Juvenile false confessions bill dies in House panel

Not even children’s book heroine Anne of Green Gables, called as a witness for a bill aimed at keeping kids from making false confessions to crime, could sway the House of Delegates criminal justice committee.

The bill, sponsored by Del. Jackie Glass, D-Norfolk, would say judges should presume that juveniles’ confessions could not be used as evidence if a police officer or sheriff’s deputy told the youth that they’d be able to talk to their parents or get lighter or no punishment if they confessed.

That presumption could be challenged by prosecutors, a shift in which side needs to make a case about whether confessions can or cannot be used in trial.

Katherine Currin, a Hampton Roads lawyer who practices family and criminal law, said a recent study of the University of Michigan’s National Registry of Exoneration – a record of people who were found innocent of criminal charges – showed that 78% of youth under 14 who confessed to crimes were actually innocent, while 54% of those under 15 were.

“It’s that situation where law enforcement says: ‘just say you did it, and you can go home,’” Currin said.

A lawyer speaking in favor of the bill said that in the story, Anne was called as a witness because of an incident in which she was accused of taking another girl’s brooch and told she would be confined to her room until she confessed.

She confessed, saying she was “overcome by an irresistible temptation” to “play I was the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald” – but soon afterward, the brooch was found where the other girl had forgotten she left it.

“You said you’d keep me here until I confessed,” Anne explained later, “and so I decided to confess … I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed and made it as interesting as I could.”

But Deputy Attorney General Nicole Wittman, opposing the bill, said there are already sufficient protections against false confessions.

Juvenile court judges are particularly aware of the risk, and are careful to ensure confessions are valid, she said.

Nate Green, commonwealth’s attorney for Williamsburg and James City County, said the bill would create a mandatory hearing on whether evidence should be suppressed.

“It says we don’t trust law enforcement … and we don’t trust defense attorneys handling these cases,” he said.

But the communities where the bill’s protections were most needed were those where trust in the police is high, and “for the young person who trusts the police … who’s going be say, ‘Yes sir, Yes sir,’” said Del. Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, arguing for the bill.

The panel’s Republican majority killed it on a 5-2 party-line vote.

By a similar vote, the committee killed a measure to limit forfeiture, the seizure by police of money or cars, when they arrest a suspect.

But it found unanimity on two measures.

One provided a way for charges to be dismissed against people accused of a nonviolent minor crime who are deemed incompetent to stand trial, that is, unable to understand what is happening to them in court.

The idea here is that if it doesn’t seem likely for mental health workers to restore that person’s competency within 45 days – a bit longer than any likely sentence for such offenses – and if that person is so ill that a temporary detention order is necessary, the charges can be dismissed if the prosecutor and judge agree.

The other measure dealt with credit prisoners can earn for early release, saying those convicted of a felony in which they used a gun were not eligible for that program.