False Confessions Experts
Steven Drizin
Steven Drizin is a Clinical Professor at Northwestern Law School where he has been on the faculty since 1991. He is also the Assistant Director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic, and since March 2004, has been serving as the Legal Director of the Clinic's renowned Center on Wrongful Convictions. At the Center, Professor Drizin's research interests involve the study of false confessions and his policy work focuses on supporting efforts around the country to require law enforcement agencies to electronically record custodial interrogations. He also writes a blog on the subject of false confessions and police interrogations and has lectured and published widely on these topics.
Saul Kassin
Saul Kassin is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a part time Massachusetts Professor of Psychology at Williams College. Several years ago, Kassin pioneered the scientific study of false confessions by devising the taxonomy now used to distinguish among three types of false confessions and developing experimental paradigms to test why innocent people are targeted for interrogation, why they confess, and the impact this evidence has on juries. Interested in matters of policy and reform, some of his current research is funded by the National Science foundation.
Richard Leo
Richard Leo works as a Law Professor at the University of San Francisco. Leo regularly serves as a litigation consultant and/or expert witness in criminal and civil trials. He has worked on high profile cases involving false confessions, including the cases of Michael Crowe, Earl Washington, the Norfolk Four, and two of the Central Park jogger defendants, as well as numerous lesser-known cases with victims of coercive interrogation.
Richard Ofshe
Richard Ofshe is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the advisory board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation advocacy organization, and is known for his expert testimony relating to coercion in small groups, confessions, and interrogations.
Gisli H. Gudjonsson
Gisli H. Gudjonsson is from the Department of Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. He created the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale to measure how succeptable someone is to coercion during an interrogation.
Allison Redlich
Allison Redlich is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis. She joined the faculty of the School of Criminal Justice in the fall of 2008. She has two main research foci. The first concerns interrogation methods (police and military) and their potential to produce false confessions. Dr. Redlich is particularly interested in vulnerable populations identified as being at increased risk for false confessions (juveniles and persons with mental impairments) and attempts to understand the developmental and clinical mechanisms that may underlie the risks.
Matthew B. Johnson
Matthew B. Johnson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Professor Johnson's training is in clinical psychology. He is widely published in the area of interrogation and false confessions, as well as in other areas involving psychology and law.
Lonnie Soury
Lonnie Soury is a highly respected media expert with experience in high profile and complex criminal and civil litigation. He has a particular expertise in wrongful convictions issues. He has worked closely and collaboratively with some of the country's top law firms, legal organizations, prominent attorneys and their clients. Soury led the public campaign to free Marty Tankelff in New York and is currently working with Damien Echols, on death row in the West Memphis 3 case.
