[valkyrie]

On Friday, another man convicted of murder after confessing was released from prison after DNA evidence revealed that he did not commit the crime. I wonder how many of you here would have pulled the switch and killed Mr. Bell?

From the Chicago Tribune:

Bell, 25, was charged with the July 2000 murder of his mother, Netta, after he made a videotaped confession in which he said he stabbed her to death because she had resumed her cocaine habit.

Bell, who is mildly mentally retarded and has a long history of mental illness, said in court documents that he confessed because police hit him so hard that he was knocked off a chair and because he grew weary and hopeless after being in custody for more than two days.

He said he believed that once in front of a judge he could explain that he was innocent and the judge would set him free. Instead, he was prosecuted and jailed.

Cook County prosecutors dropped charges Friday after a final round of DNA testing failed to link him to the crime. Instead, the tests have connected another man already in jail for a crime similar to Netta Bell's murder. That man, prosecutors said, remains under investigation, although he has not been charged in Netta Bell's murder.

One of Bell's lawyers, Herschella Conyers, said videotaping the interrogations that produce confessions is a crucial step in preventing false admissions.

"You can't not tape the 50 hours of denials, and not tape the time the police strike someone in the head, and not tape the way the person is coached into saying whatever he says, and then only flip on the camera for the actual confession," said Conyers of the University of Chicago's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic.

"You have to tape everything that leads up to it."

According to Geller's study of departments that tape interrogations, it cuts down on claims of coercion and abuse and often leads to guilty pleas because a videotape of an interrogation and confession is powerful evidence.