Get this:
• In recent years, the use of DNA evidence has allowed experts to identify false confessions in unprecedented and disturbing numbers.
• In the past two decades, researchers have documented some 250 instances of false confessions, many resulting in life sentences and at least four in wrongful executions.
We used to call it nerves. It’s much more deeply wired in our brain than that.
When the polygraph man left the room at 10:45 p.m., Sterling began to panic. If he stayed, he feared, the police wouldn’t stop—but asking to leave or for a lawyer, he thought, would be as good as admitting he was a murderer.