WEBVTT - #115 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Origin Story 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer, 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.360 and I'm Steve Drusen. Steve and I co direct the 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:12.280 Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University in Chicago. It's 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.280 one of the oldest organizations in the country dedicated to 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.080 exonerating innocent people who've been convicted of crimes they didn't commit. 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.680 Over its twenty years, the center has freed more than 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.920 forty innocent men, women, and children, and it's our privilege 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.720 to work there. Some of you may know me and 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:32.560 Steve from the Netflix show Making a Murderer, which exposed 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.640 the unjust case against our client, Brendan Dassy, or you 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.080 may have heard me on an episode from last seasons 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.560 Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flomm, where Brendan told his own 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.960 story for the first time. On this podcast series, Steve 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.159 and I are going to bring you into our world, 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.800 the world of false Confessions. We're going to tell you 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.920 about cases we've worked on, innocent people we've fought for, 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:11.240 and our passion for making justice a reality. Today, we'll 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.280 start with the big question, why would anyone confess to 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.480 a crime they didn't commit? Then we'll take you inside 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.040 the interrogation room to show you how false confessions happen, 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.720 and finally a little backstory how Steve and I each 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.160 became obsessed with the problem of false confessions and how 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.440 we're not going to quit until this problem gets solved. 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.240 Most people assume that when someone confesses, it's because they're 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.040 guilty and because they have some sort of inner need 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.440 to unburden themselves of their guilt and the story that 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:49.280 they're clinging on too. But what we have discovered is 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.200 that confessions aren't always true. That in fact, we know 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.960 of hundreds of cases where someone is brought into an 0:01:56.000 --> 0:02:00.720 interrogation room, questioned by the police, sometimes for hours, ends 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:03.720 up confessing to a crime, often a very brutal crime, 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.280 a rape or a murder, something like that, and they're 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.320 convicted on the basis of that confession, sent away to 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.840 prison for years, decades sometimes, and then an organization like 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.920 our Center on Wrongful Convictions comes along and does DNA 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.520 testing and discovers, beyond the shadow of a doubt that 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.919 the confession is false. We know hundreds of cases like this, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.640 and that really gives the lie to this belief that 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:27.040 confessions are always true. 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:32.200 I think people understand that if you were tortured or 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.920 you're subjected to the kinds of tactics we saw in 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:42.000 Abu Grabe and Guantanamo that under those kinds of physical, abusive, 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:49.480 extreme sleep deprivation kind of tactics, yeah, you might say 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.120 some things, including confessed to some serious crimes you didn't commit. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.760 But most of today's modern psychological interrogation techniques are all 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:04.200 about talking words, and so the job of the lawyer 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:09.799 or the expert is to try to explain the psychology 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:14.600 of interrogations to lay people, to bring them inside the 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:20.000 interrogation room so that they can feel the same pressure 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.960 that the suspect is under and maybe come to understand 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.960 why they themselves might confess to a crime they didn't commit. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.120 Exactly. Every one of us has a breaking point, and 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:33.080 what you see in these false confession cases is the 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.080 power of the interrogation room, which is focused on identifying 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.680 that breaking point for the person being interrogated. It's an 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.800 incredibly powerful space. It's really good at getting true confessions, 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.680 but also really good at getting false confessions. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:50.720 The first thing that is essential to any interrogation is isolation. 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:58.240 Depriving a suspect from a lifeline to loved ones, friends' attorneys, 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.200 and so police officers take suspects in a room, a 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.480 specially designed room. It's usually a very small room. It's 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.160 cramped to the extent there is furniture in the room. 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.200 It's usually just a couple chairs, maybe a table pushed 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.799 to the side, because you don't want the table between 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.320 the suspect and an interrogator because it can provide a 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.240 sense of comfort for the suspect and it can minimize 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:31.000 the ability of the interrogator to get into the suspect's face. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:37.960 There's no natural light in these rooms, no clocks, no telephones, 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.919 The walls are basically barren, and usually the suspect is 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.559 positioned in a corner or in a place where getting 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:52.480 up and leaving requires the suspect to literally go through 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.679 the two interrogators who are blocking the pathway to the door. 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.800 These rooms have been around for many, many decades, but 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.919 we're only getting a glimpse into them for the first 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.719 time recently, as more and more confessions have been proven 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:09.880 false by DNA, states are starting to require video cameras 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.760 in interrogation rooms for the first time. Twenty four states 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.400 still don't require any kind of real time documentation, but 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.920 because of those twenty six states, that now requires some 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.719 sort of video camera or audio recording inside the room. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.000 We're getting a look for the first time, and what 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:26.160 we're seeing is chilling. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.320 So once you have this sense of isolation, what that 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:36.920 does is it fosters a dependence. The suspect becomes obliged 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:41.160 to do what the interrogator asks him to do, and 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:46.119 part of that dependence is built during the early part 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.359 of an interrogation, which involves some kind of attempt to 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:55.280 build trust between the interrogator and the suspect, something that 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.400 suggests that the interrogator is here to help the suspect. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.640 In fact, the interrogator is the only person between the 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.919 suspect and perhaps a life sentence or a prosecutor who's 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:16.200 going to charge him or her with the death penalty. 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.880 When people see what happens inside the interrogation room, they're horrified. 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.920 The techniques that are used. Sure, they're psychological, Very few 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:29.000 cops use physical abuse any longer. But these psychological techniques 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.960 distort the world so much that suddenly it starts to 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.640 make sense that you should confess even if you're innocent, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.080 And to watch that mind game in real time on 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.839 these videos is absolutely appalling. 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.680 What I find interesting is that many people we show 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:51.159 these tapes to, they're accepting of the need to use 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.680 some of these tactics to get true confessions. But what 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:01.200 they find offensive is the way in which police officers 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.640 feed facts to suspects and actually construct a narrative that 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.600 isn't really the suspects confession at all. It is the 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:16.360 suspect affirming a preconceived theory of the police that is 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.280 shaped and constructed by the police. 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.800 It's almost like like rehearsing a play, you know, like 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.840 scripting a story that this person has to rehearse and 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.320 get perfect and then perform for the final confession. And 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.080 this process, amazingly enough, when we show it to some audiences, 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.680 they laugh because, you know, if the goal of all 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.400 of this of interrogation our justice system is to fine truth, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.560 this is such a distortion of truth that people laugh 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:43.560 at the absurdity of it. 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:44.880 And that's heartbreaking. 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:49.080 Yeah, absolutely heartbreaking, because you're watching these people's lives be 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.560 ruined in real time on these videos. All right, I'm 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:52.200 just going to come. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.320 Out and ask you who shot her in the hat 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:59.680 he did? Why didn't you tell us that when an 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.720 entrergator says to Brendan Dacy, all right, I'm just going 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.400 to come out and tell you who shot her in 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.280 the head. It's heartbreaking because there are supposed to be 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:17.080 checks and balances in this process, other police officers looking 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.600 at the tape saying you can't do that. He has 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.680 to come up with these facts on his own. And 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.160 then there are prosecutors who, when reviewing these cases for trials, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.840 should know that this confession is unreliable. And then there 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.679 are judges. They should see these confessions and they should say, 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.080 I'm not letting this go before a jury. This is 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:43.320 not the suspect's confession. It's constructed by the interrogators. And 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.600 then there's the jury who also has an opportunity to 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.480 weigh in on this. But time and time and time again, 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:55.920 it's the power of the confession itself that ends up 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:56.960 convicting these people. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.960 Too often, their fate is sealed because the systems check 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.520 that should prevent false confessions from resulting in wrongful convictions 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.320 don't work. So literally, when you're watching these videos at 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.760 the interrogation room, you're watching acts of legal suicide. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.920 And in the worst cases, you're watching acts of psychological torture. 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.640 I mean there is a class of false confessions. They're 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.000 called either coerced persuaded, or coerced internalized. But these are 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:30.160 cases where police officers attack a suspect's confidence in their 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:34.880 own memory of events. The suspect knows they're innocent, but 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.880 police officers tell them perhaps they committed the crime in 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:42.439 a blackout, or were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.480 or maybe that the trauma of killing a loved one 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.760 was so painful that they repressed the memory of what 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.280 they actually did. All of this crashes the suspect's confidence 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.920 in their own memory, and then police officers give them 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.199 an explanation or a reason for why they might have 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.800 committed the crime and not remembered it. At the end 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.520 of the day, some suspects can't tell the difference between 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:14.640 their real memories and their imagined memories, and the imagined 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.880 memories have been shaped by the interrogator's questioning exactly. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.000 There are cases in which suspects are told that they 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.840 must have split personalities and the good you doesn't remember 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.800 what the bad you did. There have been cases where kids' 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.360 children have been falsely told that their loved ones on 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.160 their deathbeds accuse their own children of killing them. Then, 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.120 of course they believe that their parents would never say 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:38.920 such a thing unless it was true, so they begin 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.800 to construct a narrative that accounts for what they think 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:42.840 the parents had happened. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:47.400 The cases in which children confess to killing their parents, 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.800 parents confessed to killing their children, husbands confessed to killing 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:56.200 their wives, siblings confessed to killing their siblings, these are 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:01.840 these are the hardest ones to whty, just because not 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.280 only are these suspects being accused of one of the 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:11.400 worst crimes imaginable in society, not only are they struggling 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.400 with trying to remember something that they can't remember, but 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.360 they're suffering from incredible grief trauma. Yeah, and trauma. I mean, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.760 when someone close to you is killed, especially if they've 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.880 been murdered, and you're being interrogated within hours of discovering 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:36.120 the body, you are so vulnerable to suggestions, so vulnerable 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:37.840 to manipulation. 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.240 Desperate for help, desperate for a friend, And that's exactly 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.760 what the interrogator wants you to think he is, and 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.360 that's exactly, of course, what he's not. I mean, you 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.600 are seeing the distortion of a mind in the interrogation room, 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.440 the poisoning of a memory, the twisting of a world, 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:08.360 and the creation of a profound injustice. The tactics, they're 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.120 basically the same across all of these false confession videos 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.240 that we have. You see a suspect being brought into 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:19.120 an interrogation room, confronted with an accusation, and then it's 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.079 the job of the interrogators to communicate to them, beyond 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.440 the shadow of a doubt, we know you're guilty, and 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.400 there's nothing you can say or do to convince us otherwise. 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.960 And sometimes it takes hours of relentless accusation to bring 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.920 the suspect down to a place of hopelessness. Then it's 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.320 the job of the interrogators to offer confession as an out, 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.160 as a way to cut your losses somehow and cling 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.520 to some shred of hope. So you'll see interrogators say 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.000 things like, look, there are two kinds of people in 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.880 this world. There's someone who would commit a horrible crime 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.040 like this one. Maybe someone who's done this before and 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.800 is going to go do it again, right, real monster. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.160 We all know what happens to people like that. They're 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.920 never going to see the light of day again. But 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.000 then there are other kinds of people in this world, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.640 people just like you or me, regular ordinary, good folks, 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:14.280 just trying to live their life, trying to do the 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.200 right thing. People who maybe they just make a bad decision, 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.760 a bad choice, they snap in a moment of stress 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.400 or frustration. We've all made mistakes. I've made a mistake 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.720 in my life, haven't you. And we all know what 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.679 happens to good people who just make mistakes. Right, people 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.400 want to help them. If you just made a mistake here, 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:38.280 the judge will look at you and want to help you. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.800 The prosecutor will understand you better. You'll have a reason 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.240 to hope. So which one is it? Are you the 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.000 monster or are you the person who just made a mistake. 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.720 That's the choice that the person in the interrogation room has, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.120 and every single one of us will choose to tell 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.280 a story of mistake in the hopes that it will 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.480 result in help. And of course, when you confess to 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.840 that crime you didn't commit in the hopes that everyone 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.079 will want to help you, it doesn't help you at all. 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:10.920 It seals your fate. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.840 In October of two thousand and seven, I got a 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.480 phone call on the other end of the line were 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:28.680 several attorneys who I knew and respected, and they said 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.160 to me, do you know about the case of Brendan 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.720 Dacy And I said, yes, of course I know about 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.800 the case. Stephen Avery was the first person exonerated by 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:42.520 DNA evidence in Wisconsin. It was huge news. And then 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.560 he got charged with the murder of a photographer named 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.720 Teresa Holbach in two thousand and five. And he had 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.720 a nephew named Brendan Dassi, a sixteen year old nephew 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.760 who had confessed to participating in that crime with his 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.720 uncle Stephen, and both of them had been convicted and 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.800 sentenced to life. And so I knew the basic background 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.360 of the case. They said to me, which you represent 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.200 Brendan Dacy on appeal. And this is the kind of 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.120 work that I was called to do. It was the 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.960 kind of work that I was doing. But I said 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.320 to them, send me the interrogation videos. So when the 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:28.080 tapes arrived, I looked at them and I decided I 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.880 was going to get involved, but I wanted a gut check. 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.600 I wanted someone else to tell me what they saw. 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.920 I had worked with one student before on a false 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:43.000 confession case and I assigned her to look at these recordings, 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.120 and that student was Laura, and I writer, that's right. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.640 This is about twelve years ago or so, and my 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.040 last year of law school. I decided on a whim 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.560 to sign up for your class, Steve, un wrongful Convictions. 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.440 Tell the truth? Was it? You didn't I sign up 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:01.160 for my class? 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:02.800 I thought I was signing up for someone else's class 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:05.000 on wrongful convictions. But I ended up in your class. 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:05.720 Thank god. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.920 I decided to stick around because it got interesting real fast. 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.200 Right And about a month in Steve, you know, you 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.960 called me into your office and you said, I've just 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.840 gotten involved in this case out of Wisconsin involving a 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.280 sixteen year old boy with intellectual limitations who confessed to 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.120 a murder that I don't think he committed. And you 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.440 handed me the interrogation videos of Brendon Dacy, the same 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.040 videos that like eight years later would go on to 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.520 be featured in Making a Murderer. And I watched them 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.240 from start to finish, and my heart broke. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.200 We know he did something else to her? What else 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:43.920 did he do with her? 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.600 Extremely extremely im poor you tell us this for USh 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:52.280 to believe you? Because I saw two seasoned adult interrogators 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:59.920 questioning a sixteen year old, intellectually limited boy, manipulating him 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.440 into confessing to a murder that he couldn't even describe. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.720 Did you see whether a cell phone of hers? Oh? 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.640 Do you know whether she had a camera? Oh? 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.240 I couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to jump into 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.680 the video screen and get myself between Brendan and those 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.040 interrogators who were manipulating him into confessing to a crime 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.200 he so clearly didn't commit. That was literally a life 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.720 changing moment for me. I graduated from law school and 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.800 within months I was back at Northwestern working alongside Steve 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.560 to build the Center on Wrongful Convictions and to help 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.880 represent Brendan and other kids just like him. Ever since, you. 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.919 Know, every once in a while you come across a student, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.800 and Laura was a brilliant writer. I mean, let's just 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.960 be honest, she was a better writer than I was. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.800 Can I get that in writing again? 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.840 But she really didn't know a lot about the subject 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.680 of false confession. She was, in a sense, like an 0:17:55.760 --> 0:18:00.639 uneducated jewelry member looking at that tape for the first time, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.440 and she was hooked from that point on. 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.560 By the way I only told Steve like two years 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.480 ago that I had mistakenly signed up for his class. 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:09.760 Absolutely, it broke my heart. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:12.360 No, I mean, what can I say, This is all 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:14.680 totally clean slate for me. I really did know nothing 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:20.159 about criminal law, and what I saw broke everything I 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.280 thought I knew about our justice system. And as I 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.199 continued to working with Steve over the years, you know, 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.240 I mean, there's no there's no better mentor on the 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.960 planet than Steve Drisen. He lifts others around him up, 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.800 that's what he does. And you know, little by little 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.640 as I learned from him, as I absorbed his passion 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.199 for justice and his twenty four to seven dedication to 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.040 speaking for people without a voice, and I was the 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.000 fortunate beneficiary of his mentorship and it's something I'll be 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:50.800 forever grateful for. 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:53.879 You know, I think it's important to note Laura had 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.480 a brilliant legal mind, but for me, it was when 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.520 she met Brendan for the first time and there was 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.360 a sort of instant connection between the two of them 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:06.800 that sealed the deal. 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:07.119 For me. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.440 I knew that I needed to keep her on this 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:15.160 case whatever I could do, because that connection, the ability 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.560 to relate to a client under these circumstances is so important. 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:21.240 Well, I mean, that's the thing. It's one thing to 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.720 watch the videotape, but it's another thing to actually meet 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.679 the person whose life you saw being dismantled, and to 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.520 hear the stories of suffering and to understand them not 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.560 just as a character in a video or a case, 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.639 but as a full human with a life and a 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.160 family and friends and dreams and hopes and the kinds 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.040 of plans that all of us have. When you meet 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.920 someone like that and you're the lawyer and it's your 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.280 job to help them, you can't walk away from that. 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.480 You just can't do it. And I haven't walked away since. 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:07.919 One of the questions people ask us all the time 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.200 is how we and others like us have the strength 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.120 to continue fighting these injustices day in and day out. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.520 Colleagues in our office, many of them are doing similarly 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:23.440 gut wrenching work, and so when our office is functioning 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.800 at its best, there is a lot of support there. 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.879 Our office also is often a home and a place 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:36.439 of solace for our clients. So we see some of 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.640 our success stories walking around and that helps prop us up. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.720 But it's hard, so for me as a sort of 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:52.800 therapeutic way to rid myself of some of these cases, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.600 but more importantly to educate others, was to do two things. 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.000 To write about them and then to speak publicly and 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:06.600 to spread this knowledge around as much as possible. And 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.639 that's what I've been doing for the past twenty or 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.159 twenty five years, and that's what Lara has been doing 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.040 since she's been involved in this work. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.160 Yeah, I mean, you know, the work is hard, and 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.879 of course it's stressful, but it's the victories that keep 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:23.840 us going. Right, There's no better feeling than watching someone 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.320 you personally have believed in and fought for, usually for years. 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.560 No better feeling in the world than watching them walk 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:31.719 out of prison. 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:41.560 I can't believe him finally hear this is unbelieved. I mean, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.640 steal shot, leave that you're you finally. 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:53.320 Defended, not guilty of feeling of giving birth, of giving 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.280 life back, helping this person rediscover and recapture the life 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.639 that's been taken unjustly from them. It's an incredible feeling 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.280 and that's what keeps us going. I think the times 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.879 we're able to do that, those moments will stick with 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:16.520 you for the rest of your life. False confession stories 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.000 are life changing to hear. I mean literally, it was 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.040 a story of a false confession that changed the course 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.520 of my life, transformed my own personal trajectory. And that's 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:27.600 what I want to do with this podcast. I want 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.439 to share these stories because there's no better way to 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.479 understand the need to reform the system than to hear 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.160 about these injustices and to get fired up to view 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:37.000 this as a call to action. 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.080 I've been telling these stories for twenty years and trying 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:47.960 to reach larger and larger audiences. So for me, that's 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.600 what this is about. It's another opportunity to try to 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:56.720 prevent someone else from suffering what Brendan Dacy has suffered exactly. 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.480 You know. One of the amazing things is after making 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.000 a murder came out, all of a sudden, people around 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.520 the globe started caring about the criminal justice system for 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:10.000 the first time, I mean millions of people. We want 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.440 to amplify those feelings. We want to keep that energy 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.520 flowing because it's already starting to result in important reforms 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:18.040 around the United States and around the globe. We got 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.359 to keep that going. These stories are powerful vehicles for justice, 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:23.560 and that's why we're here telling these stories today. We 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:25.720 can fix this, but we need to fix it together. 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:33.200 The first story we're going to tell in this podcast 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.360 is the story of a Virginia man named Robert Davis. 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:40.480 When I first learned about Robert Davis's case, Lara had 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:43.959 just come back into the fall to Northwestern Law School, 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:47.919 and she was beginning to show signs of being a 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.760 rising star in this field. And one of the things 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.880 I wanted to do is to not only give her 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:58.160 the Robert Davis tapes, but to let her run with them, 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:02.200 let her analyze this case as an expert. 0:24:02.680 --> 0:24:04.920 A lot of people, I think, watched Making a Murderer 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:07.840 and thought, that's a Manitoac County problem. That's something that 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:11.240 just happened to Brendan, And that's not the case. This 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.320 has happened to hundreds of people around the country that 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:16.760 we know of, and surely there are thousands that we 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.160 don't know of. And we wanted to start with Robert 0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:24.320 Davis because Roberts an everyday ordinary guy right comes from 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:28.000 a stable family and a good home and got caught 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:30.320 up in the same forces of interrogation that Brendan Dancy 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:34.320 did and ended up confessing to an equally serious heinous 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.600 crime that he, like Brendan, didn't commit. There's no better 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:40.399 illustration of the point that we all can be broken 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:46.320 by interrogation than Robert Davis's story. So join us next 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:54.040 week and thanks for listening. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:57.480 the production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:01.760 Signal Company Number One. Thanks to our executive producer Jason 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:05.400