What happened to those that confessed?

As an aside, there are no books on historical witchcraft both in the response to it and the "causes" I suppose (for lack of a better word..) or Salem in the booklist.

Halloween, I suppose, had me consider reading up on the subject and I didn't find any recommendations on the sub.

Any recommendations?

A great deal, actually. Many crimes would have a lesser sentence if the defendant confessed and made a true and honest apology before the community. To really understand, you have to get some handle on Puritan society, which is insanely complicated. But, in a tiny tiny nutshell, Puritans believed that people who honestly confessed deserved a second chance at heaven, within certain limits, of course. What frequently happened is that prisoners confessed, even if they knew that they were going to be executed either way, to clear the way for their souls.

To really get at your question though, it's easier to identify the crimes that did not warrant a second chance. Rape was a capital crime. Of course, the problem with that is that it was very hard to make a rape accusation stick. They believed that women could not get pregnant if they didn't have an orgasm, which indicated pleasure. So, if a rape victim got pregnant, they clearly had had an orgasm and so enjoyed it and so it hadn't been rape. Piracy often resulted in capital punishment, but a confession could occasionally get a prisoner out of it. Murder was uncommon, but had similar circumstances to piracy.

17th century Puritanism has a huge historiography and witchcraft has not been neglected. Check out, Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed, David Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment, Ulrich, Good Wives, Morris, Under Household Government. There are many more, but this is a good start.

The legal term you're looking for is "allocution". It's the common law concept of obtaining a reduced sentence in exchange for confession. The reasoning being a strong public policy in favor of truth seeking. Closure is a part of justice and the truth is a way to obtain it. And so we allow a guilty person to plea bargain and one of the defendant's bargaining chips is the truth.

All I can provide, however, is that term. I'm not aware of its earliest usage, or the adoption of the concept in other legal systems.

It didn't spare you any punishment, we should note -- it just spared you the worst punishment they could think of.

As recorded in "The Crucible," Giles Corey did neither -- he neither confessed to witchcraft nor denied it, and in doing so prevented a trial. Had he confessed or had he denied it and later been found guilty, he would have had all his possessions forfeited to the state.