Reshmi Nair LING 239 Concept Map #4 (Chapter11)

In this chapter, Shuy talks about confessions and interrogation techniques. The one main point that he stressed upon in this chapter was about having clear and precise conversation to know what happened. He explains about how in most of his cases there always was a missing tape, which lead to inconclusive since a part of the confession or the interrogation is missing. This is a concept that as students of linguistics, we have to be trained to analyze what is given to us and when only half of a confession or an interrogation tape is given, we have to learn to work with it. In the end of the chapter he talks about how doctors stress on the fact that their patients should always tell them the truth and how even enforcement officers should stress on it law. He names his cases to show how some of them had missing audios which did not help the case. He also explains some cases where the law enforcement officers were ambiguous with their questions and how that can affect the whole interview. The concept of ambiguity in the question by law enforcement can be a little difficult since to a man who id nervous about being questioned by the law enforcement officers, he may not understand the question and answer in a different manner. Thus, puts forth the question that does these kind of ambiguous questions lead innocent people to give false confessions. He even explains the difference between interrogation and interview and how the law enforcement officer should not try to be dominant while questioning the person and just have them explain the story. The power that is held by the interviewer in an interrogation is not found in an interview, and so an interview can be described as where both the interviewer and the interviewee has the power.

As students who are reading and analyzing false confessions, we see how false confessions are created in an interview. He explains the case where Detective Corboy and Whalen had interviewed Gardner and was patient and by doing so they let her give her own confession without any coercion. This helps us understand how in some cases, the law enforcement officers coerce the interviewees into confessing and at times these confessions become a false confession since the person may not have actually done the crime. He also talks about inconsistencies and how they can be concluded to deception. He also explains how in some of his cases he did not have all of the audio tapes and so he had to work with what was given. This was a very interesting point since as a student of forensic linguistics, we are trained to look at everything that is given and when we have only some of it, the work does become problematic since we may not have known what was said or written in the missing parts, which leads to inconsistency.