Manhattan prosecutors are learning to do more accurate witness and suspect interviews

Prosecutors and investigators in Manhattan are learning a new way to interview suspects, witnesses and victims that aims to be more ethical and accurate than traditional interrogations.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office is teaching its staff a technique that draws on scientific research about the human brain to inform the tactics investigators use as they speak with people who may be involved in a criminal case. The goal, according to the DA’s office, is to gather more reliable information — as well as to avoid false confessions and prevent wrongful convictions

The latest training comes as the DA’s office faces a choice about whether to retry Pedro Hernandez, the man who confessed to kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz as he walked alone to his school bus stop in SoHo in 1979. Last month, a federal appeals court overturned Hernandez’s 2017 conviction, arguing that the trial judge improperly answered a question from the jury about how to assess various confessions Hernandez made. Defense attorneys have argued those confessions were false. The ruling noted Hernandez has a history of mental illness and initially confessed to police after hours of questioning, during which he cried and laid on the floor.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg declined to comment on Hernandez’s case, which his predecessor, Cy Vance, tried twice. In an interview, Bragg said his office has embraced science-based interviewing in recent years to help prosecutors gather detailed and accurate intel.

“The heartbeat of what we do is elicit information, whether that’s from a witness, a victim or survivor, someone accused of a crime,” he said. “We are asking questions to elicit information. And just at the base of this, we want to get it right.”

The Manhattan DA’s office started to teach its staff about science-based interviewing in 2022, after its head of training learned about the methodology from other law enforcement agencies. The office expects more than 200 of its employees to be trained in the strategy by the end of the summer. Bragg said the technique can help investigators to learn more granular details about what happened — and more accurate ones. It rebuffs old-school methods like the Reid Technique, which taught investigators across the country nine steps to get a confession — but was later found to often result in false confessions, particularly with young people.

“ We want to make sure that we are following up and getting appropriate, reliable leads, right? And not suggesting answers that may take us down the wrong roads,” Bragg said.

Last Tuesday, about two dozen prosecutors, investigators and other staffers jotted notes on legal pads as they learned about how the brain makes and recalls memories. Wayne Thomas, a researcher and former government intelligence officer in the United Kingdom, walked the class through various diagrams describing different types of memories and processes for remembering. He advised the students to start with open-ended questions and avoid telling people details they don’t already know. The session was part of a five-day training, which also included role-playing exercises and analyses of videotaped interviews.

More law enforcement agencies and prosecutor’s offices across the country have started to train investigators on science-based interviewing techniques, from Morris County, New Jersey to Liberal, Kansas and El Dorado, California. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers also offer a five-day “science-based course” to hone investigators’ interviewing skills.

Melissa Russano, a psychologist and criminal justice professor at Roger Williams University who studies science-based interviewing, said the focus is on gathering information, rather than getting a confession. She said the methodology teaches police, prosecutors and intelligence officials to use principles of cognitive and social psychology so they can gather more reliable information and minimize the likelihood of false statements.

Russano has studied the effectiveness of training law enforcement in science-based interview techniques. Her research has found taking the approach can help investigators to get interview subjects to cooperate and share information. But her research has also found that investigators trained in science-based interviewing don't all stop using more old-fashioned, accusatorial interrogation techniques.

“We probably need to be fairly direct about explaining to investigators why to avoid these certain techniques if we want to see a decrease in use,” she said. “ Because otherwise, what we risk is the combining of science-based techniques with accusatory techniques. And that can be very concerning and potentially very problematic.”

‘Be skeptical and keep doubts in your mind’

Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace University Law School, said science-based interviewing sounds like a step in the right direction, but that he’s not confident it can improve the criminal justice system in a significant way.

“I don’t think there’s one easy solution. I don’t think there’s a kryptonite,” he said.

Gershman, a former prosecutor at the Manhattan DA’s office, said he doubts even the most adept interviewer could overcome the shortcomings of the human brain — particularly people’s struggles to remember certain details. He described a simulation he conducted with his law school students several years ago, in which he had a police officer disguised as a student run into the classroom with a toy gun and threaten him. He said he instructed his students to write a description of what they had witnessed about 10 minutes later, and many of them got key details wrong. In real-life cases, he said, investigators are often interviewing people after much more time has passed.

To avoid false confessions and wrongful convictions, Gershman said, investigators must have an incentive to find the truth, not just to get a conviction. Beyond interviewing techniques, he said, investigators should pay attention to information that challenges their theories, rather than succumbing to “tunnel vision.”

“ I want prosecutors and police to struggle hard with the case, be skeptical and keep doubts in your mind all along the way,” he said.

The leaders of the Manhattan DA’s post conviction justice unit, which reviews potentially wrongful convictions, have been trained in science-based interviewing, according to Linda Ford, counsel to the legal training unit at the Manhattan DA’s office. Ford said the goal is for every staff member who conducts interviews to go through the training. She also plans to create a mentoring program led by staff who have gone through the training, so the methodology becomes more ingrained in the office’s culture.

Ford started working for the office as a prosecutor in 1988, at a time when crime was high and the main interviewing advice she received was to “watch, listen and learn,” she said.

“ I learned by doing, and that can work, but it's massively inefficient,” she said. “It depends on you having exposure to good role models, and it is very vulnerable to adopting bad habits and perpetuating bad habits.”

With science-based interviewing, Ford said, she hopes it will become the norm for prosecutors and investigators to use the most effective tools possible to gather information.

“ There's so many other things that could be going on in any given interview, and we need to look at it holistically to understand what is happening,” she said. “So having the understanding of what could be going on with the person in front of you then allows you to adapt.”