NYC NOW - Prosecutors Turn to Science to Rethink Interview Techniques

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

In Manhattan, prosecutors and investigators are learning a new way to interview suspects, witnesses, and victims in an effort to get more accurate information and prevent false confessions. As WNYC's Samantha Max tells host Janae Pierre, the new technique draws on scientific research about the human brain.

Welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. Thanks for joining us on your Saturday. Ever thought about the strategies investigators use when interviewing suspects or witnesses? The questions asked, the photos shared from the crime scene. It all plays a role in getting to the truth. In Manhattan, prosecutors and investigators are learning a new way to interview suspects, witnesses, and victims in hopes to get more accurate information and prevent false confession. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is teaching its staff a technique that draws on scientific research about the human brain.

WMYC's Samantha Max has been digging into this new technique. The whole idea of science-based interviewing is exactly what it sounds like. So it's based in science about the brain. So different research studies that have been done showing how people remember things, how people access those memories as opposed to the old techniques for instance. instance, this technique called the read technique that lots of detectives and investigators had learned where you're supposed to follow these nine very specific steps to get a confession. And that technique had been shown to be really effective at getting people to confess, but not necessarily so effective to get a truthful confession. So science-based interviewing, it's a general philosophy of incorporating brain science into how you go about things.

and the hope is that it will help people to remember more details, to tell things that are more accurate, and to prevent false confessions. So why is science-based interviewing better than the re-technique? I mean, the hope is that it's more ethical and more accurate, more truthful. You're basically trying to help people tap into these memories that can be hard to access. and you also are really trying to prevent them from confessing to something that they didn't do. So one of the key things that people are taught when they go through this training is don't tell people things they don't already know. Like don't say, oh, the person was wearing this colored jacket because maybe they don't know that and then they're going to think that it's true. So I talked to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who is offering this training.

And he was telling me just about how getting information is really at the heart of the work that his office does. So they're trying to shift to this strategy based in science so that they can try to get the right information. We want to make sure that we are following up and getting appropriate, reliable leads and not suggesting answers that may take us down the wrong roads. And then I also spoke with Linda Ford. She leads training at the DA's office. She is the person who really brought all of this to the office. She actually started working as a prosecutor back in the late 1980s. That was a time when crime was really high.

She was doing lots and lots of interviews. She says the main guidance that she got back then was to just watch, listen, and learn. I learned by doing. And that can work, but it's massively inefficient. It depends on you having exposure to good role models. And it is very vulnerable to adopting bad habits and perpetuating bad habits. So Ford says that she wants it to be the norm in the office for people to use science when they're doing these interviews. So the plan for now is to train as many people as possible, including as new people are joining the office and then create a mentorship program.

So people who have already gone through the training can really. kind of instill it in the culture of the DA's office. Are we seeing this training play out in any other cities across the nation? Yeah, it has been happening at the federal level. It has also been happening in different places across the country, California, Kansas, just to name a few. And I understand that you set in on one of those trainings. What was that like?

It was interesting. It was about a couple dozen prosecutors and investigators all just Sitting at tables and then in the front of the room is this psychologist who is a former detective and he had these diagrams showing people the brain and different ways that memory works and really just kind of doing an interactive training where people are both learning the science behind things but also there are elements of it where people are doing practice interviews or they're watching an interview and then analyzing it to see what went well, what went wrong, things like that. So I know you've been talking with a bunch of legal experts. Some are on board. Obviously, everyone isn't. But tell me about those who have concerns about this. Yeah, one of the law professors that I talk to is Bennett Gershman.

He now teaches at Pace University Law School. Before that, he was a defense attorney and before that he actually worked at the Manhattan DA's office. He told me that science-based interviewing sounds good in theory, but the reality is that people's brains just, aren't perfect in how they remember things. So he was telling me that he's skeptical of whether even the most skilled and trained interviewer could get really accurate information. Then he was telling me about this simulation that he did with some of his law school students a few years ago where he had a police officer dressed as a student come in,

claiming to be angry about a bad grade and saying that they had a gun, threatening the teacher. Oh, no. How did that play out? Yeah, this was a chaotic situation. The person left, and then a few minutes later, Gershman had his students write out a statement of what they had just seen and also look at a lineup of suspects. And he was really surprised. He saw that his students missed key details, even just about 10 minutes after the fact. So, of course, in real life cases, often a lot of times, much more time has. passed between when something happens and when an interview happens. And the main point that he made

to me was that, above all else, prosecutors and investigators need to not get so focused on one theory and just really be open to whatever facts might come up. I want prosecutors and police to struggle hard with a case. Be skeptical and then try to learn as much as you can. If there are inconsistencies, if there are contradictions, don't throw them away. So Gersman says detectives and prosecutors should feel, morally certain that they have the right person. That was how he put it to me. And I guess that's a good time to segue and talk about this major update that happened last month in the case of Aiton Pate's.

He's the six-year-old who disappeared while walking to a bus stop in Soho decades ago back in 1979. A Manhattan jury convicted Pedro Hernandez of kidnapping and felony murder several years ago. But a federal appeals court just throughout that conviction. What happened there, Sam? Yeah, so Hernandez was charged in 2012 after a police investigation. The NYPD had brought him to the precinct for questioning after law enforcement got a tip that maybe he was involved. Apparently over the years, he had told people varying stories that he may have been involved in the Pate's case. According to court papers, detectives questioned him for hours.

At times, it got so intense that he was lying on the floor in fetal position. he was shaking. After hours of this, Hernandez did confess and police arrested him. Here's a clip of then-N-YPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. We have a written confession, a signed confession. He spoke for three and a half hours videotape statements. So obviously we believe that this is probable cause to go forward with this arrest. So in the year since, there have been questions about this confession that happened at the precinct and other confessions that Hernandez allegedly has made. Like when he was in the hospital, he allegedly confessed to doctors. And some of the details he gave were that he was in a basement. There were old people around kids, business people, people dressed in hospital clothing and

clowns. Like these are some of the details that he's giving in his confession. So Hernandez went to trial. It ended in a mistrial. There was a second trial where jurors had questions about how they should make sense of these confessions. And the reason that the appellate court overturned his conviction was because the judges were saying that the judge at trial had actually given the jury bad advice about how to interpret the confessions. Okay. So what happens now in that case? Well, now Manhattan, D.A. Alvin Bragg, the same one who is doing this science-based interviewing. he has to decide whether to try Hernandez for a third time.

The first two trials were prosecuted under his predecessor, Syvance. I did ask Bragg whether his office would approach the case any differently, whether maybe they would even use science-based interviewing techniques if they were to investigate this case again. He declined to comment because the case is pending. Samantha Max covers public safety in the courts for WMYC. You can read more of her reporting on our news news. psychothymus. And Sam, I'll certainly be doing that. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks for listening

to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. We'll be back on Monday.