The Confession Tapes

Really, you think the police should more investigate to protect people and catch guilty people but here unfortunately they try hard to push on suspected people and let them confessions so the sentences based on only suspected confessions not on evidence or DNA and that shameful on justice. However, if the policemen have stopped more investigating for the arrest of the criminals. They are inflicting innocent people in prison while the killers are free!!

An eye opening series showing how in certain situations a person can be coerced into confession. Some of the footage is down right appalling, how the cops treated these people and broke them down. For each case the interviews were relevant, and the archival footage well used. Though it did sometimes feel like the whole story wasn't being shown.

After watching the first 3 shows of the first season I have to take a break. The injustice portrayed here is stunning and enraging. Prosecutors and police will lie, cheat, hide evidence, manufacture evidence, all the time KNOWING that they need to do this to make people seem guilty, then when they are clearly exonerated by DNA, confessions, or other means, they still have the gall to insist that these poor people deserved to be punished. Until we hold prosecutors accountable, this travesty of justice will continue. In the last one I saw, a group of black men had their case brought to the Supreme Court, THIS disgusting and stolen Supreme Court. I don't have to tell you what happened.

The possibility of a false confession is something every citizen in the USA should understand, because everyone has to do jury duty. This series is really a public service announcement and lesson in civics that all of us should receive.

While others say that this series shows a failure of the US justice system, it really shows the failures of human psychology, because all of these people received a guilty verdict from a jury--12 regular citizens. So many jurors think, "Why would they confess if they didn't do it? They must be guilty!" without wanting to realize the complexities of human psychology--especially under pressure and intimidation.

In all of the cases presented, the lawyers of the defendant gave strong cases, and if the jurors were willing to read in-between the lines and see the tell-tale signs of a false confession, then perhaps the fates of these poor individuals would have been much different. The grounds for an innocent verdict were there and were not suppressed.

This series is extremely well done, and the cases that they chose to present were airtight in their logic and defense of an innocent verdict. We see the humanity of the accused innocent--as well as of the lawyers and jurors that accused them. We see the arrogance and irresponsibility of police investigators and judges.

The only thing I see missing from this series is a follow up as to what happened at the appeals. It shocked me that, in many of these cases, the accused had exhausted their appeals, and I am left wondering, why?!?! How can an injustice like this be committed over and over again?!?! But there are no details given as to why their appeals failed.

The lesson I see from this series is that the failure of justice cannot be chalked up to an obscure authority of "The US justice system" but rather a failure of citizens (jurors, media reporters/journalists, police, lawyers, judges) to think abstractly and critically--and HUMANELY. When an injustice is committed, it is a known fault of human psychology to try to pin blame somewhere, anywhere--but an innocent person's life may be ruined, and in many cases these people's lives were ruined before ever even being convicted.

I hope future seasons of The Confession Tapes will give a glimpse into what happens in the appeals process, but other than that, this series gives a voice to the voiceless and is truly a work of art and philanthropy.

I find these real hard to watch because of some of these idiotic Sheriff's and DA's.... I'm all for putting people away that commit serious crimes but God almighty it's simple to see some of these men or women had absolutely nothing to do with these crimes... And man oh man how does some of these people get law enforcement jobs