Reasons for confession retraction

There are many psychological reasons for the phenomenon of confession retraction. It is possible that the criminal suspect and defendant changed the content of the original confession due to memory, or overturned the original confession out of luck and denial motivation. It is possible that the original confession was produced under the conditions of extorting a confession by torture, inducing a confession and pointing out a confession, and then retracted it. However, in any case, its purpose is often the same, that is, to deny the confession that was originally unfavorable or not very favorable to oneself through retraction, and to propose a confession that is favorable or more favorable to oneself. As a manifestation of confession, confession itself is not prohibited by China's criminal procedure law, mainly considering that the reasons for confession are often not limited to the denial motives of criminal suspects or defendants. Whether the confession can be established conforms to the effective conditions that the confession of the suspect and the defendant is used as evidence, that is, it must have objective authenticity, objective relevance and procedural legitimacy. As long as the confessions of criminal suspects and defendants are based on sufficient and conclusive facts of the case, their contents can be an effective basis for finalizing the case.

1. Extorting confessions by torture and inducing confessions led to the defendant's retraction.

After a criminal incident, it is the unshirkable responsibility of investigators to capture the suspect. Some investigators are unwilling to do in-depth and detailed investigation and evidence collection out of improper psychology, and use torture to extract confessions from criminal suspects, resulting in the criminal suspects confessing. This method did make some rebellious murderers confess their crimes, which enabled the case to be solved, but it also made some innocent people feel wronged and confessed their crimes against their will. When the case is handed over to other organs, the confession will be withdrawn.

2. Family members and lawyers tipped them off, which led to the defendant's retraction.

Some defendants confessed their crimes truthfully when they were just questioned after being detained, because they were very scared and did not have the conditions and ability to deal with the investigation. But over time, the family members tipped off the defendant through some lawyers who lacked professional ethics, so that the defendant overturned the previous true confession and retracted his confession. In the bribery case handled by the author, first of all, Liu confessed to receiving a gold necklace from Wang in a hotel, worth more than 2,000 yuan. Wang gave the necklace because Liu provided him with a loan. However, when the defendant learned that Wang had gone abroad to inherit the estate and the investigators failed to extract the testimony of the briber, he denied the fact of accepting bribes and then retracted his confession.

3. Causing the defendant to retract his confession after learning the consequences of shielding others.

Some defendants acted alone out of brotherhood, in order to spare their friends from punishment, or to let other accomplices in the same case mitigate their crimes. However, when the defendant knew a little about legal knowledge and learned that the crime of substitution would be severely punished by law, he overturned the original confession and made a true confession.

4. The fluky psychology of escaping punishment led the defendant to retract his confession.

After committing a crime, some defendants quickly broke through the psychological defense line once they were arrested by the judicial organs, thus truthfully confessing their criminal facts. After they were taken into custody, after a period of adaptation, they gained some experience in dealing with judicial trials, or the accomplices used contact opportunities such as expressing their opinions to recant their confessions, and the defendants were lucky enough to be fired, overturning their previous true confessions and recanting their confessions.