THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The confession, that stalwart element of the Catholic Church and murder mysteries can, in the case of police investigations, all too often be a crime in and of itself.

An investigation by the Brooklyn DA’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) found that Fowler had inadequate legal defense and that the case relied on unreliable witness testimony, false identification and a false confession by Fowler, who was only 17 years old at the time.

There is a presumption that if “someone confessed, then they were guilty, and what more was there to think about?” said his attorney, Lynn Fahey. But that is not always true, especially in cases involving young or mentally ill defendants or others who might believe that a confession offers the best chance of escaping life in prison, she added.

Fowler’s case illustrates a national concern, since reforms to assist prisoners who claim postconviction innocence are lagging. The CRU under Thompson is dedicating significant resources to look into alleged miscarriages of justice. Many legal advocates believe that others should follow his example, because as a 2014 report by the National Registry of Exoneration points out, there is no reason to believe that the problem of wrongful convictions is limited to Brooklyn.

More than 40 percent of exonerated defendants who were younger than 18 at the time of the alleged crime gave a false confession, according to the report from the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School. The number jumps to 69 percent when the accused is mentally ill or deficient, compared with just 8 percent of adults with no known mental disabilities who confess to a crime they did not commit.

False confessions have been a contributing factor nationwide in about 13 percent of exonerations, according to another report by the project.

Police has a great incentive to "solve" cases and a confession neatly wraps up everything because a good interrogator can get someone young scared and maybe not very smart to say what he needs to make his case. And despite the Miranda warning, not every arrestee understands that even a public defender can help.