Posts Tagged ‘interrogation’

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Study Shows That False Confessions May Be More Common Than Previously Thought

By Dawn in Criminal Records, Interrogation, Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Technology at October 13th, 2011 | No comments

Dr. Gisli Gudjonsson is a professor of forensic psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College in London. He has recently published a study that demonstrates that almost 20% of criminals that have been convicted were convicted through a false confession given during their interrogations by investigators.

Research has found that in the United States voluntary false confessions are much higher than previously thought. These confessions are being proven incorrect through DNA evidence.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching “Cold Case Files.” On this program, cold cases are often solved with the use of DNA evidence. Other “real” crime shows often tell stories of how many people have spent years/decades in prisons for crimes they did not commit. Most of these innocent people were convicted before the advances that have been made in DNA over the last two decades. Fortunately for those who are lucky enough to have their case re-opened, the justice sytem has done an amazing  job of preserving evidence. Read the full article »

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Amanda Knox Trial is Over, but Meredith Kercher Murder Mystery Remains

By Dawn in Crime, Interrogation, Investigations, MSI Detective Services, murder at October 7th, 2011 | No comments

Merideth’s killer was no expert at murder. It was amateur work. There were bloody fingerprints and footprints all over the apartment, and the killer even defecated in the toilet and forgot to flush. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Whoever murdered Meredith Kercher didn’t know how to use a knife.

The first two wounds weren’t deep enough to do fatal damage, the knife catching on bone. On the third attempt, the killer plunged the knife into a soft spot in her throat.  The attacker then pulled the weapon from left to right several times in a sawing motion, then up and back, leaving a gash more than three inches long and three inches deep. It was evident from the savagery of this final blow, that the intent was to kill. But since the blade missed the carotid artery, Kercher’s agony lasted as long as ten minutes. An experienced killer would have known better. Read the full article »

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The Burden of Lying

By Dawn in Crime, Interrogation, Lie Detection, MSI Detective Services at October 3rd, 2011 | No comments

Psychological scientists are fascinated, as am I, by the tactics used by investigators in trying to determine if a suspect is lying. Detecting lies and liars is essential to effective policing and prosecution of criminals, but it is maddeningly difficult. Most of us can correctly spot barely more than half of all lies and truths through ­listening and observation—meaning we are wrong almost as often as we are right. And half a century of research has done little to polish this unimpressive track record.

But scientists are still working to improve on that, and among them is social psychologist Aldert Vrij of the University of Portsmouth in England. Vrij has been using a key insight from his field to improve interrogation methods: the human mind, despite its impressive abilities, has limited capacity for how much thinking it can handle at any one time. So piling on demands for additional, simultaneous thought—or cognitive “load”—compromises normal information processing. Because lying is more cognitively demanding than telling the truth, these compromised abilities should be revealed in detectable behavioral clues. Read the full article »

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Solyndra Leaders Invoke 5th Amendment at Hearing

By Dawn in Criminal Background Check, due diligence, Interrogation, Investigations, legal papers, MSI Detective Services, Politics at September 29th, 2011 | No comments

Top executives from a bankrupt California solar energy company declined to testify before a congressional hearing investigating their half-billion dollar government loan. Solyndra Inc. CEO Brian Harrison and the company’s chief financial officer, Bill Stover, both invoked their Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify to avoid self-incrimination.

Solyndra Inc. received a $528 million loan from the Energy Department in 2009.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., compared the Solyndra loan to the Great Train Robbery in England in the 1960s. Upton faulted the Obama administration for its role in the loan, saying at a minimum the Energy Department did not complete due diligence on the company, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the years before the loan was approved. He called the loan “reckless use of taxpayer dollars on a company that was known to pose serious risks before a single dime went out the door.”

One does wonder why due diligence is often over-looked when “someone else’s money” is being spent – in this case it’s our tax dollars. I wonder if background checks, investigation of past fraud practices, or interrogatory questions would be asked if this were a private sector transaction. Not to say those oversights never occur, but they are less likely because it’s an investors money or a company’s money being spent and their money is not being backed by the government, as is the case in this deal. Committee leaders said the administration may have violated the law when it restructured Solyndra’s loan in February in such a way that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of default. The economic stimulus law provides for taxpayers to be ahead of other creditors in the event of bankruptcy or default.

Hiring a private investigative firm wouldn’t take much effort, such as MSI Detective Services. Our investigative services could have handled the necessary due diligence through background checks, past fraud, interviews, etc.
Read full story@ msnbc

 

 

 

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