Saul Kassin, one of America’s leading and most renowned experts on false confessions, analyzed the police interrogations

Saul Kassin is one of the founding fathers in this field of study. An expert on police interrogation tactics (Reid Technique), Saul Kassin’s work on false confessions has been validated by the many DNA exonerations of those who falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit due to police coercion. From his official biography: Saul Kassin is the lead author on the Official APA (American Psychological Association) White Paper on false confessions. His work is cited all over the world–including by the Supreme Courts of the U.S., Canada, and Israel.

Saul Kassin outlines many troubling issues with how the police conducted their interrogations with Kimberly Renee Poole. Here’s an excerpt from his full analysis of the Kimberly Renee Poole police interrogations (read Part 2 here):

When a suspect offers details that match the known facts or lead to the discovery of new evidence, her narrative can absolutely corroborate a guilty confession. However, when a suspect’s story does not contain new details (facts not otherwise obtained from news media, street talk, or leading interview questions), does not fit the known facts of the case, or contains errors, then it fails to corroborate the guilt implied by the confession. Anyone can be forced to say “I did it,” but without exposure to external sources of information, only the true perpetrator can recount the actual details.

An examination of Ms. Poole’s post-admission narrative with the facts of this case reveals that she provides no details that are novel, or knowable only to the perpetrator, or that lead to the discovery of new evidence.

Moreover, the 6/13 statement reveals that Ms. Poole at times reverted to her initial “innocence” story, even after having been persuaded to make an admission of guilt (e.g., after admitting to a conspiracy, she reverted to her prior position that “I did not know he was at the beach”). Thus, even after succumbing to the detectives’ demands, she occasionally slipped back into a narrative that betrayed a different story. Also revealing in this regard is that Ms. Poole’s admissions were filled with guarded, uncertain, even hypothetical language (e.g., “Maybe it’s because he thought that he could have me”; “But I really don’t think I told him where we were staying”; “He told me to take him to the bar, whatever bar that was…”; “I want to remember, um I really want to say that he tackled him to the ground”). In a most telling exchange, Det. Altman stated, in trying to help construct a scenario, that “John is going to follow you throughout the night…” Ms. Poole agreed with this assertion, saying, “Yeah he had to of”. Thus, she did not say that he “did”, but rather that he “had to of” — the language people use when engaging in inference and speculation.