassin, indicate that in the first 347 DNA exonerations, false confessions appeared in 28%, underscoring their role in undermining evidentiary reliability despite comprising a minority of total interrogations.[64] These rates vary by interrogation duration and suspect traits, with juveniles confessing falsely up to four times more often than adults in laboratory paradigms.| Data Source | Scope | False Confession Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innocence Project DNA Exonerations | 1989–2020, all crimes | 28% | Higher in youth cases (51% under 21).[61] |
| Innocence Project DNA Murder Exonerations | 137 cases | 61% | Includes self- and co-defendant confessions.[61] |
| National Registry of Exonerations | 3,608 cases since 1989 | 13% | Underestimates total due to undetected cases.[6] |
| 2024 NRE Annual Report | 147 exonerations | 15% | Co-occurs with misconduct in most.[62] |