I used to think the whole false confession issue was bunk. I could not imagine confessing to a crime I did not commit for the obvious reason that there was simply no upside. However, this changed when someone I knew told me the story of how he found himself in a situation where he almost confessed to a crime. Here's the story<p>My friend, Bill, was in charge of construction projects at a real estate development. One night, he gets a phone call at 3 in the morning to let him know that one of the homes under construction is on fire. He jumps out of bed, grabs his camera and rushes out to scene of the fire. Once he gets there, he starts taking pictures in order to get a jump start on the insurance paperwork. Unfortunately, the firemen trying to put out the fire start to get suspicious. From their perspective, here's a strange guy taking pictures of burning homes at 3 in the morning (it's a development so there were no other occupied homes in the vicinity). They get to thinking maybe he is a pyromaniac who is now collecting trophy photos of his handiwork. They call the cops, Bill gets arrested and ends up in the interrogation room. Now, Bill is a pretty tough guy. Remember, he worked his way up in the construction business to become a manager so he is not a weakling by any means. However, after a couple hours of being grilled by the cops, he said he was just about ready to confess just to make it stop. They didn't beat him or anything, just the relentless application of all manner of psychological techniques (badgering, cajoling, threats of long sentences, good-bad cop, etc) completely wore him out. He was only saved when his boss found out that he had been arrested and called the station to back up his story.<p>From that time on, I realized that under the right circumstances, it is possible for a mentally stable, reasonable person to confess to a crime they did not commit.<p>More importantly, I realized that because I can't imagine something happening, does not mean it can not happen.