Apr. 18--NEW HAVEN -- An expert in false confessions to criminal charges testified Thursday in Superior Court that juveniles are more susceptible than adults to police pressure.

Defense attorney Diane Polan hopes to have a jury hear the testimony by Solomon Fulero, a professor of psychology at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, in the upcoming trial of 16-year-old Kwame Wells-Jordan. He was 14 when he gave New Haven police detectives his statement, which they term a confession.

Wells-Jordan is being tried as an adult for conspiracy to commit first-degree robbery and as an accessory to first-degree robbery, along with accessory to first-degree assault. He was allegedly part of the plot to rob Herbert Fields, who was shot by Bobby Johnson, now serving a 38-year prison term.

Fields, 70, was slain Aug. 1, 2006, as he sat in his car on West Ivy Street.

Although Judge Bruce Thompson ruled Fulero was qualified to testify on the subject of confessions, he has not yet ruled on whether Fulero can testify in front of a jury. Fulero appeared Thursday during an evidentiary hearing on a motion by Assistant State's Attorney James Clark to preclude Fulero's testimony.

While Clark does not believe Fulero's testimony is relevant, Polan has alleged detectives Clarence Willoughby and Michael Quinn repeatedly questioned Wells-Jordan, lied to him about evidence incriminating him and pressured him to confess.

According to Polan, Wells-Jordan was accompanied to the interviews by his legal guardian and aunt, Julia Sykes. After lengthy questioning and telling Wells-Jordan his fingerprints had been found on the passenger side of a car at the crime scene (which Polan said was not true), the detectives obtained the statement from him.

Polan has said there is no physical evidence linking Wells-Jordan to the crime, merely statements by two men who plotted the stick-up implicating the youth. Clark said there are independent witnesses who can identify Wells-Jordan, but Polan said their descriptions could fit "5,000 other black men in the New Haven area."

During his testimony, Fulero said he has studied police training manuals describing "the Reed technique," a nine-step program for obtaining confessions.

Fulero said step three calls for police to discourage a suspect from denying guilt. Included in steps two and three, he noted, is "the evidence ploy," presenting false evidence to the suspect.

According to Fulero, "the evidence ploy" is "designed to make the suspect feel hopeless. Then the suggestion is made (by police) that there's a way out: they can help themselves by confessing."

Fulero said studies have shown increased numbers of false confessions by juveniles compared with older suspects.

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Last updated: 05/01/2008 - 03:06 PM