피의자의 허위자백 방지를 위한 조사기법의 고도화 방안: 일본 연구회의 조사 및 수사기법 고도화를 위한 최종보고를 중심으로

Abstract

The strongest evidence that police can get is a confession. However, a criticism that says the current investigation customs are overly centered around confession has been brought up not only in Korea but also in developed countries like the United States. Especially in Japan, a series of judgments of acquittal on defendants who had been indicted through police investigation relied mainly on verbal or written confession evoked public criticisms that the entire police investigation system might be flawed. Alarmed by this, the Japanese National Public Safety Commission launched a research group for the sophistication of investigation methods and questioning. For the following two years, they showed a blueprint for the future by researching means of making investigation process more transparent and more sophisticated. The cases of false confession of innocent suspects that threatened the foundation of crime investigation of Japanese police can always happen in our investigation environment. Therefore, an investigator should be well aware of the theoretical mechanisms of how an innocent suspect comes to make a false confession. An investigator's excessive enthusiasm can drive an innocent suspect to make a false confession. With this problem in mind, this paper suggests solutions to prevent false confession: complete transparency of investigation process, monitoring rules for maintaining an appropriate level of suspect investigation, guidelines for listening to suspect's confession, approval of the use of expert opinions in identifying false confession, physical improvements to the interrogation room, more extensive education of police investigators, and consideration of enacting new investigation methods. Police should make an every effort to improve criminal justice system which involves the enhancement of investigation capacity to prevent false confession.