Alan Hirsch

Alan Hirsch provides consultation and/or testimony in cases where the defendant has recanted a confession. He can assist attorneys if a client confessed and is challenging the confession in a suppression hearing, at trial, or in a motion for post-conviction relief.

Services

False Confessions Expert Alan Hirsch can assist in any of the following ways:

* Reviewing the case file and providing a thorough evaluation of the case, including: 1) background information about false confessions; 2) an assessment of the reliability of the defendant's confession; and 3) suggestions for challenging it, e.g., lines of cross-examination of the officers who interrogated the defendant.

* Testifying at the suppression hearing and/or trial.

* Assisting in the drafting of motions related to the confession, e.g., suppression motions and motions pertaining to the admissibility of my testimony.

Litigation Support Services

Alan Hirsch provides consultation and/or testimony in cases where the defendant has recanted a confession.

Areas of Expertise

Additional Expertise:

False Confessions, Reid Technique, Criminal Interrogations.

Profile

False Confessions Expert Alan Hirsch is an attorney, professor, writer, and trial consultant who has spent three decades doing work related to the justice system. During the last two decades, much of that work has involved false confessions and criminal interrogations -- studying this subject, writing about it, starting and operating the first website devoted to it, and serving as an expert consultant and witness. I have been retained as a consultant in more than 300 cases and given expert testimony in state courts in federal court in Mississippi and state courts in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Areas Served

All States

Professional Experience

Law Clerk for Judge Edward Becker, U.S. Court of Appeals in the 3rd Circuit

Senior Writer/Attorney, Federal Judicial Center

Instructor in the Humanities and Chair of Justice and Law Studies program, Williams College

Trial consultant and expert witness

Licenses

Member of D.C. Bar

Legal Experience & Services

See Profile

Affiliations

Williams College

Publications

“So Misunderstood: The Alt-Key Experiment and Internalized False Confessions” Champion (2022)

“On A Close Reid: Using the Reid Method to Suppress Confessions” Champion (2020)

"Going to the Source: The 'New' Reid Method and False Confessions" Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law (2014)

“Not Coming Clean: Common Police Practices Won't Cure Tainted Terrorist Confessions” Legal Times (February 18, 2008)

“Confessions and Harmless Error: A New Argument for the Old Approach” Boalt Journal of Criminal Law (Spring 2007)

“Why the Innocent Confess” Los Angeles Times (April 25, 2006)

“Threats, Promises, and False Confessions: Lessons of Slavery” Howard Law Journal (Winter 2005)

“The Tragedy of False Confessions (and a Modest Proposal)” North Dakota Law Review (Fall 2005)

Professional References

Available Upon Request

Education

B.A., Amherst College, 1981

J.D., Yale Law School, 1985