Challenging Common Sense. The Confession Dilemma. An Analysis of the “Canaro della Magliana” Case

Common sense plays a pervasive role when we judge other's behaviours and purposes. As argued by psychological literature, our understanding of the surrounding environment is deeply influenced by several postulates on "how the world works". Jurisprudence has embraced this point of view and frequently uses these postulates in its reasonings. But what if Common Sense was fallacious? This paper analyses the downfall fallacious Common Sense statement have on the genesis and perpetuation of false confessions through the analysis of three of them: people do not lie against their interest; humans are good lie detector and this ability can be trained; healthy individuals do not generate false memories. By debunking these myths the aim is to expose the frailty of judicial reasoning when it comes to confessions. The last part of the paper analyses the case of "il Canaro della Magliana" exposing the fallacies in the genesis and evaluation of the alleged perpetrator’s confession