It's no secret that criminal suspects in Illinois and elsewhere confess to crimes they didn't commit, often after aggressive police interrogation. But how widespread is involuntary confession in the post-Jon Burge era, and what's being done to address it?

The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth ("Center") focuses on juveniles who in some cases say they have falsely confessed to crimes, although the same principles and situations apply to adults, particularly those with cognitive deficiencies, says Megan Crane, Center co-director.

"Youth and intellectually disabled people, and otherwise vulnerable populations, are at greater risk" of falsely confessing, she says. "But it's inherently likely that anyone is vulnerable to falsely confessing, given the techniques that are commonly used on a day-to-day basis. Our position…is that the interrogation techniques that the criminal justice system has adopted, and that courts sign off on, are psychologically coercive. Their whole goal is to break down the person in that room until they accept that the only way to get out of that room is to plead guilty."

Prosecutors believe that the techniques Crane references are not used as often as defense attorneys say, and that their use has declined significantly in the past two or three decades - although that's not necessarily reflected in the cases reopened at the behest of organizations like Northwestern's Center, many of which date back that far, says Kris Hamann, executive director of the New York-based Prosecutors Center for Excellence.

Find out more in the April Illinois Bar Journal.