La Barbie also confessed on TV, boasting of receiving trailers full of cash from the United States and revealing that he was working with a producer to make a film version of his life.
Why these criminals confess is something of a mystery. Human rights advocates and defense lawyers say that the confessions are often coerced or that suspects are tricked or promised they will get a break if they fess up right away.
Video
Oscar Osvaldo Garcia Montoya of "La mano con ojos" answers questions.
“It should not happen,” said Juan Velazquez, an attorney for former Mexican president Luis Echeverria Alvarez, who was charged with genocide but never tried. Velazquez, who is not involved in the Garcia case, said these confessions are not admissible in court unless the defendant is accompanied by his attorney. He said that while confessions serve to bolster the reputations of state authorities, the public might not see them that way.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Velazquez said. “He has to commit 600 murders before the authorities arrest him? How does that illustrate competence by the state?”
The confessions might actually help defendants cut better deals — or avoid prosecution altogether — if the accused argue that they were tortured or threatened.
“It’s all part of a deal. If you confess in public, we might cut you some slack. That’s the deal,” said Ackerman, who is also editor of the Mexican Law Review.
According to a recent report by National Autonomous University, only 5 percent of all crimes go before a judge. Defendants who confess to killing dozens of victims remain in prison without charges or are quietly released for lack of evidence.
Authorities in the federal district of Mexico City said last week that despite his confession in the neighboring state of Mexico, Garcia later denied having any links to drug trafficking and murder.
Roberto Hernandez, director of the popular documentary “Presumed Guilty,” said that forced confessions are a major challenge in Mexico’s dysfunctional justice system and cautioned that just because they are media stunts does not mean they won’t be used — in some way — in a court proceeding.
Surveys of prison inmates in three Mexican states, conducted by researcher Marcelo Bergman, a scholar at the Center for Economic Research and Education in Mexico City, found that 50 percent confessed because they were guilty, but 35 percent said they did so because they were threatened or tortured.
Human rights advocate Jose Rosario Marroqui said the news media are also to blame for their uncritical acceptance of the videotaped confessions.
“It is the media who judge them,” he said.
Researcher Gabriela Martinez contributed to this report.
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