Speaker 1: M Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's s
Speaker 1: Y s k Seles, I've chosen how police interrogation works
Speaker 1: from back in two thousand and fourteen. It's a really
Speaker 1: fascinating look into how the cops get people to admit
Speaker 1: that they did the worst thing they ever did in
Speaker 1: their entire life, and some people who didn't do anything
Speaker 1: at all to admit that they did something. If you
Speaker 1: thought that was confusing, just wait till you hear this episode.
Speaker 1: But it is pretty mind blowing, So buckle up. I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy and as much as anything, I hope
Speaker 1: it really opens your eyes. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: A production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: uh and Noel. I guess producer nol is over there,
Speaker 1: which makes this stuff you should know. Jerry's on the beach.
Speaker 1: Good for her. Yeah, and I'm Jelly. Yeah. It'd be
Speaker 1: nice to be on the beach right now. Sure would
Speaker 1: podcasting on the beach. Yeah, there's a beach person for sure.
Speaker 1: In uh is she okay? She was flip pops like
Speaker 1: in the dead of winter. Yeah, that's true. The beach
Speaker 1: person which got nice feet up. Can I say that
Speaker 1: I acquired for saying that. I don't think so. If
Speaker 1: you said it, like alone in a room or something
Speaker 1: she didn't feel like she could leave, you'd probably get
Speaker 1: fired for that. But yeah, saying it on the podcast
Speaker 1: to everybody's probably in the clear. Okay, we'll find out.
Speaker 1: I mean, she edits these so she'll say thanks Juckers.
Speaker 1: You so Chuck. Have you ever been interrogated by the police. No,
Speaker 1: that's good. No, it's a good way to be. I
Speaker 1: was shaking down on the street once, but they didn't
Speaker 1: ask us any questions. Stopping frisk Yeah, in New York.
Speaker 1: In Athens, m just walk into the car after being out,
Speaker 1: threw us all against the wall. Fristus been left. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was a real cop. Yeah, there were cops. Man.
Speaker 1: I was like, what's going on? Huh? I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I still don't know what happened. Well, I guess they
Speaker 1: were just stopping and frisking. A little known fact, Athens,
Speaker 1: George is the real home of stopping frisk Well, five
Speaker 1: minutes after it happened, we didn't care. You know, these
Speaker 1: are college days. Yeah. Now though you must be burning
Speaker 1: with a sense of injustice over the whole thing. Well,
Speaker 1: I ask you if you've ever been interrogated by the police,
Speaker 1: because we're about to talk about police interrogation, so it
Speaker 1: seems appropriate. And before we get started, I have some
Speaker 1: side reading that I think my interest some people. Um
Speaker 1: there is a New Yorker article called the Interview. Um,
Speaker 1: there's one called Joe Arity was the Happiest Man on
Speaker 1: Death Row. It's in Westward. Uh, there's something called Brooklyn's
Speaker 1: Baddest which was in g Q. And then lastly, looking
Speaker 1: left or right doesn't indicate your lying in Smithsonian. So
Speaker 1: all those articles are awesome, and they all have something
Speaker 1: to do with this police interrogation, which is it turns
Speaker 1: out becoming an increasingly controversial subject. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: this probably brings our police suite to a close or
Speaker 1: close to it, don't you think? I think so every
Speaker 1: time I know, and I didn't even know this existed,
Speaker 1: and then I saw it and it turned out to
Speaker 1: be one of the more interesting ones, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of falls into this um law enforcement category,
Speaker 1: into the subcategory of are largely debunked armchair psychological or
Speaker 1: armchair psychology techniques like polygraph Yeah, we did that, Fingerprints,
Speaker 1: we did that, truth serum we did that. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: there's all these episodes that we've done out there about
Speaker 1: just law enforcement techniques. We're doing them. We were like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is this should not be the way
Speaker 1: it is. And apparently police interrogations similar. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a shakedown. So let's talk about this. Like
Speaker 1: in in the United States, there is um a long
Speaker 1: and storied history of rather intense interrogation and I think
Speaker 1: you know this, this comes before the United States too.
Speaker 1: We did a medieval torture episode as well. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of interrogations going on. We did the Spanish Inquisition
Speaker 1: that was pre United States. Yeah, I would I would
Speaker 1: say that falls into the banner though, of our police
Speaker 1: and crime interrogation. Yeah right, So, um, the United States, though,
Speaker 1: has carried on the torch of basically beating suspects up
Speaker 1: to get confessions. This is where the term the third
Speaker 1: degree comes from. Actually, like when somebody's like, hey, why
Speaker 1: do you give me the third degree? They may or
Speaker 1: may not know it, but they're they're speaking about interrogation
Speaker 1: techniques that cats use to use yeah, those third degree techniques.
Speaker 1: A lot of were involved deprivation, like or you know
Speaker 1: the one where they shine the bright light in your face.
Speaker 1: That's old school. Yeah, that's an old movie trope. But
Speaker 1: you know, no access to food and water, Um, long
Speaker 1: periods of isolation. We might beat up a little bit,
Speaker 1: we might threaten you. That's the third degree, right, And
Speaker 1: then uh, starting in about the thirties, the public started
Speaker 1: to say, I don't know if this is such a
Speaker 1: good idea because I might end up in a police
Speaker 1: interrogation one day, and I don't want to get beat up.
Speaker 1: And then the I guess the straw that started to
Speaker 1: break the camel's back came in ninety seven in the
Speaker 1: case Brown versus Mississippi, where Brown said, Hey, your thug
Speaker 1: cops tied me up to a tree and with me
Speaker 1: more than once, not just with me more than once.
Speaker 1: Strung me up in a tree to whip me more
Speaker 1: than once has happened repeatedly, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: the confession they got should stand. The Supreme Court said,
Speaker 1: we agree with you. Yeah, it was He and his
Speaker 1: two buddies were accused of murdering Uh. They were tenant farmers,
Speaker 1: murdering their ball. Basically. Of course, they were black guys
Speaker 1: and the boss was a white guy, so they were
Speaker 1: pretty determined. Then well we'll see over and over. A
Speaker 1: lot of these cases of coerced false confessions are mainly
Speaker 1: because someone really wants to tab somebody as the criminal. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: for a lot of different reasons. There can be a
Speaker 1: sense of injustice. There can be a genuine conviction that
Speaker 1: this person is guilty um, and then there can be
Speaker 1: the you know, the case clearance um percentage that a
Speaker 1: cop needs to keep up. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why a cop might say you need to confess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them too that I've seen
Speaker 1: documentaries on at least or because of the public, Like,
Speaker 1: hey man, we really need to finger somebody for this,
Speaker 1: because people are scared, and who better than this person
Speaker 1: who might not be too smart or might but might
Speaker 1: be kind of poor and can't afford and doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: representation doesn't know what's going on. So let's run them up,
Speaker 1: run them up, ring them up, sure, run them up
Speaker 1: a flagpole, right and see if it sticks to the wall. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But despite the fact that it is not easy to
Speaker 1: get someone to confess. Uh, they estimate between fort of
Speaker 1: suspects do confess and that's the one thing you don't
Speaker 1: want to do, and up still do it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we should say supposedly up to um eight percent of
Speaker 1: suspects in in the United States waive their right to
Speaker 1: silence and counsel. Yeah that's just wait, that's just agreeing
Speaker 1: to be interrogated, right, not necessarily confessing. Yeah. So, but
Speaker 1: you can get around the whole idea of a false
Speaker 1: confession or of being coerced into confessing or whatever, just
Speaker 1: by remaining silent, not being like part of that demand
Speaker 1: your lawyer. I mean, we're gonna give you some tips, um,
Speaker 1: not how to get away with a crime, but some
Speaker 1: tips on if you if you are rounded up and
Speaker 1: put in a room, there are some things you can do. Right.
Speaker 1: This is a public service announcement with guitars. By the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, they confessions that were involuntary. Um, they consider
Speaker 1: it involuntary, not just if you were beaten and threatened,
Speaker 1: but if you were all the deprivation third degree techniques
Speaker 1: were no longer allowed, like even if you couldn't use
Speaker 1: the bathroom, or if you've been promised something in return
Speaker 1: for confessing, or we'll go easy on you, buddy, or
Speaker 1: if you'd even just been threatened, that counts as coercion too,
Speaker 1: And so in about the fifties, UM the United States said, Hey,
Speaker 1: this kindler, kinder, gentler interrogation technique thing is is starting
Speaker 1: to work out. Let's put a bow on the whole
Speaker 1: thing and say that for a confession to be admissible,
Speaker 1: the the confess or has to sign it yeah and
Speaker 1: say yeah, I didn't I didn't do anything under coercion.
Speaker 1: This is my own, full, free confession and here's my signature,
Speaker 1: and UM, which helped but certainly didn't stop false confessions. Right.
Speaker 1: So the thing is is, UM law enforcement replaced the
Speaker 1: physical coercion with what amounts to plainly is psychological manipulation.
Speaker 1: And it's predicated on the idea that you when you
Speaker 1: are saying you didn't do something and you're guilty, you
Speaker 1: are going to become stressed out. And then the that
Speaker 1: stress is derived from anxiety over knowing you're guilty and
Speaker 1: having to lie. Because when you're being interrogated and you're
Speaker 1: denying that you're guilty, the cops don't just say oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well thanks, for coming by. If they think you're guilty,
Speaker 1: they or they want to think you're guilty, they're going
Speaker 1: to keep pressing you. Like interrogations aren't necessarily brief things, right,
Speaker 1: So the more they press you, the more stressed you
Speaker 1: should get. And the more stressed you get under this
Speaker 1: idea of um interrogation technique, the obvious, the more obvious
Speaker 1: it is that you're guilty, which means the more they press,
Speaker 1: So this feedback loop starts, right Yeah. I mean they're
Speaker 1: basically relying on a few basic human things inherent to humans,
Speaker 1: tendencies inherent to humans. Um. One is you're gonna probably
Speaker 1: open up more to someone who is like you, uh,
Speaker 1: to their If you start talking, it's gonna be hard
Speaker 1: to stop. And three, if you're if you're telling the truth,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be harder to lie. Right, So they kind
Speaker 1: of prey on that with some age old techniques like
Speaker 1: the good cop, bad cop. Right you you uh, if
Speaker 1: you feel like you're being persecuted, but then you're also
Speaker 1: being rescued by somebody else, you're going to identify with
Speaker 1: the rescuer, trust them. That's a classic move. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing like that, a lot of this stuff, like
Speaker 1: the Good Cop part um is predicated on this complete
Speaker 1: and utter deception that that cop understands where you're coming
Speaker 1: from and sympathizes with you. That cop does not sympathize
Speaker 1: with few. That cop may understand where you come from,
Speaker 1: but he or she probably despises that, and they are
Speaker 1: not your friend. But the whole one of the whole
Speaker 1: points of um of interrogation is for the cop to
Speaker 1: pretend like they're they're right there with you, they understand
Speaker 1: where you're coming from, they feel for you. This is
Speaker 1: just you're jammed up and I want to help you
Speaker 1: get out of it. Oh yeah, you see. I mean
Speaker 1: if if all this sounds super familiar from every TV
Speaker 1: show or movie you've ever seen, is because they it's
Speaker 1: been written so much that it's almost like they don't
Speaker 1: need to do their own Like writers don't even need
Speaker 1: to do their own research into how this is differ
Speaker 1: because it's just how it is in the movies. When
Speaker 1: it is in the movies is how it is in
Speaker 1: real life. When I was reading this, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen that before. I've seen that technique before, Like
Speaker 1: it made me Actually researching this article made me appreciate
Speaker 1: that there are some TV cop show writers out there
Speaker 1: who like really do their homework, Like The Wire, like
Speaker 1: every it was a little more nuance. It's like law
Speaker 1: and Order. Um, what is it? Uh? I don't watch
Speaker 1: those the one Vincent didn't offer you. I don't know. Oh,
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it's called criminal minds something like that.
Speaker 1: It's not it, um, like it's a little more overt, right,
Speaker 1: but it's all the all the factors are there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another one of the tried and true techniques is maximization.
Speaker 1: That's when they try to scare you. Um, if you've
Speaker 1: ever heard like, oh you're you're pretty Josh, they're gonna
Speaker 1: love you in prisoner. I hear that almost every day.
Speaker 1: That is a classic maximization, or just you know, they're
Speaker 1: going to throw the book at you for what you've done.
Speaker 1: You're unless you you know, start playing along, you're gonna
Speaker 1: get the max exactly. Um. They may also go the
Speaker 1: exact opposite route, which is minimization, which is to create
Speaker 1: the idea that society will will commiserate with you because
Speaker 1: anybody in your position would have done the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know, like that that little lady was ask him
Speaker 1: for her person to be taken. You know, in this
Speaker 1: day and age, in this economy, that kind of thing. Um,
Speaker 1: polygraph was used for a while, and they still use that,
Speaker 1: but most times, um, if you listen to our show
Speaker 1: on polygraphs, they're not admissible in court. So a man
Speaker 1: named John Reid, he was a polygraph analyst, said, you
Speaker 1: know what, there's a lot of things that happen during
Speaker 1: a polygraph exam that we can use without the machine,
Speaker 1: just to root out the truth or lies. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 1: John Reid said, Hey, I've noticed through all of my
Speaker 1: experience all of these things that a person who is
Speaker 1: guilty or who confesses at least goes through. And here
Speaker 1: are some ways to like really make this more efficient,
Speaker 1: to make them react more strongly, to get them to
Speaker 1: confess faster, more forcefully. And he came up with the
Speaker 1: order called the Read Technique nine steps of the Read Technique,
Speaker 1: trademark of Johnny Reidon Associates. Yeah, really, because Johnny Reidon
Speaker 1: Associates is like this business that's still very much around. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I need to say that, but
Speaker 1: it is their technique. Yeah, And they train the CIA,
Speaker 1: the FBI, the local law enforcement there, like the in
Speaker 1: the United States, the red technique is the gold standard
Speaker 1: for police interrogation. The problem is it is also being
Speaker 1: increasingly proven to be based on basically armchair psychology and
Speaker 1: not science. It's say, it's going through the same thing
Speaker 1: right now that like a lot of the forensic sciences
Speaker 1: are going through. There's like based on intuition that doesn't
Speaker 1: really hold up to scrutiny. And I should say the
Speaker 1: red technique has not been across the board debunked, and
Speaker 1: it makes sense in a lot of ways, but there
Speaker 1: are studies out there that have said, like this doesn't
Speaker 1: really this doesn't really hold up. Yeah, he defends it. Uh,
Speaker 1: he says, it's very sound technique, but false confession comes
Speaker 1: from improper use in bad police work. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not it's not necessarily like the read people are treated
Speaker 1: like they're you know, they're out to get anybody and everybody.
Speaker 1: The Red technique is criticized because the whole foundation that
Speaker 1: it's built on is the presumption of guilt, and it
Speaker 1: has been shown to prove or produce false um confessions.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right, If you sit down in a
Speaker 1: in a room to get interrogated by the cops. One
Speaker 1: thing that they're probably going to start doing is lying
Speaker 1: to you and saying we have evidence that they may
Speaker 1: not have. We have witnesses that put you at the
Speaker 1: scene that don't exist. Basically, with a few exceptions, cops
Speaker 1: can lie and say whatever they want in there. And
Speaker 1: that is going to make someone nervous. Even though you
Speaker 1: were you know, surgical gloves when you broke into that house,
Speaker 1: if they say your fingers are all over the place,
Speaker 1: you're gonna start second guessing yourself and get nervous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And even if like you weren't in that house ever,
Speaker 1: and you know that you weren't in that house, you're
Speaker 1: gonna start to wonder if maybe you suffer from blackouts
Speaker 1: and do horrible things like this cop is saying, Wow,
Speaker 1: you're blacked out. Um, And yeah, the courts of upheld
Speaker 1: the cops right to deceive. Uh. And I've read about
Speaker 1: a study that found that of six and thirty detectives
Speaker 1: in the U. S. And Canada that were pulled say
Speaker 1: they use false evidence ploys where they're saying you have
Speaker 1: surprised it is not a hundred yeah, you would guess,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe the other eight percent We're just like
Speaker 1: they didn't even look at what they were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they you can and they do say we
Speaker 1: have your fingerprints, we have a witness, we have d
Speaker 1: n A. They can completely lie about what they have
Speaker 1: and that they have it on you to get you
Speaker 1: to confess. It doesn't matter. You can't say, well that
Speaker 1: cops said he had evidence doesn't matter. And the whole
Speaker 1: legal basis for this idea for the cops to be
Speaker 1: letting the cops deceive is this uh longstanding notion that
Speaker 1: no innocent person would ever sign a confession even if
Speaker 1: they were lied to about physical evidence of their guilt
Speaker 1: being at the scene of the crime, because there they
Speaker 1: know they're not guilty. The problem is that long standing
Speaker 1: idea is coming under more and more scrutiny is being
Speaker 1: found to be not the case. Like people, it's been
Speaker 1: shown people will when lied to in situations like that,
Speaker 1: they will infest the things that they did not do.
Speaker 1: I know it seems crazy for people like you and me, um,
Speaker 1: because I know I would never do that, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not mentally challenged or I'm not poor, and I
Speaker 1: haven't you know, there's a lot of reasons why someone
Speaker 1: might falsely confess. Yeah, and I think though also it's
Speaker 1: not just necessarily like going how you are going into it. Like, Yes,
Speaker 1: the a lot of the like mentally ill people UM
Speaker 1: make up a decent amount of UM false confessions. Same
Speaker 1: with UM, mentally handicapped, cognitively impaired people, UM, people of
Speaker 1: low socioeconomic status. There are a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of factors that set you up to be more likely
Speaker 1: to have a false or give a false confession. Knowing
Speaker 1: your rights. But if you took if we took you
Speaker 1: and ran you through a long enough UM interrogation with
Speaker 1: people who knew what they were doing, they who knows
Speaker 1: what you would sign, I'd be all right, we'll see
Speaker 1: because I am stand this all. I know my rights.
Speaker 1: I have a very strong mind. Probably say I want
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Well yeah, I just ended all. And then
Speaker 1: I'd be like, m, I don't know any lawyers. Do
Speaker 1: you know a lawyer? I have an entertainment attorney. Does
Speaker 1: that count? Um, they know lawyers? Yeah, exactly. This is
Speaker 1: the whole network. So UM, once they bring you in
Speaker 1: the room, the room itself uh. And this is all
Speaker 1: from Read's manual. He wrote a manual nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: with a Northwestern law professor named fred Inboo called Criminal
Speaker 1: Interrogation and Confessions. I imagine every writer in Hollywood has
Speaker 1: a copy of that on their shelf. Um. But the
Speaker 1: room that you see on TV, that's what there they suggest,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing on the walls, a very plain desk,
Speaker 1: a very uncomfortable chair on one side, two chairs on
Speaker 1: the other for the detectives. UM, that one way mirror
Speaker 1: that's gonna serve a purpose of letting people spy on
Speaker 1: you and just to make you nervous even if there's
Speaker 1: no one on the other side, and put you out
Speaker 1: of reach from this one. I didn't really uh, I
Speaker 1: had never really noticed. But out of reachs from just
Speaker 1: light switches and maybe the the a c uh, what
Speaker 1: do you call those thermostatic thermostatic just to make you
Speaker 1: feel powerless. It's all a mind game to make you
Speaker 1: feel helpless. So far seems pretty intuitive, pretty logical, Like
Speaker 1: if you can't flip the lights on and off, it's
Speaker 1: not something I would think that I would want to
Speaker 1: do right then, but maybe knowing seeing that it was
Speaker 1: that far away, yeah, woid just give me this reinforced
Speaker 1: the idea that, Like, I couldn't even if I wanted to,
Speaker 1: because it's all the way over there. That's probably small
Speaker 1: detective in between me and that, like exactly, but it
Speaker 1: makes sense. But I point that out because that's that's
Speaker 1: the read technique. Stuff like that, keep the light switches
Speaker 1: away from the criminal because it'll make him feel helpless,
Speaker 1: right does It sounds a little hinky, but it it
Speaker 1: makes sense in a way. That is the read technique encapsulating.
Speaker 1: So let's continue, Chuck, So that was that's just the room. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that they suggest there there if you follow the re
Speaker 1: technique to a t, and this is one of the
Speaker 1: saving graces of it. Um, you're supposed to do what's
Speaker 1: an initial interview, And if you're the detective and you
Speaker 1: go into in an initial interview of an interrogation, you
Speaker 1: are the re technique tasks you with going in without
Speaker 1: a presumption of guilt. Yet that's the point of the
Speaker 1: initial interview, is you're supposed to be sizing your guy
Speaker 1: up and determining for yourself as a seasoned investigator, whether
Speaker 1: you think initially they're guilty or innocent. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: happens some Yeah, there's another study that found that it's
Speaker 1: often skipped as well. Um, and that's they just start
Speaker 1: like hammering right away. Well, yeah, you're throwing out the
Speaker 1: the the potential for this, um, this person to be
Speaker 1: treated as possibly innocent. You're not sizing up. You're going
Speaker 1: in assuming they're guilty. So but if you if you
Speaker 1: do go through that initial interview, the other point of
Speaker 1: it is that you're supposed to be creating a bay line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I think is that showed up in the polygraph
Speaker 1: one too, Yeah, which isn't surprising because John Reid was
Speaker 1: a polygraph expert for a while too. Yeah, and you've
Speaker 1: been gratiated yourself, you know, in the first few minutes
Speaker 1: by this point, like, uh, if if you're if you're
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia and your suspect has on like a Phillies cap,
Speaker 1: you might talk about the game last night, right exactly.
Speaker 1: And that that throws back to um, the suspect being
Speaker 1: more likely. Can you trust someone that shares their same
Speaker 1: views that they feel they can identify with, So the
Speaker 1: detective will do whatever they can to make it seem like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a Catholic, I'm a Catholic too, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And so once you've got a little
Speaker 1: bit of rapport going on, is when you're gonna set
Speaker 1: your baseline. And I thought this is pretty interesting. You don't,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna start looking for this on cop shows
Speaker 1: to see if they don't overtly talk about it, if
Speaker 1: they're just how good they are with their you know, uh,
Speaker 1: with their acting, because if they're looking at the eyes, um,
Speaker 1: then they're going to be accurate, because that's one of
Speaker 1: the way is supposedly you can create a baseline. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna ask some some questions that require memory recall,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna ask other questions that require more creativity,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna look at where their eyes go. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: if your eyes moved to the right, that is just recall,
Speaker 1: because you're I guess looking in the direction of your
Speaker 1: memory center of your brain. If it's more creative, you
Speaker 1: might look to the left. And then then you're gonna
Speaker 1: use these later on to see if your suspect is
Speaker 1: creatively making up a lie, they might look to the left,
Speaker 1: or if they're just truthfully recalling something, they might look
Speaker 1: to the right. Is that bunk? Yes, all right, it's
Speaker 1: very dangerous too, because they that is incredibly widespread. It's
Speaker 1: a popular misconception. If you ask anybody if you move
Speaker 1: your eyes a certain way, does it indicate your lying?
Speaker 1: Most people are gonna say yes, Yeah, it totally does.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it's right or left, but if
Speaker 1: you look a certain way, it means you're lying. So
Speaker 1: that's a longstanding thing that's based actually on a self
Speaker 1: help philosophy from the seventies, has nothing to do with science.
Speaker 1: And actually Richard Wiseman, who we Um incorrectly said, did
Speaker 1: some research that proved that ghosts exist in our ghost episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy, he's done someones to debunk this. He did
Speaker 1: a couple of studies and in one of the studies
Speaker 1: he found um. He he used footage of people who
Speaker 1: were holding press conferences searching for lost relatives. But the
Speaker 1: person pleaing for their relatives return was later convicted of
Speaker 1: like killing or kidnapping their their relatives, so they were
Speaker 1: obviously lying. They were committing a huge lie in front
Speaker 1: of the public. And he found that they were just
Speaker 1: as likely to look to the left or the right.
Speaker 1: There was no correlation whatsoever. Yeah, I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: facial cues of pantomimes if you're Christopher Walkin. But um,
Speaker 1: it all depends on the person to write, like, you
Speaker 1: could be really good at lying or really good at
Speaker 1: throwing people off with facial cues. Yeah, or the idea
Speaker 1: that you your eyes move in a certain direction at
Speaker 1: all because you're coming up with a lie or because
Speaker 1: you're remembering something might not It doesn't mean anything necessarily. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We also did one of micro expressions. This is a
Speaker 1: culmination of a lot of shows. I'm realized. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really is so um that was another one. You you've
Speaker 1: got the baseline set. You're watching the eyes even though
Speaker 1: you really shouldn't be. Um, But for the most part,
Speaker 1: you're you're seeing what your suspect appears like when they're
Speaker 1: stressed or I'm sorry, when they're relaxed. And and the
Speaker 1: reason you're creating this baseline of what they act like
Speaker 1: when they relaxed is because if you ask them questions
Speaker 1: and they answer them and appear relaxed, then supposedly they're
Speaker 1: telling the truth. Again, this is predicated on some faulty
Speaker 1: ideas because here's the problem. Anxiety is not necessarily linked
Speaker 1: to lying. Like, yes, you may appear anxious if you're lying,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that if you're anxious, you're lying, right,
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I would do that.
Speaker 1: I would do the chuck chuck technique would be the
Speaker 1: fast thing, like I would set him up. I'll calm
Speaker 1: and be like, Hey, did you watch a game last night? Yeah?
Speaker 1: How cool? Why did you kill it? Old lady? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You like the Phillies. Yeah, it was a pretty good game.
Speaker 1: How do you think they're gonna go far? Yeah? Did
Speaker 1: you kill your wife? And boom? That was pretty good?
Speaker 1: You almost said yes, yeah, really and you didn't kill
Speaker 1: your wife? No? I mean, geez, that was thrilling. The
Speaker 1: chuck technique. I I like the Colombo. What's that? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: you're just like that's that's great. I'm glad you like
Speaker 1: the Phillies. I just want to thank you for coming by.
Speaker 1: That's it was good to meet you. Write if we
Speaker 1: if we need anything, can we call you? And they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're so relieved that they get to lead, and then you, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but one more thing. Why did you kill
Speaker 1: your wife? That Colombo did? Yeah, he was a little
Speaker 1: better at it than I was. He would say, there's
Speaker 1: there's just there's one of the things just not making
Speaker 1: sense to me. If you think of your wife, why
Speaker 1: were you found standing over with the knife? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's how Colombo would catch him off guard, like really
Speaker 1: get them to let their guard down. Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 1: So you said, he I know what Colombo was. I
Speaker 1: was about to say he went on and killed his wife.
Speaker 1: But that was Robert Blake. Yeah, that was Barretta. What
Speaker 1: was his technique? I don't know. I never watched Barretta
Speaker 1: check your gun with the matre d and then isn't
Speaker 1: that what he did? Know? What did you do? I
Speaker 1: think he left his gun with the matre d soup,
Speaker 1: that's what he said he did, Like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: here table for two, here's my coat and here's my gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you hang onto that for me, will you be
Speaker 1: my alibi? Um? I think we're at the read technique now, right,
Speaker 1: we are. So the the other stuff was from the
Speaker 1: book that's based on the read technique criminal interrogation and confessions.
Speaker 1: But now we are at the actual read technique, the
Speaker 1: nine point technique that is designed to maximize um, just come,
Speaker 1: which leads to more frequent confessions. Yeah, and it's actually
Speaker 1: it's illegal and a lot of European countries for children, um,
Speaker 1: which which it should be, because that's another risk factor
Speaker 1: going in. They can produce false confessions as age of course,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to some of those later. Those are
Speaker 1: kind of uh maddening when you read about like a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old it's interrogated without their parents for like
Speaker 1: a full day, but it happens. So step number one
Speaker 1: and the re technique is the confrontation. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is after the initial interview you have. You're going to
Speaker 1: present the facts of the case. You're gonna tell them
Speaker 1: about the evidence, um, what they're faced with, the all
Speaker 1: the evidence against them, even if you're making some of
Speaker 1: it up. You might want to invade their personal space
Speaker 1: at this time if you're Matthew McConaughey, uh. And then
Speaker 1: you start looking for things like fidgety, uh, suspect they
Speaker 1: look in their lips, are they like mustle with their hair? Um.
Speaker 1: And then if you're a skater, you might say, all right,
Speaker 1: I've got this guy just where I want him. That
Speaker 1: guy ran his fingers through his hair. He's guilty, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of part of the part of The
Speaker 1: issue that a lot of critics of the re technique
Speaker 1: bring up um is that basically, if you stripped non
Speaker 1: verbal stuff out, then you've got some sound stuff there. Right.
Speaker 1: The biggest problem is when you're trying to read nonverbal
Speaker 1: cues because there it's not rooted in science, rooted in
Speaker 1: armchair psychology and pop science totally. So the idea that
Speaker 1: somebody's fidgeting meanings they're guilty and they're lying. Not necessarily
Speaker 1: they could be fidgeting because any human being would be
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable when placed in that situation and interrogated by
Speaker 1: cops who are experts at it. Right. Uh So, step
Speaker 1: number two is theme development, and you're gonna be a
Speaker 1: little more soothing here with a softer voice. And this
Speaker 1: is when you come up with some some theories and
Speaker 1: a story maybe of why they committed this crime. Like
Speaker 1: you know, you just couldn't go on any longer now
Speaker 1: when your best friend at sex with your wife. You
Speaker 1: just couldn't live with that, could you. And if the
Speaker 1: suspect latches onto that in some verbal or nonverbal ways
Speaker 1: and they'll continue they don't, then they'll just create another theme. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the the detective will basically just kind of while
Speaker 1: they're creating the story for the for the suspect to
Speaker 1: latch onto there also actively listening to the suspect to
Speaker 1: see if the suspect will latch onto it in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, and if they don't, they try another one.
Speaker 1: If they do, then they start to kind of beef
Speaker 1: that one up and at least alternatives, which actually comes later,
Speaker 1: but in the meantime. One of the main techniques of
Speaker 1: the read technique is stopping denials. But I didn't do it, Josh, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you I was. But imagine my finger on
Speaker 1: Chuck's lips right now. That's why you would never do that.
Speaker 1: Now you stop denials, does it creates a sense of hopelessness,
Speaker 1: like the like, don't you feel hopeless with my fingers
Speaker 1: on your lips? So hopeless you have no idea? Uh?
Speaker 1: It makes you feel hopeless that you don't even have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to to reason with this cop. You can't
Speaker 1: defend yourself, not at all, so you have a sense
Speaker 1: of hopelessness. Plus, the other upside if you're an interrogator
Speaker 1: is that you're keeping the person from talking, meaning they
Speaker 1: also can't ask for counsel. Then I don't see why
Speaker 1: people don't just do that the first thing, over and
Speaker 1: over say I need a lawyer, I need a lawyer,
Speaker 1: I need a lawyer. I read this article in I
Speaker 1: think this stranger aren't the oddest Seattle. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a great article. It was kind of um,
Speaker 1: it was just kind of misleading, like the the author
Speaker 1: really wanted you to to sympathize with the guy who
Speaker 1: was guilty and didn't really revealed that he really was
Speaker 1: pretty guilty towards the end. But it had this this
Speaker 1: really great exploit nation for why people don't ask for
Speaker 1: a lawyer in this article. Yes, and I've seen it before,
Speaker 1: but this article really got the point across that this
Speaker 1: guy was, like I mean, he'd done some stuff before,
Speaker 1: like I think like he um he was he dabbled
Speaker 1: in drugs and like ran an illegal like poker game
Speaker 1: and stuff like that like mouthfeasance. Yeah, and he so
Speaker 1: enough so that he was like he knew he was
Speaker 1: technically guilty in the eyes of the law, but not
Speaker 1: for this thing that they wanted him on. Um, so
Speaker 1: he was he had that guilt to begin with, and
Speaker 1: then these cops saying like, you're gonna really look guilty
Speaker 1: if you if you ask for a lawyer. That's one.
Speaker 1: And then the other aspect was if you lawyer up,
Speaker 1: we can't help you. One. If you talk to us,
Speaker 1: that's the only way we can help you get out
Speaker 1: of this jam. We want to help get jam like
Speaker 1: we we know we might we would have done the
Speaker 1: same thing you did. Yeah, but the cops never want
Speaker 1: to get you out of a jam. No, that's not
Speaker 1: what they're trying to do. And so what they were
Speaker 1: saying was like if you clam up this, like, who
Speaker 1: knows what's going to happen to you. They were doing
Speaker 1: all sorts of really effective psychological manipulation. And the guy
Speaker 1: they were talking to was a lawyer's son. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this guy who like forty years old, a lawyer's son,
Speaker 1: and so he'd known his whole life to ask for
Speaker 1: a lawyer. And even this guy didn't immediately ask for
Speaker 1: a lawyer because these cops got him. You know, I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't either. Actually, if I was if I was
Speaker 1: arrested today after work and obviously completely innocent of anything,
Speaker 1: would that be mind blowing if that happened and I
Speaker 1: was completely innocent. I would I would at first, my
Speaker 1: first instinct would probably be like, I don't need a
Speaker 1: lawyer and I didn't do anything, Yeah, like why why
Speaker 1: occurred that expense? Well, I think that's another aspect of
Speaker 1: the initial um, initial consultation. That an initial discussion where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's all friendly, we're talking about the Phillies.
Speaker 1: Why would you need a lawyer for that? All right,
Speaker 1: I retract my statement. I get it now, but you
Speaker 1: should stick to your original statement no matter what. Like,
Speaker 1: you have a right to counsel and there's no reason
Speaker 1: you should not invoke it. Your your punishment is not
Speaker 1: going to be worse for asking for a lawyer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should open up. You sound like one of those
Speaker 1: legal commercials called Josh Clark. That reminds me we should
Speaker 1: do and we should mention the A C l U
Speaker 1: episode that was a pretty good in too. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: this thing is just so many tangential podcasts. So the
Speaker 1: stopping denials, that's a big part of the read technique.
Speaker 1: And then um, there's something that's similar that John Reid noticed,
Speaker 1: but it is a little nuance. There's a difference, uh,
Speaker 1: and that's objections to to to read denials were different
Speaker 1: than objections, and objections were something to be treated differently
Speaker 1: as a result. Yeah, an objection. The example they gave
Speaker 1: here was like, I would never rape somebody because my
Speaker 1: sister was raped and that it destroyed our family, So
Speaker 1: of course I wouldn't do something like that, right. So
Speaker 1: to a cop, that's not a denial. A denial is
Speaker 1: like I didn't do that. I didn't do that that,
Speaker 1: that's not me. You got the wrong guy. Those are denials,
Speaker 1: and the cops would try to stop you from completing
Speaker 1: those sentences. That objection you just said is a denial,
Speaker 1: but it's encapsulated with um, yeah, a justification something to it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you used to take multiple choice
Speaker 1: tests in high school? They always said that if you
Speaker 1: don't know the answer, usually the one with the most verbiage,
Speaker 1: the one with the most words is the right one.
Speaker 1: I never heard that it's true that works out. It's
Speaker 1: not good at taking tests either. Well, no, wonder, we
Speaker 1: need to get in the way back machine. You can
Speaker 1: go take some more multiple test tests. Knowing that now,
Speaker 1: But the the I think that's kind of the same
Speaker 1: premise for an objection. It's like, it's not just a denial.
Speaker 1: It's there's more to it, and the fact that somebody
Speaker 1: put that much more thought into it means that there's
Speaker 1: something to that. So a cop will take that and
Speaker 1: cultivate it and try to turn the at around and
Speaker 1: they would say, we, I know you love your sister,
Speaker 1: and you know you you stood by her while she
Speaker 1: was raped, So of course this wouldn't be like a
Speaker 1: recurring thing. This is just a one time thing that
Speaker 1: you did and you were out of your head or whatever,
Speaker 1: because you care about your sisters, so you would never
Speaker 1: do this all the time or something. And so all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're you're kind of like you're giving
Speaker 1: the suspect like a something to latch onto, something for
Speaker 1: them to to basically re enter society to an extent,
Speaker 1: because at this moment, especially if they're guilty, they are
Speaker 1: totally on the ounce with society, and the sole representative
Speaker 1: of society, and who's speaking with them right now is
Speaker 1: the cop that's interrogating them, and everybody wants to be included. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you don't, then your a sociopath and they're
Speaker 1: gonna get you anyway. They're well, yeah, but they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a hard time through interrogation. So number five is
Speaker 1: getting the spects attention. Is I don't know these the
Speaker 1: real titles or is this just the liberties of the
Speaker 1: author of this article. I don't know what We'll call it.
Speaker 1: Getting the suspects attention. And uh, this is when you
Speaker 1: pretend to be the ally of the suspect um, because
Speaker 1: at this point they're probably looking for a way out.
Speaker 1: And that's when you might go, hey, man, I get it.
Speaker 1: If I call it my best friend having sex with
Speaker 1: my wife, I'd kill him too. Yeah, I understand where
Speaker 1: you're coming from. And uh, maybe a little pad on
Speaker 1: the shoulder, a little rub on, a little rub on
Speaker 1: the back, or maybe a pad on the back and
Speaker 1: just some reassurance, like I get to where you're coming from. Man,
Speaker 1: it could have could happen to any of us, and
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble at that point. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: probably going on like throughout. Yeah, and the themes run
Speaker 1: these all overlap quite a bit. But if if there's
Speaker 1: an objection that you've noticed that you're working, you've turned
Speaker 1: around and you're working, Yeah that objection with an extra
Speaker 1: layer of compassion and commiseration. Yeah. Uh, and I guess
Speaker 1: really kind of start to ensnare the suspect a lot more.
Speaker 1: It's weird because I'm I'm repulsed by a lot of this,
Speaker 1: but I'm also very impressed by like what I've seen
Speaker 1: on TV. What you can tell is someone who's really
Speaker 1: good at it. Oh yeah, it's an effective like an
Speaker 1: art form. There's UM I believe something like eight percent
Speaker 1: or seventies six percent of UM suspects who are interrogated
Speaker 1: in this manner when you take out people who UM
Speaker 1: invoke their miranda rights, uh confess like it has an
Speaker 1: enormous confession, right, And there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: the vast majority the study I saw or the number
Speaker 1: I saw, six of those confessions are from guilty people,
Speaker 1: but something like point zero four percent are false confessions.
Speaker 1: The problem is there's still such thing as false confessions.
Speaker 1: There's no safeguards. It's just it just so happens that,
Speaker 1: like the false confessions are in that small of an amount. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that percentage isn't high. But if you think about
Speaker 1: how many people are interrogated, that's like several hundred per
Speaker 1: year in the US, up to several hundred per year.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people. Yeah, and it's not like
Speaker 1: that that those people just it gets found out at
Speaker 1: trial or somewhere down the road that they're innocent. Like,
Speaker 1: those people may spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Speaker 1: At the worst case, they may be executed, which has
Speaker 1: probably happened in the history of the US, although it
Speaker 1: hasn't been um irrefutably proven yet. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: listen to how the Innocence Project works. From June, we
Speaker 1: interviewed paula Is on, Oh, yeah, that's right. I wish
Speaker 1: I'd known a lot more about the Innocence Project back
Speaker 1: when we did that episode, Like I kind of got
Speaker 1: it and understood it. But just over the last few years, Um,
Speaker 1: I've kind of I understand it even more. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish I would have known better than It's still a
Speaker 1: good episode. We talked to Paul paul Is on Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a real pro. Yeah, no, it's not, is it? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's how rumors get made. Well, I just liked her
Speaker 1: like more after you said that. Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love Steve's on. Um, all right, and back to the
Speaker 1: red technique. At this point, number six, the suspect might
Speaker 1: lose resolve and uh, This seemed really obvious to me.
Speaker 1: If the suspect is has his shoulders hunched, or has
Speaker 1: got his head in his hands, or is crying, then
Speaker 1: you've got them just where you want them as an interrogator, right,
Speaker 1: you were going to get your confession, whether it's a
Speaker 1: false confession or not. That's not guaranteed by these outward signs. Again,
Speaker 1: if you strip away the non verbal stuff from the
Speaker 1: red technique, it's it's pretty pretty good stuff. And apparently
Speaker 1: this is where you really want to regain their attention.
Speaker 1: Like if they start crying, like forced them to look
Speaker 1: you in the eye. Uh, because I guess that works.
Speaker 1: That increases the stress level. Um. So remember we talked
Speaker 1: about that theme development. It's like here, here's what happened,
Speaker 1: you know, and they object to that, and then you
Speaker 1: take that objection, you turn it around, and they start
Speaker 1: to latch onto that theme couched in that objection. You
Speaker 1: take that next, and as you're developing it, it becomes
Speaker 1: one of two or more alternatives. But basically you're taking
Speaker 1: the theme that the person latched onto and you're making
Speaker 1: that the minimal um example. It's almost like a good cop,
Speaker 1: bad cop version of reasons why you did it exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's it's um you you you shot that lady
Speaker 1: in the back because she was a horrible person. Nobody
Speaker 1: is going to think that you did it because you
Speaker 1: just wanted the entrance money, exactly, that anybody in your
Speaker 1: position would have done this. And everyone's gonna understand this
Speaker 1: is why you not. This horrible reason, this reason, this
Speaker 1: reason society can live with. Maybe you'll go to jail
Speaker 1: for a year two, who knows, But when you come out,
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna say, Hey, that Bernie guy is okay. I
Speaker 1: would have shot that old lady in the back too.
Speaker 1: Did you see that movie? Yeah, that's good. Uh, it's not. Hey,
Speaker 1: that Bernie guy needs to burn in hell for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life because it killed some poor old
Speaker 1: lady for insurance money. You know. So with the cops
Speaker 1: sitting there saying, here's what we're saying, you're agreeing to.
Speaker 1: Here's this horrible interpretation that I can't control. But this
Speaker 1: I've created and sculpted with your help. So let's throw
Speaker 1: this horrible, big thing away and this thing that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem nearly as bad is what the press will hear.
Speaker 1: They will start to put it on paper. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: here's what you're not thinking about what you're doing is
Speaker 1: it's the same in both cases. If you're confessing to
Speaker 1: a murderer and you are just at a point to
Speaker 1: where you're you think, man, that sounds way better in
Speaker 1: a NewSpace paper and this other thing. And also it's
Speaker 1: coming out of the mouth of this detective that is
Speaker 1: um that is appearing to commiserate with you, that has
Speaker 1: empathized with you, that maybe told you on the side
Speaker 1: like hey, I hated that old lady too, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad you did it. The cop can totally say that,
Speaker 1: and and to win the trust of the suspect. So
Speaker 1: all of these factors combine all of a sudden, you
Speaker 1: have a story, you have a narrative, you're working out
Speaker 1: with the cops. You may not even realize that that's
Speaker 1: what's going on. And then the cops going to say,
Speaker 1: I have a piece of paper and a pen here,
Speaker 1: and I want you to write down what we just
Speaker 1: talked about. I want you to write down your confession. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they're gonna bring someone else in there first. Well, there's
Speaker 1: probably already someone else in there. They may bring a
Speaker 1: third a new person in there. Uh, to try and
Speaker 1: force them to retell their story, which they probably won't
Speaker 1: want to do. Uh. And that's when you can introduce like, hey,
Speaker 1: you don't want to tell the story again to this
Speaker 1: new detective. I know you're tired here to take the
Speaker 1: spend exactly, don't stab me with it. By this time,
Speaker 1: the person will likely want to do just about anything
Speaker 1: to get out of that room and from writing and
Speaker 1: signing this this confession. There's salvation on the other end.
Speaker 1: There's a light at the end of the tunnel, even
Speaker 1: if it's possibly jail. Yeah, they can get out of
Speaker 1: this room. They can get out of this horrible interrogation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They may promise like a hot meal, like something as
Speaker 1: simple as that can can get someone to sign a
Speaker 1: confession at the end of a long, long day. So
Speaker 1: you've got the written confession, you haven't signed, Uh. They
Speaker 1: probably have to sign an additional waiver that says I
Speaker 1: didn't write this under coercion or else. They'll include that
Speaker 1: in the confession and then you have basically what amounts
Speaker 1: to a slam dunk conviction in court. Yep. And that
Speaker 1: is the read technique. Uh. And we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: some real cases of interrogation right after this break. Alright, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So that's the red technique. You got your purpose, super effective, um,
Speaker 1: and it has been used in plenty of cases. Like
Speaker 1: we said, the number that I saw was like point
Speaker 1: zero per point zero four of confessions or false confessions, UM,
Speaker 1: which is extraordinarily small, which means that a lot of
Speaker 1: truly bad guys get caught through the red the red technique, right. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's this one in this article on how stuff works, um,
Speaker 1: how police interrogation works. And it's with a woman named
Speaker 1: Nicole Michelle Frederick. It's between her and a detective named
Speaker 1: Victor Lauria, and it takes place in Detroit in September
Speaker 1: of two thousand three. And Um, Nicole Michelle Frederick was
Speaker 1: the step mom to a two year old daughter, and
Speaker 1: the two year old daughter had shown up in the hospital,
Speaker 1: I believe, unresponsive with bruises all over her body had
Speaker 1: clearly been physically abused. And the step mom was saying,
Speaker 1: she falls down a lot, like I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: heard her, Like she just gets bruised like that, And uh,
Speaker 1: it certainly wasn't me, but not only was it not me,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was anybody. The little girl just
Speaker 1: falls down, she does it to herself. And with that,
Speaker 1: Detective Lauria took her to be blaming the victim that
Speaker 1: she was trying to go free. By blaming this little
Speaker 1: girl for being clumsy, lumsy and difficult, yes, which a
Speaker 1: detective can then latch onto is reprehensible as that sounds, uh,
Speaker 1: by trying to get some empathy, going like, hey, I
Speaker 1: get it, you know, like this is a tough baby, yes,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm sure it's trying, and it's very difficult.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, uh, Detective Lauria has has
Speaker 1: this I guess this theme, this justification that was set
Speaker 1: up by the suspect, and he starts to play it out.
Speaker 1: He's saying, like this this girl, she was a difficult baby.
Speaker 1: She's crying. You lose your head for a minute and
Speaker 1: you get a little rough and you know it could
Speaker 1: happen to anybody, and um uh ms. Frederick says, no,
Speaker 1: that's not right at all. Nobody hurt this kid. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why you don't believe me. You seem to
Speaker 1: be not listening to me, which is from what I understand,
Speaker 1: that's you're in the danger zone right there, and your derogation.
Speaker 1: If somebody's saying, if they're pressing back their own reality
Speaker 1: on the you the detective, you're not in control, right
Speaker 1: then they are. So uh, Laurias started to look for
Speaker 1: another theme, and it was along the same lines, but
Speaker 1: rather than losing your head for a minute, it was
Speaker 1: a split second. Something happen been in a flash of
Speaker 1: a minute or flash of a second, and she perked
Speaker 1: up a little. Yeah, she started to latch onto that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then he knew he had her, you know, in
Speaker 1: a pretty tough spot, and um, she started nodding her head.
Speaker 1: He sets up the alternative and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: if you don't explain this thing, every he's gonna everyone's
Speaker 1: gonna just assume that you're this awful, abusive person. Um.
Speaker 1: I think people might understand more though, because everyone's been there.
Speaker 1: If we paint you know, if if it was just
Speaker 1: a split second thing and he lost control, people are
Speaker 1: going to get that. So those are the alternatives. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, and then it came, uh, it came
Speaker 1: out that the her daughter had had had brain damage,
Speaker 1: it was likely not gonna die. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the suspects started saying, oh I I they're
Speaker 1: gonna get me for murder. Yeah. Well, he pointed out
Speaker 1: to her, He's like, by the way, you haven't even
Speaker 1: asked about the condition of your daughter. And she was like, no,
Speaker 1: I haven't totally have. He's like, no, you really haven't.
Speaker 1: And she's like, well, how is she. He's like, she's
Speaker 1: not gonna make it, and that's when she goes, oh no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be tried for murder. And she was and
Speaker 1: found guilty. Um, she she confessed, I believe right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she admitted to shaking shaking a baby and then said
Speaker 1: out loud, I killed the little girl. I killed her right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: she was convicted of killing her two year old stepdaughter.
Speaker 1: And last I saw, I found an appeal in two
Speaker 1: thousand five that was denied. That was the last I
Speaker 1: saw of her after her conviction. So it does work,
Speaker 1: and Detective Lauria followed all of these steps, um, and
Speaker 1: got a bad guy in this case. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of times it goes down just like it should.
Speaker 1: But it is super controversial, which we've talked about some
Speaker 1: and you mentioned at the beginning. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: problems is it's guilt presumptive. Is they go in there thinking,
Speaker 1: all right, this person's the goal of the of the
Speaker 1: interrogation is to get a confession, not to find out
Speaker 1: whether or not someone did something. In most in many cases,
Speaker 1: they go in there thinking this person is guilty. And
Speaker 1: if you're going in there thinking you're guilty, even if
Speaker 1: you don't mean to, you're gonna start to filter out
Speaker 1: any reasons why they might be innocent, even if they're
Speaker 1: good reasons and valid reasons. And that ain't no good, No,
Speaker 1: it's not. That's um. That's well, it's pretty huge flaw really,
Speaker 1: even if it does result in only point zero four
Speaker 1: percent of false confessions. Yeah, and you also mentioned that, Um,
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of the interrogation is to make someone
Speaker 1: stressed and uncomfortable. And then when you notice people behaving
Speaker 1: stressed and uncomfortable, that's the presumption an indicator of guilt. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: when it's like you said, would you call a feedback loop,
Speaker 1: So you know, I want to make you stressed and uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: you're being stressed and uncomfortable, that means you're guilty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an odd way to approach things. It's coercion UM.
Speaker 1: And then there's also been a lot of people to
Speaker 1: point out that a lot of these techniques are the
Speaker 1: same thing that are used in brainwashing, which we did
Speaker 1: a show on July two thousand nine, did a brainwashing
Speaker 1: show invading a personal space, not allowing the person to speak, UM,
Speaker 1: using contrasting alternatives to have them come to uh, make
Speaker 1: them feel like they're making a decision or that they
Speaker 1: have a choice or some sort of power. I think
Speaker 1: you brainwashed me in that episode two right, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did a little role play. Yeah, it was awesome. Man,
Speaker 1: um I turned you into a prep that was five
Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah, and then UM position and confession as
Speaker 1: a means of escape. Oh yeah, that was like the
Speaker 1: last step I think before resolution was to say like
Speaker 1: just like denounce your family or whatever and you will
Speaker 1: be saved or something. Right in this case, it signed
Speaker 1: this thing and man, you're gonna get that hot meal
Speaker 1: and that cigarette I promised you. The thing is is
Speaker 1: like we said, it's uh, it does produce false confessions.
Speaker 1: And I saw somewhere that of people who have been
Speaker 1: exonerated with DNA evidence, UM gave a false confession. So
Speaker 1: people go to jail for years for this kind of thing. Well,
Speaker 1: here's a few of the more famous cases. Peter Riley
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, it's an eighteen year old who
Speaker 1: is whose mother was murdered. Um, I think no siblings
Speaker 1: and no father, so like the only parent he'd ever known.
Speaker 1: And after eight hours of interrogation by Connecticut police, he
Speaker 1: confessed to brutally murdering her. Murdering her and uh, I
Speaker 1: was convicted on manslaughter based on the confessional loan. There
Speaker 1: was no evidence, no motive. Medical findings suggested that there
Speaker 1: were at least two attackers, and uh, the town really
Speaker 1: got behind him apparently, and like, so this kid didn't
Speaker 1: do this, He's not that kind of guy. And let's
Speaker 1: have bake sales and raise money. And Arthur Miller, the
Speaker 1: famous playwright, lived in the town, and he championed it
Speaker 1: because he did a lot of work with a c
Speaker 1: l U and Um. Eventually new evidence came out that
Speaker 1: exonerated him, and he was set free after three years
Speaker 1: in prison. Three years not too bad. That's better than
Speaker 1: Earl Washington Jr. Who in nineteen eighty two he was
Speaker 1: described as in please everybody, I'm using scare quotes here
Speaker 1: He was described by psychologists as mildly retarded. He had
Speaker 1: an i Q of sixty nine, which is a whole
Speaker 1: other kettle of fish that mean anything anyway, But um,
Speaker 1: he confessed to raping and murdering a nineteen year old
Speaker 1: woman under interrogation. He was convicted on the confession alone, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just on the confession. Well, a lot of these are
Speaker 1: and spent eighteen years in prison, some of them on
Speaker 1: death row and was apparently rescued from the executioner with
Speaker 1: like nine days to go. Yeah. But at the same time, like,
Speaker 1: as a jury, what are you to do when someone
Speaker 1: says I did this, you know, I mean hopefully don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe add some other evidence to no, I agree.
Speaker 1: The thing is is Earl Washington's um thing. He he
Speaker 1: was somebody else was caught doing it using DNA. That's
Speaker 1: that's been a huge change to this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It's at least exonerated people like free and clear. But
Speaker 1: that's that brings up another problem with false confessions. Not
Speaker 1: only do innocent people go to jail, guilty people stay free,
Speaker 1: and they accumulate more victims over time, you know, like, um,
Speaker 1: how how how many more children would that that lady
Speaker 1: in Detroit have abused if like she'd gotten off or something,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, like the and the guy who
Speaker 1: created UM the read technique actually had a false confession
Speaker 1: and wrongful conviction under his belt, a guy. If you
Speaker 1: read the article UM the uh the interview in The
Speaker 1: New Yorker, the first thing he talks about is this
Speaker 1: guy in the fifties who was in jail for twenty
Speaker 1: years from ordering his wife even though he didn't do it,
Speaker 1: who was um interrogated by John Reid himself. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the guy who actually did do it went on
Speaker 1: to rape pregnant women and um commit all these other
Speaker 1: horrible crimes that he wouldn't have He wouldn't have done
Speaker 1: had he been caught the first time, or had the
Speaker 1: cups still been looking for him. Wow. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a huge point. I mean, like, it's not just innocent
Speaker 1: people in prison, it's guilty people out still. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you really want to see uh this all firsthand, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend the documentary from Ken burn Sarah Burns, and
Speaker 1: David McMahon, The Central Park Five. And this is the
Speaker 1: famous story in of five young African American men who
Speaker 1: were set up the River for a rape in Central
Speaker 1: Park and they did not do it. And uh. It's
Speaker 1: a great documentary and it's just summarizes how you can
Speaker 1: get a false confession very nicely and it all plays
Speaker 1: out and you see these inner abuse and get really
Speaker 1: angry and uh, but that was definitely a case of
Speaker 1: UM sort of like with the Atlanta child murders, Like
Speaker 1: people are scared to go into Central Park now and
Speaker 1: we've got these five use who aren't so smart and
Speaker 1: they're poor, and we can we think they did it
Speaker 1: and I don't care what the evidence says. We need
Speaker 1: to finger them for the crime and put them all
Speaker 1: over the news so people will feel safe again. But
Speaker 1: they were eventually exonerated thanks to DNA again um, and
Speaker 1: they spent depending on which guy, between six years and
Speaker 1: twelve years in prison. And really great documentary and I
Speaker 1: think it's on Netflix. It is it is. Have you
Speaker 1: seen it? Yeah? Yeah, that's a good one. UM, so
Speaker 1: chuck this. We've basically been talking mostly about the red technique,
Speaker 1: that there are alternatives. There's some law enforcement agencies have
Speaker 1: lost faith in um, the red technique. Uh and in Britain,
Speaker 1: apparently in there's a bunch of false confessions that came
Speaker 1: to light and the British government said, we need to
Speaker 1: figure something else out. So they created a Blue Ribbon
Speaker 1: task force and said, come up with an alternative to
Speaker 1: the red technique, which ironically is a technique in the
Speaker 1: re technique. But what they came up with was called peace,
Speaker 1: which this is the worst acronym of all time, but
Speaker 1: preparation and planning, engage and explain, account closure, evaluate clearly
Speaker 1: spells peace. Yes, um. So they came up with it
Speaker 1: after a couple of years and by two thousand and
Speaker 1: one it was pretty widespread. But the Peace technique is
Speaker 1: predicated on the idea that you're not going after a confession.
Speaker 1: This technique, like you as a an investigator an interrogator,
Speaker 1: you're going in to just get the whole story out
Speaker 1: and as much detail as possible, and you're not going
Speaker 1: after a confession. You're not accusing the person of the crime,
Speaker 1: you're being polite and you're here's another thing, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that this will cure false confessions
Speaker 1: almost in and of itself, videotaping the confession from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. And so what the cops do is they
Speaker 1: interview the the suspect. They say, well, what about this,
Speaker 1: here's a discrepancy, what about this? And they're not being accusatory,
Speaker 1: they're just putting everything out there and letting this person
Speaker 1: explain it in front of the video tape or in
Speaker 1: front of the video camera, and then the tape is
Speaker 1: shown to a jury and the jury apparently decides whether
Speaker 1: the person is lying or not. Yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: all built on the what I think is a pretty
Speaker 1: rock solid theory that it is really hard to lie
Speaker 1: and lie and lie and keep it all straight and
Speaker 1: keep it all and that that congruous line that's believable
Speaker 1: at some point, if you keep talking and you're lying
Speaker 1: a bunch, you're gonna mess up. And that's what they
Speaker 1: prey on, especially if you've just spent the last day,
Speaker 1: hours like drinking cruddy coffee and eating a few ho
Speaker 1: hoes and being asked questions by interrogators, even if they're
Speaker 1: being polite like yeah, you're you're gonna have a really
Speaker 1: hard time keeping up with what you've already said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you've got to be a real skilled sociopath to
Speaker 1: lie for hours and hours and hours. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: they'll bring him again and again a week later, let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, let's have some more tea and let's sit
Speaker 1: down and talk. And uh, a week later, you might
Speaker 1: forget some of the things you said. And um, and
Speaker 1: the cops have the video and they're writing down all
Speaker 1: the details. Seems pretty solid to me. Yeah, so good
Speaker 1: on you Britain. And um, there are some people here
Speaker 1: in the US trying to teach it to cops here,
Speaker 1: but apparently it's just like word of mouth and the
Speaker 1: particular jurisdiction has to be down with it and support it,
Speaker 1: and it's just not super widespread here. Yeah. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: the read technique isn't the force of law. It's just
Speaker 1: the gold standard. It's the one that everybody uses and there, like,
Speaker 1: I want to be like the cops on the shows. Well, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I want to do the piece technique. Um, the in Canada,
Speaker 1: I found a completely different technique too. It's called the Mr.
Speaker 1: Big technique. Have you heard of it. It's it's extremely involved. Basically,
Speaker 1: you the suspect, will meet an undercover cop who's posing
Speaker 1: as a criminal while you're out and about and free
Speaker 1: and easy or whatever, or maybe while you're being booked whatever,
Speaker 1: and you guys are gonna become friends and over the
Speaker 1: course of the next several months, this undercover cop is
Speaker 1: going to gain your trust and get you to ultimately confess.
Speaker 1: That shows how little crime there is. They're like, so,
Speaker 1: would you cut down your neighbor's street right exactly where
Speaker 1: like they can spend like three months on a single confession.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, But it's called the Mr. Big technique
Speaker 1: and it actually the reason it's called Mr biggess Uh
Speaker 1: in its ideal form, you, um, the suspect are become
Speaker 1: like kind of criminal compatriots with this this undercover cop
Speaker 1: who then introduces you to Mr Big, this crime boss
Speaker 1: who wants you to step up to the next crime
Speaker 1: lab bowl. But it's gonna get you to talk about
Speaker 1: this murder that you did or whatever, and then you
Speaker 1: confess it and you're being secretly taped and you don't
Speaker 1: know it and you've just entrapped yourself. Man. I love Canada,
Speaker 1: Mr I might have to move there, man, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: gonna stick around after a Toronto or Vancouver might just
Speaker 1: one country. So we said earlier we were gonna give
Speaker 1: some tips. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't. Um.
Speaker 1: They seem a little silly, but they recommend you just
Speaker 1: don't talk. You don't talk, they said, imagine the words
Speaker 1: I invoke my rights to remain silent painted on the
Speaker 1: wall and stare at them. Uh, ask for counsel, ask
Speaker 1: for a lawyer. And then the number five thing they
Speaker 1: say to do is cultivate hatred for your interrogator. Who
Speaker 1: who's that from Peace Help Beagle or something weird like that.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's for recommendations for animal rights activists who
Speaker 1: get arrested. So yeah, he seems kind of basic to me.
Speaker 1: It is, but I think it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where they can easily go out the window when you're
Speaker 1: in that situation, you know. Yeah, and again, if you're
Speaker 1: in the United States and you invoke your right to council,
Speaker 1: that's that like the cops are they have to stop,
Speaker 1: and if they don't, that's a that's a big problem.
Speaker 1: I kind of perversely want to know how I would
Speaker 1: hold up. I know it's no laughing matter and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't joke around about it, but I would like to
Speaker 1: be interrogated just to see. Uh so, Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: that's if you want to learn some more about UM
Speaker 1: police interrogation, check out this article police interrogation on how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. It's a good one, um, and
Speaker 1: you can find that by using the search bar, of course.
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Jittery Joe's. Oh Yeah Coffee. Hey guys, Hope,
Speaker 1: Paul as well my wife Cassie now are big fancy
Speaker 1: yalls and uh we've been listening for years. This summer
Speaker 1: we took a two month honeymoon to Southeast Asia. It
Speaker 1: was a blast. Your podcasts kept the sane. Thanks for that.
Speaker 1: You sent you a postcard from uh angkor Wat in Cambodia. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was bought there, written in Borneo, and mailed from Malaysia.
Speaker 1: Remember so it was well traveled. Um. Anyway, we live
Speaker 1: in Athens and love to hear your stories about Athens.
Speaker 1: We actually live in five Points on the Shortcut Road
Speaker 1: where Chuck told about his mystery creepy old Lady ghost story.
Speaker 1: I drive by there every day and I always keep
Speaker 1: an eye out for her. But my day jobs with
Speaker 1: Jittery Joe's Coffee Roasters, a local Athens institution, and um,
Speaker 1: he brought a huge box of coffee and shirts and
Speaker 1: hats and hand delivered it to the office. And Uh,
Speaker 1: I think he was surprised to know that. I remember
Speaker 1: when Jittery Joe's first opened, because he was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that was before my time. I think he I didn't
Speaker 1: think I was as old as I was, But I
Speaker 1: remember Jittery Joe's opening up. It was a big deals,
Speaker 1: like the first kind of good indie coffee house in Athens.
Speaker 1: I didn't know they were the first, but I'm not
Speaker 1: surprised the first one I remember at least. But he
Speaker 1: suggests the Sumatra Wahana. He said, it's unlike any coffee
Speaker 1: I've ever had. People either love it or hate it.
Speaker 1: So um, that is from Mike Lord and you can
Speaker 1: just look up Jittery Joe's online. I'm sure you can
Speaker 1: order this stuff. Yeah, you definitely can. Thanks for the coffee, Mike,
Speaker 1: it's good. Yes, and thank you to your wife Cassidy
Speaker 1: for all the support. Uh. If you want to give
Speaker 1: Chuck and Eye free stuff, we are happy to accept it.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with us to ask for
Speaker 1: our physical mailing address and we'll give it to you. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to say showing up at the office and
Speaker 1: announced was a little weird, but since he had a
Speaker 1: huge box of coffee, it was all forgetting. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so your combaring gifts, It's like, yeah, yeah, it's social lubricant.
Speaker 1: Yeah gifts, sorry, especially good on It's like jittery Joe's coffee.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with us via Twitter at
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