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In a recent column I wrote about police interrogation tactics that
lead a surprising number of people to confess to crimes they
didn't commit. It turns out that corporate America has followed
suit. Many large corporations take a "loss prevention"
approach that utilizes training manuals modeled after the leading
police manuals -- using the very techniques that cause false
confessions. Indeed, the group that produces the leading manual,
John Reid and Associates, boasts about its infiltration into
loss prevention.
When a large chain finds money
missing (which, needless to say, happens often), and is convinced
that one of its employees is guilty of theft, in come trained
interrogators with well-honed tactics of isolating the individual
and cutting off all escape routes until he feels he is better
off confessing--even if he's innocent. (The June 2005 issue of
Scientific American Mind features an excellent discussion of
the prevailing interrogative methods and their perils titled
True Crimes, False Confessions by Saul M. Kassin and Gisli H.
Gudjonsson).
It's even worse in the case
of private companies than the police, because they don't have
to issue Miranda warnings and give employees the opportunity
to consult an attorney and remain silent. Instead, they place
the defenseless employee in a small, claustrophobic room and
systematically break down his will--confronting him with fabricated
evidence of his guilt, threatening to fire him instantly (and
get the police involved) unless he confesses and promising leniency
if he does so.
Last month, we learned more
about the way this works from a trial in the Superior Court of
San Diego County. A civil jury struck a blow for corporate accountability,
socking AutoZone with a verdict of $7.5 million in punitive damages.
The case stemmed from events
several years ago, when a store manager became convinced that
one of his employees (a loyal worker with a sterling reputation)
had stolen $800. The manager followed the playbook. He had a
security guard grill the employee in a small office for almost
three hours, confronting him with false evidence and threatening
his discharge and arrest unless he confessed. If he did confess,
he was assured, he could pay the company back and keep his job,
and the matter would remain private.
The innocent employee became
convinced of the futility of maintaining his innocence, especially
since he feared losing his job (and perhaps his freedom) and
the ability to support his two young children.
Is it surprising that, under
these circumstances, the employee confessed? The more we learn
about widespread interrogation tactics, the more we realize that
the decision to confess falsely can be rational -- a mistake,
to be sure, but the product of an understandable cost-benefit
analysis made under extreme circumstances--circumstances created
by interrogators precisely to make the suspect feel hopeless.
AutoZone inculcated such methods in its 200-page handbook for
managers. And it isn't just AutoZone--corporations around America
have imported the worst aspects of police interrogative techniques.
In the case of the AutoZone
employee, the company didn't even keep its coercive promise --
it fired him almost immediately after his confession and took
the amount he "stole" out of his last paycheck. But
Joaquin Robles turned out to be the wrong person to mess with.
His lawsuit not only gave him justice, but also shed the spotlight
on the corporate coercion industry. The trial exposed the manual
used by AutoZone's so-called "loss prevention" managers
and produced testimony from other employees about similarly coercive
treatment.
The episode exemplifies the
grandeur of the civil justice system, with ordinary citizens
holding the powerful accountable and establishing that blatant
violations of social norms will not be tolerated. Punitive damages
play an important role in that process. This case first went
to trial several years ago, and a jury found that the AutoZone
manager "falsely imprisoned" Robles, and awarded $73,000
in compensatory damages. The trial judge would not allow Robles'
attorney to ask the jury for punitive damages. The Court of Appeal
of California, Fourth Appellate District reversed that decision,
holding that Robles had the right to argue to the jury that AutoZone's
policies were sufficiently outrageous as to warrant punitive
damages. The case was finally retried in March of this year.
Now, AutoZone is $7.5 million poorer (or at least will be if
the verdict survives the inevitable appeal) but perhaps a bit
wiser.
AutoZone is not the first company
to be called out for its bullying interrogations of employees
or customers. (Law buffs can check out 340 F. Supp. 2d 308 and
501 A.2d 561.) But this verdict is comparatively large, and we
can only hope that corporations all over America take notice.
When they investigate alleged intra-company theft, it isn't asking
too much that they follow fair procedures and eschew tactics
that predictably lead to the punishment of innocent people.
Robles v AutoZone was brought
to my attention by author Alan Hirsch, whose website www.truthaboutfalseconfessions.com
provides a valuable overview about false confessions as well
as provocative analyses of both cases in the headlines and cases
ignored by the major media.
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