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Conducting Tough Interviews 227
Table 7.2 Responses in the interview with OJ Simpson

Type of question Response to control questions Response to relevant
questions

Closed questions that could have 95 per cent of questions were None were answered with
only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but
been answered with a binary ‘yes’ answered only with a ‘yes’ or were either prefaced by
prevarication or closed with a
or ‘no’ ‘no’ softening phrase

Open questions No requests for clarification 95 per cent of questions were
were made and there was no clarified by a question from OJ
stalling

OPEN QUESTIONS

Open questions invite the subject to give an explanation in his own words, without prompt-
ing. They do not provide him with any sort of template for deception because they hide how
much you know and don’t know. Open questions such as:

‘Why?’ ‘What?’ ‘Where?’ ‘Who?’ ‘How?’ ‘Tell me everything you know about …’

allow the honest subject to respond with a detailed freestyle narrative, but they require a
dishonest suspect to decide how much he will say and thus take a gamble: he does not want
to volunteer too much detail (through which you may trap him later); nor does he want to be
caught out in an obvious concealment (see Table 7.3).

Table 7.3 Reactions in the interview with OJ Simpson

Reactions indicating innocence Reactions indicating guilt
Gives a detailed, free-flowing account of the
matters at issue, consistent with his baseline Wants more information:
responses ‘Where do you want me to start?’
‘I am not sure how far you want me to go’
Retrieves the answer from memory: looks to ‘How much do you know?’
the left while thinking ‘You tell me what you want me to explain’
Consistent detail
Answers the question directly Creates answers in the imagination: looks to the
right while thinking
Immediately understands the context of the
question Lack of detail or inconsistent detail

Gives truthful responses to questions where Asks for clarification of the question such as ‘Where
you already know the answers do you want me to start?’

Does not know how much an innocent person
would know. Thus asks clarification questions.
‘How should I know that?’

Gives evasive or untruthful responses to questions
to which you already know the answers