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November 20, 2008
Posted: 02:04 PM ET
NEW YORK — Everyone is talking about the kid. The 8-year-old charged with murder after his father and a friend were shot and killed. Now the judge is allowing the boy to spend Thanksgiving with his mother. Not surprisingly, over the objection of prosecutors. The same prosecutors who let slip the videotape interrogation of the boy.
Prosecutors claim Vincent Romero was killed by his 8-year-old son And here’s what is surprising: There is no lawyer, or even a parent present. At first the boy is consistent in his denials. But later in the tape, the boy gives in. A young child can be persuaded to say he did something, even if he didn’t. And statistics support that conclusion. In the more than 200 cases of people exonerated by DNA, that are proven to be innocent, 25 percent of them confessed to a crime they didn’t commit. And study after study shows that young people are highly suggestible. Kids are more likely than adults not only to confess, but when faced with the shock and horror of it all, and confronted repeatedly by police, kids actually start to believe they did something they, in fact, did not do. That’s why there is never an excuse for interrogating a child without a parent present. Even if you don’t care about his constitutional rights, which police clearly did not, it’s just bad police work. Now the account of what really happened is forever corrupted by the interrogation of a child who may just be a victim. -Jami Floyd, In Session anchor Filed under: Jami Floyd Last Word |
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