cover image Anatomy of a False Confession: The Interrogation and Conviction of Brendan Dassey

Anatomy of a False Confession: The Interrogation and Conviction of Brendan Dassey

Michael D. Cicchini. Rowman & Littlefield, $32 (248p) ISBN 978-1-5381-1715-6

Defense attorney Cicchini (Convicting Avery: The Bizarre Laws and Broken System Behind “Making a Murderer”) uses the notorious murder case at the center of a Netflix true crime documentary as a framework for exploring deficiencies in the American system of criminal justice. His focus is on the methods used by Wisconsin police to get Brendan Dassey, a “16-year-old kid with a low IQ score,” to confess to involvement with Steven Avery in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach, a confession that Cicchini maintains was both false and coerced. In easy-to-read chapters, Cicchini spells out common methods interrogators use, including lying to a suspect, distorting the meaning of the Miranda warnings, and threats. On the minus side, Cicchini displays a clear pro-defense bias (he suggests, misleadingly, that it’s only prosecutors who use jury selection to preview their cases) and can be distractingly hyperbolic, as when he claims that in most of the U.S. “no case is too small for the police to pursue to the ends of the earth.” Still, this is an accessible look at the problem of false confessions for lay readers unfamiliar with better treatments of the subject, such as James L. Trainum’s [em]How the Police Generate False Confessions: An Inside Look at the Interrogation Room. (Nov.) [/em]