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Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer,

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Speaker 1: and I'm Steve Drusen. Steve and I co direct the

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Speaker 1: Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University in Chicago. It's

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Speaker 1: one of the oldest organizations in the country dedicated to

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Speaker 1: exonerating innocent people who've been convicted of crimes they didn't commit.

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Speaker 1: Over its twenty years, the center has freed more than

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Speaker 1: forty innocent men, women, and children, and it's our privilege

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Speaker 1: to work there. Some of you may know me and

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Speaker 1: Steve from the Netflix show Making a Murderer, which exposed

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Speaker 1: the unjust case against our client, Brendan Dassy, or you

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Speaker 1: may have heard me on an episode from last seasons

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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flomm, where Brendan told his own

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Speaker 1: story for the first time. On this podcast series, Steve

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Speaker 1: and I are going to bring you into our world,

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Speaker 1: the world of false Confessions. We're going to tell you

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Speaker 1: about cases we've worked on, innocent people we've fought for,

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Speaker 1: and our passion for making justice a reality. Today, we'll

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Speaker 1: start with the big question, why would anyone confess to

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Speaker 1: a crime they didn't commit? Then we'll take you inside

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Speaker 1: the interrogation room to show you how false confessions happen,

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Speaker 1: and finally a little backstory how Steve and I each

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Speaker 1: became obsessed with the problem of false confessions and how

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Speaker 1: we're not going to quit until this problem gets solved.

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Speaker 1: Most people assume that when someone confesses, it's because they're

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Speaker 1: guilty and because they have some sort of inner need

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Speaker 1: to unburden themselves of their guilt and the story that

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Speaker 1: they're clinging on too. But what we have discovered is

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Speaker 1: that confessions aren't always true. That in fact, we know

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Speaker 1: of hundreds of cases where someone is brought into an

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Speaker 1: interrogation room, questioned by the police, sometimes for hours, ends

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Speaker 1: up confessing to a crime, often a very brutal crime,

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Speaker 1: a rape or a murder, something like that, and they're

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Speaker 1: convicted on the basis of that confession, sent away to

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Speaker 1: prison for years, decades sometimes, and then an organization like

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Speaker 1: our Center on Wrongful Convictions comes along and does DNA

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Speaker 1: testing and discovers, beyond the shadow of a doubt that

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Speaker 1: the confession is false. We know hundreds of cases like this,

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Speaker 1: and that really gives the lie to this belief that

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Speaker 1: confessions are always true.

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Speaker 2: I think people understand that if you were tortured or

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Speaker 2: you're subjected to the kinds of tactics we saw in

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Speaker 2: Abu Grabe and Guantanamo that under those kinds of physical, abusive,

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Speaker 2: extreme sleep deprivation kind of tactics, yeah, you might say

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Speaker 2: some things, including confessed to some serious crimes you didn't commit.

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Speaker 2: But most of today's modern psychological interrogation techniques are all

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Speaker 2: about talking words, and so the job of the lawyer

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Speaker 2: or the expert is to try to explain the psychology

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Speaker 2: of interrogations to lay people, to bring them inside the

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Speaker 2: interrogation room so that they can feel the same pressure

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Speaker 2: that the suspect is under and maybe come to understand

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Speaker 2: why they themselves might confess to a crime they didn't commit.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. Every one of us has a breaking point, and

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Speaker 1: what you see in these false confession cases is the

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Speaker 1: power of the interrogation room, which is focused on identifying

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Speaker 1: that breaking point for the person being interrogated. It's an

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Speaker 1: incredibly powerful space. It's really good at getting true confessions,

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Speaker 1: but also really good at getting false confessions.

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Speaker 2: The first thing that is essential to any interrogation is isolation.

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Speaker 2: Depriving a suspect from a lifeline to loved ones, friends' attorneys,

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Speaker 2: and so police officers take suspects in a room, a

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Speaker 2: specially designed room. It's usually a very small room. It's

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Speaker 2: cramped to the extent there is furniture in the room.

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Speaker 2: It's usually just a couple chairs, maybe a table pushed

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Speaker 2: to the side, because you don't want the table between

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Speaker 2: the suspect and an interrogator because it can provide a

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Speaker 2: sense of comfort for the suspect and it can minimize

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Speaker 2: the ability of the interrogator to get into the suspect's face.

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Speaker 2: There's no natural light in these rooms, no clocks, no telephones,

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Speaker 2: The walls are basically barren, and usually the suspect is

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Speaker 2: positioned in a corner or in a place where getting

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Speaker 2: up and leaving requires the suspect to literally go through

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Speaker 2: the two interrogators who are blocking the pathway to the door.

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Speaker 1: These rooms have been around for many, many decades, but

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Speaker 1: we're only getting a glimpse into them for the first

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Speaker 1: time recently, as more and more confessions have been proven

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Speaker 1: false by DNA, states are starting to require video cameras

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Speaker 1: in interrogation rooms for the first time. Twenty four states

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Speaker 1: still don't require any kind of real time documentation, but

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Speaker 1: because of those twenty six states, that now requires some

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Speaker 1: sort of video camera or audio recording inside the room.

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Speaker 1: We're getting a look for the first time, and what

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Speaker 1: we're seeing is chilling.

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Speaker 2: So once you have this sense of isolation, what that

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Speaker 2: does is it fosters a dependence. The suspect becomes obliged

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Speaker 2: to do what the interrogator asks him to do, and

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Speaker 2: part of that dependence is built during the early part

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Speaker 2: of an interrogation, which involves some kind of attempt to

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Speaker 2: build trust between the interrogator and the suspect, something that

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Speaker 2: suggests that the interrogator is here to help the suspect.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the interrogator is the only person between the

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Speaker 2: suspect and perhaps a life sentence or a prosecutor who's

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Speaker 2: going to charge him or her with the death penalty.

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Speaker 1: When people see what happens inside the interrogation room, they're horrified.

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Speaker 1: The techniques that are used. Sure, they're psychological, Very few

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Speaker 1: cops use physical abuse any longer. But these psychological techniques

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Speaker 1: distort the world so much that suddenly it starts to

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Speaker 1: make sense that you should confess even if you're innocent,

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Speaker 1: And to watch that mind game in real time on

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Speaker 1: these videos is absolutely appalling.

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Speaker 2: What I find interesting is that many people we show

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Speaker 2: these tapes to, they're accepting of the need to use

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Speaker 2: some of these tactics to get true confessions. But what

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Speaker 2: they find offensive is the way in which police officers

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Speaker 2: feed facts to suspects and actually construct a narrative that

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Speaker 2: isn't really the suspects confession at all. It is the

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Speaker 2: suspect affirming a preconceived theory of the police that is

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Speaker 2: shaped and constructed by the police.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like like rehearsing a play, you know, like

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Speaker 1: scripting a story that this person has to rehearse and

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Speaker 1: get perfect and then perform for the final confession. And

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Speaker 1: this process, amazingly enough, when we show it to some audiences,

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Speaker 1: they laugh because, you know, if the goal of all

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Speaker 1: of this of interrogation our justice system is to fine truth,

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Speaker 1: this is such a distortion of truth that people laugh

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Speaker 1: at the absurdity of it.

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Speaker 2: And that's heartbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely heartbreaking, because you're watching these people's lives be

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Speaker 1: ruined in real time on these videos. All right, I'm

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Speaker 1: just going to come.

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Speaker 2: Out and ask you who shot her in the hat

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Speaker 2: he did? Why didn't you tell us that when an

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Speaker 2: entrergator says to Brendan Dacy, all right, I'm just going

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Speaker 2: to come out and tell you who shot her in

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Speaker 2: the head. It's heartbreaking because there are supposed to be

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Speaker 2: checks and balances in this process, other police officers looking

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Speaker 2: at the tape saying you can't do that. He has

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Speaker 2: to come up with these facts on his own. And

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Speaker 2: then there are prosecutors who, when reviewing these cases for trials,

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Speaker 2: should know that this confession is unreliable. And then there

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Speaker 2: are judges. They should see these confessions and they should say,

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Speaker 2: I'm not letting this go before a jury. This is

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Speaker 2: not the suspect's confession. It's constructed by the interrogators. And

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Speaker 2: then there's the jury who also has an opportunity to

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Speaker 2: weigh in on this. But time and time and time again,

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Speaker 2: it's the power of the confession itself that ends up

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Speaker 2: convicting these people.

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Speaker 1: Too often, their fate is sealed because the systems check

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Speaker 1: that should prevent false confessions from resulting in wrongful convictions

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Speaker 1: don't work. So literally, when you're watching these videos at

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Speaker 1: the interrogation room, you're watching acts of legal suicide.

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Speaker 2: And in the worst cases, you're watching acts of psychological torture.

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Speaker 2: I mean there is a class of false confessions. They're

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Speaker 2: called either coerced persuaded, or coerced internalized. But these are

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Speaker 2: cases where police officers attack a suspect's confidence in their

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Speaker 2: own memory of events. The suspect knows they're innocent, but

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Speaker 2: police officers tell them perhaps they committed the crime in

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Speaker 2: a blackout, or were under the influence of drugs or alcohol,

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Speaker 2: or maybe that the trauma of killing a loved one

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Speaker 2: was so painful that they repressed the memory of what

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Speaker 2: they actually did. All of this crashes the suspect's confidence

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Speaker 2: in their own memory, and then police officers give them

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Speaker 2: an explanation or a reason for why they might have

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Speaker 2: committed the crime and not remembered it. At the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, some suspects can't tell the difference between

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Speaker 2: their real memories and their imagined memories, and the imagined

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Speaker 2: memories have been shaped by the interrogator's questioning exactly.

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Speaker 1: There are cases in which suspects are told that they

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Speaker 1: must have split personalities and the good you doesn't remember

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Speaker 1: what the bad you did. There have been cases where kids'

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Speaker 1: children have been falsely told that their loved ones on

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Speaker 1: their deathbeds accuse their own children of killing them. Then,

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Speaker 1: of course they believe that their parents would never say

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Speaker 1: such a thing unless it was true, so they begin

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Speaker 1: to construct a narrative that accounts for what they think

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Speaker 1: the parents had happened.

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Speaker 2: The cases in which children confess to killing their parents,

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Speaker 2: parents confessed to killing their children, husbands confessed to killing

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Speaker 2: their wives, siblings confessed to killing their siblings, these are

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Speaker 2: these are the hardest ones to whty, just because not

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Speaker 2: only are these suspects being accused of one of the

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Speaker 2: worst crimes imaginable in society, not only are they struggling

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Speaker 2: with trying to remember something that they can't remember, but

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Speaker 2: they're suffering from incredible grief trauma. Yeah, and trauma. I mean,

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Speaker 2: when someone close to you is killed, especially if they've

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Speaker 2: been murdered, and you're being interrogated within hours of discovering

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Speaker 2: the body, you are so vulnerable to suggestions, so vulnerable

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Speaker 2: to manipulation.

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Speaker 1: Desperate for help, desperate for a friend, And that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what the interrogator wants you to think he is, and

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Speaker 1: that's exactly, of course, what he's not. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: are seeing the distortion of a mind in the interrogation room,

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Speaker 1: the poisoning of a memory, the twisting of a world,

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Speaker 1: and the creation of a profound injustice. The tactics, they're

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Speaker 1: basically the same across all of these false confession videos

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Speaker 1: that we have. You see a suspect being brought into

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Speaker 1: an interrogation room, confronted with an accusation, and then it's

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Speaker 1: the job of the interrogators to communicate to them, beyond

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Speaker 1: the shadow of a doubt, we know you're guilty, and

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Speaker 1: there's nothing you can say or do to convince us otherwise.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes it takes hours of relentless accusation to bring

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Speaker 1: the suspect down to a place of hopelessness. Then it's

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Speaker 1: the job of the interrogators to offer confession as an out,

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Speaker 1: as a way to cut your losses somehow and cling

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Speaker 1: to some shred of hope. So you'll see interrogators say

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Speaker 1: things like, look, there are two kinds of people in

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Speaker 1: this world. There's someone who would commit a horrible crime

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Speaker 1: like this one. Maybe someone who's done this before and

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Speaker 1: is going to go do it again, right, real monster.

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Speaker 1: We all know what happens to people like that. They're

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Speaker 1: never going to see the light of day again. But

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Speaker 1: then there are other kinds of people in this world,

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Speaker 1: people just like you or me, regular ordinary, good folks,

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Speaker 1: just trying to live their life, trying to do the

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Speaker 1: right thing. People who maybe they just make a bad decision,

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Speaker 1: a bad choice, they snap in a moment of stress

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Speaker 1: or frustration. We've all made mistakes. I've made a mistake

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Speaker 1: in my life, haven't you. And we all know what

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Speaker 1: happens to good people who just make mistakes. Right, people

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Speaker 1: want to help them. If you just made a mistake here,

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Speaker 1: the judge will look at you and want to help you.

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Speaker 1: The prosecutor will understand you better. You'll have a reason

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Speaker 1: to hope. So which one is it? Are you the

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Speaker 1: monster or are you the person who just made a mistake.

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Speaker 1: That's the choice that the person in the interrogation room has,

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Speaker 1: and every single one of us will choose to tell

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Speaker 1: a story of mistake in the hopes that it will

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Speaker 1: result in help. And of course, when you confess to

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Speaker 1: that crime you didn't commit in the hopes that everyone

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Speaker 1: It seals your fate.

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Speaker 2: In October of two thousand and seven, I got a

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Speaker 2: phone call on the other end of the line were

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Speaker 2: several attorneys who I knew and respected, and they said

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Speaker 2: to me, do you know about the case of Brendan

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Speaker 2: Dacy And I said, yes, of course I know about

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Speaker 2: the case. Stephen Avery was the first person exonerated by

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Speaker 2: DNA evidence in Wisconsin. It was huge news. And then

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Speaker 2: he got charged with the murder of a photographer named

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Speaker 2: Teresa Holbach in two thousand and five. And he had

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Speaker 2: a nephew named Brendan Dassi, a sixteen year old nephew

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Speaker 2: who had confessed to participating in that crime with his

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Speaker 2: uncle Stephen, and both of them had been convicted and

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Speaker 2: sentenced to life. And so I knew the basic background

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Speaker 2: of the case. They said to me, which you represent

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Speaker 2: Brendan Dacy on appeal. And this is the kind of

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Speaker 2: work that I was called to do. It was the

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Speaker 2: kind of work that I was doing. But I said

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Speaker 2: to them, send me the interrogation videos. So when the

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Speaker 2: tapes arrived, I looked at them and I decided I

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Speaker 2: was going to get involved, but I wanted a gut check.

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Speaker 2: I wanted someone else to tell me what they saw.

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Speaker 2: I had worked with one student before on a false

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Speaker 2: confession case and I assigned her to look at these recordings,

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Speaker 2: and that student was Laura, and I writer, that's right.

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Speaker 1: This is about twelve years ago or so, and my

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Speaker 1: last year of law school. I decided on a whim

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Speaker 1: to sign up for your class, Steve, un wrongful Convictions.

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Speaker 2: Tell the truth? Was it? You didn't I sign up

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Speaker 2: for my class?

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Speaker 1: I thought I was signing up for someone else's class

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Speaker 1: on wrongful convictions. But I ended up in your class.

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Speaker 2: Thank god.

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Speaker 1: I decided to stick around because it got interesting real fast.

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Speaker 1: Right And about a month in Steve, you know, you

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Speaker 1: called me into your office and you said, I've just

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Speaker 1: gotten involved in this case out of Wisconsin involving a

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Speaker 1: sixteen year old boy with intellectual limitations who confessed to

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Speaker 1: a murder that I don't think he committed. And you

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Speaker 1: handed me the interrogation videos of Brendon Dacy, the same

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Speaker 1: videos that like eight years later would go on to

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Speaker 1: be featured in Making a Murderer. And I watched them

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Speaker 1: from start to finish, and my heart broke.

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Speaker 2: We know he did something else to her? What else

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Speaker 2: did he do with her?

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Speaker 1: Extremely extremely im poor you tell us this for USh

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Speaker 1: to believe you? Because I saw two seasoned adult interrogators

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Speaker 1: questioning a sixteen year old, intellectually limited boy, manipulating him

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Speaker 1: into confessing to a murder that he couldn't even describe.

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Speaker 2: Did you see whether a cell phone of hers? Oh?

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Speaker 2: Do you know whether she had a camera? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to jump into

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Speaker 1: the video screen and get myself between Brendan and those

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Speaker 1: interrogators who were manipulating him into confessing to a crime

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Speaker 1: he so clearly didn't commit. That was literally a life

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Speaker 1: changing moment for me. I graduated from law school and

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Speaker 1: within months I was back at Northwestern working alongside Steve

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Speaker 1: to build the Center on Wrongful Convictions and to help

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Speaker 1: represent Brendan and other kids just like him. Ever since, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, every once in a while you come across a student,

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Speaker 2: and Laura was a brilliant writer. I mean, let's just

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Speaker 2: be honest, she was a better writer than I was.

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Speaker 1: Can I get that in writing again?

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Speaker 2: But she really didn't know a lot about the subject

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Speaker 2: of false confession. She was, in a sense, like an

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Speaker 2: uneducated jewelry member looking at that tape for the first time,

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Speaker 2: and she was hooked from that point on.

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Speaker 1: By the way I only told Steve like two years

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Speaker 1: ago that I had mistakenly signed up for his class.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, it broke my heart.

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Speaker 1: No, I mean, what can I say, This is all

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Speaker 1: totally clean slate for me. I really did know nothing

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Speaker 1: about criminal law, and what I saw broke everything I

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Speaker 1: thought I knew about our justice system. And as I

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Speaker 1: continued to working with Steve over the years, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's no there's no better mentor on the

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Speaker 1: planet than Steve Drisen. He lifts others around him up,

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Speaker 1: that's what he does. And you know, little by little

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Speaker 1: as I learned from him, as I absorbed his passion

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Speaker 1: for justice and his twenty four to seven dedication to

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Speaker 1: speaking for people without a voice, and I was the

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Speaker 1: fortunate beneficiary of his mentorship and it's something I'll be

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Speaker 1: forever grateful for.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think it's important to note Laura had

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Speaker 2: a brilliant legal mind, but for me, it was when

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Speaker 2: she met Brendan for the first time and there was

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Speaker 2: a sort of instant connection between the two of them

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Speaker 2: that sealed the deal.

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Speaker 1: For me.

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Speaker 2: I knew that I needed to keep her on this

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Speaker 2: case whatever I could do, because that connection, the ability

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Speaker 2: to relate to a client under these circumstances is so important.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that's the thing. It's one thing to

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Speaker 1: watch the videotape, but it's another thing to actually meet

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Speaker 1: the person whose life you saw being dismantled, and to

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Speaker 1: hear the stories of suffering and to understand them not

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Speaker 1: just as a character in a video or a case,

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Speaker 1: but as a full human with a life and a

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Speaker 1: family and friends and dreams and hopes and the kinds

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Speaker 1: of plans that all of us have. When you meet

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Speaker 1: someone like that and you're the lawyer and it's your

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Speaker 1: job to help them, you can't walk away from that.

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Speaker 1: You just can't do it. And I haven't walked away since.

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Speaker 1: One of the questions people ask us all the time

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Speaker 1: is how we and others like us have the strength

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Speaker 1: to continue fighting these injustices day in and day out.

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Speaker 2: Colleagues in our office, many of them are doing similarly

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Speaker 2: gut wrenching work, and so when our office is functioning

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Speaker 2: at its best, there is a lot of support there.

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Speaker 2: Our office also is often a home and a place

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Speaker 2: of solace for our clients. So we see some of

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Speaker 2: our success stories walking around and that helps prop us up.

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Speaker 2: But it's hard, so for me as a sort of

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Speaker 2: therapeutic way to rid myself of some of these cases,

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Speaker 2: but more importantly to educate others, was to do two things.

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Speaker 2: To write about them and then to speak publicly and

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Speaker 2: to spread this knowledge around as much as possible. And

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Speaker 2: that's what I've been doing for the past twenty or

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Speaker 2: twenty five years, and that's what Lara has been doing

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Speaker 2: since she's been involved in this work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, the work is hard, and

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Speaker 1: of course it's stressful, but it's the victories that keep

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Speaker 1: us going. Right, There's no better feeling than watching someone

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Speaker 1: you personally have believed in and fought for, usually for years.

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Speaker 1: No better feeling in the world than watching them walk

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Speaker 1: out of prison.

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Speaker 2: I can't believe him finally hear this is unbelieved. I mean,

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Speaker 2: steal shot, leave that you're you finally.

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Speaker 1: Defended, not guilty of feeling of giving birth, of giving

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Speaker 1: life back, helping this person rediscover and recapture the life

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Speaker 1: that's been taken unjustly from them. It's an incredible feeling

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Speaker 1: and that's what keeps us going. I think the times

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Speaker 1: we're able to do that, those moments will stick with

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Speaker 1: you for the rest of your life. False confession stories

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Speaker 1: are life changing to hear. I mean literally, it was

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Speaker 1: a story of a false confession that changed the course

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Speaker 1: of my life, transformed my own personal trajectory. And that's

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Speaker 1: what I want to do with this podcast. I want

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Speaker 1: to share these stories because there's no better way to

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Speaker 1: understand the need to reform the system than to hear

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Speaker 1: about these injustices and to get fired up to view

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Speaker 1: this as a call to action.

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Speaker 2: I've been telling these stories for twenty years and trying

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Speaker 2: to reach larger and larger audiences. So for me, that's

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Speaker 2: what this is about. It's another opportunity to try to

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Speaker 2: prevent someone else from suffering what Brendan Dacy has suffered exactly.

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Speaker 1: You know. One of the amazing things is after making

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Speaker 1: a murder came out, all of a sudden, people around

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Speaker 1: the globe started caring about the criminal justice system for

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Speaker 1: the first time, I mean millions of people. We want

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Speaker 1: to amplify those feelings. We want to keep that energy

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Speaker 1: flowing because it's already starting to result in important reforms

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Speaker 1: around the United States and around the globe. We got

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Speaker 1: to keep that going. These stories are powerful vehicles for justice,

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Speaker 1: and that's why we're here telling these stories today. We

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Speaker 1: can fix this, but we need to fix it together.

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Speaker 1: The first story we're going to tell in this podcast

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Speaker 1: is the story of a Virginia man named Robert Davis.

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Speaker 2: When I first learned about Robert Davis's case, Lara had

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Speaker 2: just come back into the fall to Northwestern Law School,

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Speaker 2: and she was beginning to show signs of being a

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Speaker 2: rising star in this field. And one of the things

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Speaker 2: I wanted to do is to not only give her

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Speaker 2: the Robert Davis tapes, but to let her run with them,

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Speaker 2: let her analyze this case as an expert.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people, I think, watched Making a Murderer

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Speaker 1: and thought, that's a Manitoac County problem. That's something that

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Speaker 1: just happened to Brendan, And that's not the case. This

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Speaker 1: has happened to hundreds of people around the country that

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Speaker 1: we know of, and surely there are thousands that we

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Speaker 1: don't know of. And we wanted to start with Robert

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Speaker 1: Davis because Roberts an everyday ordinary guy right comes from

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Speaker 1: a stable family and a good home and got caught

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Speaker 1: up in the same forces of interrogation that Brendan Dancy

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Speaker 1: did and ended up confessing to an equally serious heinous

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Speaker 1: crime that he, like Brendan, didn't commit. There's no better

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Speaker 1: illustration of the point that we all can be broken

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Speaker 1: by interrogation than Robert Davis's story. So join us next

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Speaker 1: week and thanks for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is

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Speaker 1: the production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with

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Speaker 1: Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer Jason

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Speaker 1: Flamm and the team at Signal Company Number One. Executive

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00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: producer Kevin wardis senior producer and Pope, and additional production

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Speaker 1: and editing by Connor Hall. Our music was composed by

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Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter

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Speaker 1: at Laura Nyrider, and you can follow me on Twitter.

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Speaker 2: At s Drizzen.

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Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com

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Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at

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Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction