Redlich to study role of false confessions in exoneration, compensation

Allison Redlich, Professor, Criminology, Law and Society, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for a project in which she will study the role of false confessions in the exoneration and compensation of wrongfully convicted individuals.

This collaborative research project has three objectives.

Redlich’s first objective is to investigate the possible structural-level (e.g., wrongful conviction in a compensation statute state or not; exonerated with assistance from an innocence project); case-level (e.g., false confession or not), and individual-level (e.g., exoneration status [official vs. not], race) factors that influence whether an exoneree receives no, partial, or full compensation, and the types of compensation, financial or otherwise.

Her second objective is to examine the effects of the receipt of varying levels of compensation on exoneree outcomes. She will also examine whether (and if so, how) time-to-compensation impacts post-conviction well-being and re-entry adjustment.

Redlich will accomplish the first and second objectives via in-depth interviews with (a) attorneys who have handled compensation cases, (b) exonerees who have and have not (yet) received compensation and who did and did not falsely confess, and (c) a subset of innocence advocates.

Her third objective is to causally determine if exonerees who falsely confessed are more disadvantaged post-exoneration in terms of finding employment than those who did not falsely confess, guilty paroled offenders, and those with no criminal history. Redlich will accomplish her third objective via an experimental, in-field correspondence study.

As for what she hopes to accomplish by this study, Redlich said: “By conducting a comprehensive field experiment and in-depth interviews with exonerees, attorneys, and innocence advocates, my collaborator and I hope to provide critical information to improve state and federal policies necessary to help right the injustices of wrongful conviction.”

Redlich will receive $192,483 from NSF for this work. Funding will begin in June 2021 and will end in late May 2023.

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