To be honest I was never much interested into the show the press made of the tragic murder of Meredith Kercher. It even escaped me that a third person has been convicted her murder and only knew the name of the 'sexy' American suspect.
This post is certainly not about guilt or innocence, however it is interesting to notice that quite objectively many factors of this case and its interrogations share traits with mentioned study cases in which false confessions were obtained. Her youth, the lack of a lawyer, the repeated questioning, the status as 'witness', the (quick) denial of the confession and the position as foreigner with a lack of support and language skills are all tendencies pointing in the same direction. Even if we discount the use of mild physical violence, which is not unheard of in Italy, and the likely use of lies a false confessions seems to be a strong possibility. There is of course only quite flimsy physical evidence supporting the prosecution and the words of man which with practically no doubt committed the murder and which sentence got almost halved after the first conviction of the pair as murderers.
Like in many questionable American case the interrogations were not captured by video or recorder and the forensics were handled quite shoddily.
I might add that in Italy the public opinion has bee rather split, at least to the votes for comments on the website of the Corriere. Lots of emotions and plenty of people who think that the Italian justice system has made itself a fool in the eyes of the world. As I wrote before I have no idea what happened but it was worth to quickly look at the case with some science in mind.
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