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Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Laura and I writer. I am here

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Speaker 1: with an update on a case we shared with you

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Speaker 1: back in season one of False Confessions. The subject is

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Speaker 1: Peter Riley, whose really unusual case marks the starting point

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Speaker 1: of the modern movement to expose false confessions. It's a

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Speaker 1: case that's had a profound impact on my own work

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Speaker 1: and the work of my co host Steve Drissen. Now,

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Speaker 1: the case of Peter Riley is in some ways a

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Speaker 1: classic false confession story. It involves a young and vulnerable suspect,

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Speaker 1: questionable police tactics, and a series of investigative errors. But

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Speaker 1: in other ways this case stands out is pretty odd.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps most noticeably, the famous playwright Arthur Miller became Peter's champion.

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Speaker 1: He raised the profile of the case and raised the

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Speaker 1: funds for Peter's bail and defense. Arthur Miller wrote powerfully

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Speaker 1: about the phenomenon of false confessions, invoking Galileo and even

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Speaker 1: the subject of his famous play The Crucible, bring national attention.

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Speaker 2: To the issue.

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Speaker 1: It's in that spirit that Steve and I continue our

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Speaker 1: work today, both in the course of justice and the

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Speaker 1: courts of public opinion. Welcome to wrongful conviction, False Confessions.

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Speaker 1: I'm Laura and I writer, and I'm Steve Tersen. Today

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Speaker 1: we're going to tell you our last story of season one.

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Speaker 1: It's about Peter Riley, one of the first modern day

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Speaker 1: false confessors. In nineteen seventy three, police interrogated eighteen year

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Speaker 1: old Peter until he started to believe he was guilty

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Speaker 1: of murdering his own mother. But Peter's friends and neighbors

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Speaker 1: believed in his innocence. Their small town campaign for Peter's

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Speaker 1: freedom was eventually joined by a host of big name celebrities.

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Speaker 1: Peter's story helped launch the movement against wrongful convictions and

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Speaker 1: false confessions. It inspires the work that Steve and I

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Speaker 1: do to this day.

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Speaker 3: You know, the Peter Riley case was my baptism in

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Speaker 3: the world of false confessions. When I learned about Peter's case,

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Speaker 3: it was really the first time that I even knew

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Speaker 3: that it was possible for police officers, through their tactics,

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Speaker 3: to get an innocent person to confess to a crime

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Speaker 3: they didn't commit. And I was fascinated by it.

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Speaker 1: I know the feeling for me. It was thirty years

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Speaker 1: later when I watched those takes of Brendan Dacy's false confession.

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Speaker 1: It's so easy to get hooked by these stories, these people,

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Speaker 1: and you can't walk away.

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Speaker 3: Peter Riley was about five or six years older than me,

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Speaker 3: but we grew up in the same era in terms

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Speaker 3: of the kind of music that we liked. Peter was

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Speaker 3: very into classic rock, Pink Floyd, Jethro Toll and Peter

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Speaker 3: wore his hair long, very much in the same way

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Speaker 3: that I wore my hair, so I felt a connection

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Speaker 3: to Peter. I lived in a community not unlike Peter's,

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Speaker 3: where people knew each other through Little League or the

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Speaker 3: boy Scouts, where mothers watched out for each other's kids.

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Speaker 3: And the more I learned about Peter's story, the more

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Speaker 3: I began to understand that what happened to Peter very

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Speaker 3: easily could have happened to me. In addition to these

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Speaker 3: connections that I found with Peter, this was a case

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Speaker 3: in a part of the country which was the birthplace

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Speaker 3: of false confessions in the United States, the Salem witch Trials.

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Speaker 3: It sent me on an exploration, a lifelong exploration, to

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Speaker 3: try to figure out why it is that people would

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Speaker 3: confess to crimes they didn't commit.

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Speaker 1: Peter's story begins in Falls Village, Connecticut, a tiny community

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Speaker 1: of five hundred people that's part of a larger town

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Speaker 1: called Canaan. If you've been to New England, Falls Village

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Speaker 1: is pretty classic, complete with rivers, horse farms, and covered bridges.

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Speaker 1: It's the kind of place where no one locks their doors,

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Speaker 1: where everyone looks out for each other. In September nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three, leaves were turning color across Connecticut, and eighteen

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Speaker 1: year old Peter Riley had just begun his senior year

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Speaker 1: of high school. Peter was a skinny kid, just over

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Speaker 1: one hundred pounds and an uninspired student whose real love

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Speaker 1: was his rock band. He lived in Falls Village in

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Speaker 1: a small cottage, just him and his mom, Barbara Gibbons. Now,

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Speaker 1: for lack of a better phrase, Barbara was the town eccentric.

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Speaker 1: She was highly educated, well read, and well traveled. But

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Speaker 1: she was also a single mother, which was a big

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Speaker 1: deal in nineteen seventy three, and she was a heavy drinker.

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Speaker 1: She had a reputation as someone who always spoke her mind,

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Speaker 1: even if it rubbed some people the wrong way. But

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Speaker 1: in Peter's eyes, his mother was someone brilliant who loved

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Speaker 1: and protected him, just like he loved and stood up

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Speaker 1: for her. It was the two of them against the world.

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Speaker 1: On the evening of Friday, September twenty eighth, Peter attends

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Speaker 1: a youth group meeting at the local church. He leaves

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Speaker 1: at about nine thirty pm and drives home, but when

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Speaker 1: he walks in the door, his world is turned upside down.

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Speaker 1: His mother is lying mostly unclothed on the bedroom floor.

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Speaker 1: Her throat's been cut so deeply she's nearly decapitated, and

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Speaker 1: she's been stabbed and beaten so badly that both of

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Speaker 1: her thigh bones are broken. Peter freezes, His instinct warns

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Speaker 1: him not to disturb the scene by touching the body. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he grabs the phone and makes a series of calls

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Speaker 1: to paramedics, hospitals, and doctors. A hospital worker calls the police,

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Speaker 1: and the cops show up within minutes. When the police arrive,

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Speaker 1: Peter's in shock. He's just discovered his mother dead. But

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Speaker 1: the officers think Peter's being too calm, and they begin

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Speaker 1: to suspect him. They take him into a neighbor's home

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Speaker 1: and strip searcheim. They're looking for scratches, cuts, bruises, any

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Speaker 1: indication that Peter had taken part in a brutal struggle,

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Speaker 1: but they find nothing. Peter's wearing jeans, a brown T shirt,

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Speaker 1: and gold sneakers, and a witness from the church confirms

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Speaker 1: that Peter's been wearing the same clothes all night. The

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Speaker 1: police examination finds no blood anywhere on his body, clothing,

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Speaker 1: or shoes, but the cops are still suspicious. They question

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Speaker 1: Peter in the back seat of a squad car. Then

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Speaker 1: they take him down to the station and hold him

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Speaker 1: over an Peter doesn't sleep at all, but the next

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Speaker 1: morning he has the presence of mind to ask for

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Speaker 1: a polygraph. The police give him one, but they tell

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Speaker 1: him that he failed the test, and when Peter's told

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Speaker 1: that he failed, he begins to doubt his own memory

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Speaker 1: because he believes polygraphs are infallible. Before too long, Peter

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Speaker 1: begins to wonder whether he might have killed his mother

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Speaker 1: but somehow doesn't remember it now, believe it or not,

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Speaker 1: police record the interrogation on an old reel to reel machine,

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Speaker 1: even though they weren't legally required to do so in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three. On tape, they egg Peter on and

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Speaker 1: suggest that he might have amnesia they tell him sometimes

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Speaker 1: when people commit these crimes, the memories are so traumatic

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Speaker 1: that people repress them, and Peter Riley starts believing that

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Speaker 1: he might be a murderer. I believe I did it now,

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Speaker 1: he tells the police. But I don't remember.

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Speaker 3: Peter says, over and over again, we got to keep digging, digging,

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Speaker 3: digging to get this information out of me. Because he

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Speaker 3: wants to know what this information.

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Speaker 1: Is, he asks the police for truth serum, and at

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Speaker 1: another point he even says, can you pound this out

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Speaker 1: of me? The police praise Peter for being willing to

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Speaker 1: admit he might be guilty. They tell him, we're not

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Speaker 1: here to punish you. Maybe you'll go to a mental

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Speaker 1: hospital for three months. Peter begins to feel like he's

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Speaker 1: bonding with his interrogators, like they're all working together to

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Speaker 1: fill in the blanks in his memory, and eventually their

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Speaker 1: teamwork succeeds. Peter had a straight razor at home, a

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Speaker 1: small blade that he used to make model airplanes. After

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Speaker 1: hours of questioning, he eventually says that he could have

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Speaker 1: used that razor to attack his mom. He adds that

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Speaker 1: he could have broken her legs by jumping on them.

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Speaker 1: In other words, he gives what we now call a

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Speaker 1: persuaded false confession.

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Speaker 3: These are a special subspecies of false confessions that are

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Speaker 3: relatively rare, And what happens in these cases is the

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Speaker 3: police interrogation tactics themselves cause a suspect to begin to

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Speaker 3: doubt their own memory, and the suspect is persuaded that

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Speaker 3: he or she must have committed the crime but can't

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Speaker 3: remember it, and the interrogation becomes an exercise in reconstructing

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Speaker 3: the suspect's memories of the crime. But the memories aren't real,

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Speaker 3: they're confabulations.

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Speaker 1: Peter's confabulated story isn't realistic. A small razor wasn't capable

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Speaker 1: of inflicting deep wounds like those on Barbara's neck, and

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Speaker 1: Peter was one hundred and ten pound weekly there's no

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Speaker 1: way he could have broken his mother's thigh bones just

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Speaker 1: by jumping on them. But police ignore those problems. After all,

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Speaker 1: they've got a confession. By the end of the interrogation,

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Speaker 1: Peter starts realizing that he has no family left.

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Speaker 3: You're talking about someone who has just lost the only

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Speaker 3: family member in his life. Peter never knew his father.

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Speaker 3: His mother has now been murdered, they live alone in

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Speaker 3: this small cottage, and he's thinking that he's gotten nowhere

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Speaker 3: to go, and.

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Speaker 1: So Peter asks his interrogator, is there any chance that

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Speaker 1: you might take me in? I wouldn't want to impose,

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Speaker 1: he adds, I'll do work around the house. I really

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Speaker 1: would love to live with a family.

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Speaker 3: I've never seen that before. Just a complete dependence on

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Speaker 3: one's interrogator and a complete sort of loss of understanding

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Speaker 3: of the fact that this person is his adversary.

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Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine anything more purely fucked up.

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Speaker 3: It's the most disturbing thing about this interrogation.

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Speaker 1: But Peter doesn't get to go live with the cops,

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Speaker 1: even though he's done everything they asked. Instead, he's arrested

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Speaker 1: and booked into jail. Once Peter is away from his

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Speaker 1: interrogator's influence, he immediately realizes he didn't actually kill anyone,

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Speaker 1: and he recants his confession, but it's too late. On

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Speaker 1: September twenty ninth, nineteen seventy three, Peter Riley is charged

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Speaker 1: with the murder of his own mother. Barbara's murder and

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Speaker 1: Peter's arrest shook falls village to its core. Everyone was

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Speaker 1: following this track, including one residence who would go on

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Speaker 1: to become an important figure in Peter's story.

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Speaker 2: My name is Donald Connery. Well, one thing I can

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Speaker 2: claim for some distinction is that I probably am the

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Speaker 2: only foreign correspondent who ever made a complete career shift

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Speaker 2: overnight from reporting international affairs to investigating the criminal justice system.

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Speaker 3: Don Connery was an esteemed journalist, and the last thing

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Speaker 3: on his mind was the subject of false confessions. But

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Speaker 3: this murder was big news in this small town, and

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Speaker 3: you couldn't help but be drawn into it. He began

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Speaker 3: to start looking into the case himself and later wrote

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Speaker 3: a book about the case that was an absolutely essential

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Speaker 3: text about what happened to Peter Riley.

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Speaker 1: Don Connery's in his nineties. But in nineteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: he had just moved to Falls village with his wife

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Speaker 1: and kids, and I.

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Speaker 2: Thought, this was a terrible event which will play out

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Speaker 2: and will have nothing to do with me, except that

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Speaker 2: the accused eighteen year old was a friend and classmate

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Speaker 2: of my children who went to the regional high school,

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Speaker 2: and Peter was someone they talked about or knew about.

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Speaker 1: Now, something extraordinary happens after Peter's arrest is announced. Remember,

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Speaker 1: people in this tiny town know Peter Riley and they

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Speaker 1: like him.

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Speaker 3: This was in the age before social media, where communities

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Speaker 3: were much more connected in a sense. They met each

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Speaker 3: other through clubs, extracurricular activities at schools, church groups, boy Scouts,

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Speaker 3: and the entire community knew who Peter was. From these

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Speaker 3: various essential parts of the social fabric of Falls village.

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Speaker 1: Peter's arrest leads to a groundswell of support. Everyone starts

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Speaker 1: defending his innocence.

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Speaker 2: After reading the initial stories. My younger children, Carol and

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Speaker 2: Julie kept saying Peter couldn't possibly have done this.

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Speaker 1: The mothers of his high school classmates form a group

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Speaker 1: called Canaan Mothers, and they hold bake sales to raise

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Speaker 1: money so that Peter can get released on bond before

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Speaker 1: his trial. Some families even put their houses up as security.

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Speaker 1: It was incredible mothers supporting the accused mother killer.

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Speaker 3: They wanted to do everything in their power to help him.

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Speaker 2: My kids said, and other neighbors said, you know, we

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Speaker 2: don't think this is possible. There's no reason to think

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Speaker 2: that he had any cause to harm his mother. And

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Speaker 2: the word was in the community that yes, Peter. It

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Speaker 2: confessed that nobody could under then why he would admit

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Speaker 2: to something he didn't do, but their protests caught the

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Speaker 2: attention of the media.

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Speaker 1: A reporter named Joan Bartel hears about how the town

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Speaker 1: of Falls Village is rallying behind an accused murderer. She

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Speaker 1: listens to Peter's interrogation tapes and writes an explosive article

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Speaker 1: in a magazine called New Times. The article questions Peter's

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Speaker 1: guilt and includes many excerpts from his interrogation, exposing the

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Speaker 1: CoP's manipulation of Peter. People around the state are horrified

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Speaker 1: to read about a teenage boy made to believe that

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Speaker 1: he killed his own mother. Donations flow in to the

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Speaker 1: Canaan mothers, and soon enough money is raised for Peter

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Speaker 1: to post bond fifty thousand dollars. He's released and moves

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Speaker 1: in with one of his friend's families. Peter Riley is

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Speaker 1: welcomed back into the Falls Village community.

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Speaker 2: This so called killer went straight back to high school

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Speaker 2: to complete his senior year, and it didn't seem to

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Speaker 2: worry parents or teachers of the principal, who in fact

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Speaker 2: supported him.

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Speaker 3: One of the things that attracted reporters to this case,

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Speaker 3: including Don Connery was the idea that in order for

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Speaker 3: these people to embrace Peter, they had to understand or

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Speaker 3: at least believe that this confession was false. And here

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Speaker 3: they are taking this suspected, confessed murderer into their own

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Speaker 3: homes or being willing to do so, and to raise

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Speaker 3: money for him, and to advocate for him and to

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Speaker 3: fight for him. That's remarkable.

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Speaker 1: Peter Riley was free on bond, but prosecutors were moving

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Speaker 1: forward with his trial anyway.

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Speaker 2: The community was confident that the trial in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 2: four would quickly lead to an acquittal. He would be

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Speaker 2: found innocent.

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Speaker 1: But on April twelfth, nineteen seventy four, Good Friday, Peter

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Speaker 1: Riley was convicted of killing his own mother.

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Speaker 2: It was a bombshell when the jury decided almost entirely

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Speaker 2: in the basis of the confession, so called confession, that

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Speaker 2: he was guilty, and he was sentenced to six to

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Speaker 2: sixteen years from manslaughter and driven off at high speed

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Speaker 2: to the high security penitentiary.

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Speaker 1: Even though he'd just been convicted of murder, Peter only

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Speaker 1: spent a few hours in prison. Amazingly, a court ruled

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Speaker 1: that he could stay free during his appeal. As long

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Speaker 1: as he posted an additional bond ten thousand more dollars.

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Speaker 1: His village raised the extra money and Peter was freed.

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Speaker 1: But now Peter needed to pay for an appeal, and

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Speaker 1: that would cost more than the Canaan mothers could raise,

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Speaker 1: so that reporter from New Times, Joan Bartel, sent the

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Speaker 1: article she wrote about Peter's case to another Connecticut resident,

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Speaker 1: the famous playwright Arthur Miller.

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Speaker 3: Arthur Miller was my favorite playwright. I remember reading all

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Speaker 3: of his plays in high school in the nineteen seventies

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Speaker 3: Death of the Salesman all my sons. I liked him

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Speaker 3: not only because his plays moved me. I liked him

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Speaker 3: because he was a public figure that cared deeply about justice.

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Speaker 3: He was a playwright with a conscience.

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Speaker 2: The Crucible, probably Miller's greatest play, had been motivated in

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Speaker 2: part by the false accusations that went on in Salem

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Speaker 2: and Massachusetts three hundred years ago, when twenty one people

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Speaker 2: were falsely accused of satanic activities and either hung or

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Speaker 2: in one case of being crushed to death executed. And

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Speaker 2: Miller also personally had faced the House of American Activities

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Speaker 2: Committee accused of being a communist or worse. So he

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Speaker 2: had every reason to that this is something that he

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Speaker 2: should put right, and he invested a great deal of

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Speaker 2: his time to do that.

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Speaker 1: Arthur Miller read Jones article. He was appalled by the

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Speaker 1: tragedy of Peter's confession, and he began to take a

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Speaker 1: leading role in Peter's fight for vindication. Miller recruited other

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Speaker 1: a list celebrities to donate money to Peter's defense, Jack Nicholson,

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Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen, William Steyren, Mike Nichols,

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Speaker 1: even Elizabeth Taylor. Pretty Soon a powerful coalition of voices

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Speaker 1: was gathering steam.

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Speaker 2: Overnight. There was a remarkable amount of energy behind the

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Speaker 2: effort to free Peter as soon as possible from what everyone,

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Speaker 2: at least in Litchfield County saw as a wrongful conviction.

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Speaker 1: The first thing Peter needed was a lawyer to handle

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Speaker 1: his appeal. Arthur Miller recruited Roy Daily, a former federal prosecutor,

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Speaker 1: and as Roy started preparing Peter's appeal, Miller worked to

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Speaker 1: raise the public profile of the case. The New York

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Speaker 1: Times featured a two part series about Peter on the

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Speaker 1: front page. Not long afterwards, sixty Minutes covered the story too. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Peter's legal team pressed his case in court. Eventually a

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Speaker 1: hearing was held to determine whether to grant him a

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Speaker 1: new trial. Arthur Miller personally recruited some world renowned experts

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Speaker 1: to testify. At that hearing, a forensic pathologist testified that

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Speaker 1: if Peter had actually killed his mom, it would have

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Speaker 1: been impossible for him to clean all the blood off

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Speaker 1: his body and clothing before the police arrived. The pathologist

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Speaker 1: also testified that there's no way one hundred and ten

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Speaker 1: pound kid could break a woman's thigh bones by jumping

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Speaker 1: on them, and a psychologist testified that Peter was suggestible

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Speaker 1: and easily manipulated by authority figures. In other words, he

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Speaker 1: was highly vulnerable to giving a false confession. This hearing

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Speaker 1: took down both the medical evidence against Peter and his confession, and.

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Speaker 2: It led to a verdict by George Speziale that a

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Speaker 2: bus carriage of justice had happened in his own courtroom,

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Speaker 2: and he said that Peter deserved a new trial.

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Speaker 1: It was March twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, a little

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Speaker 1: more than two and a half years after Peter lost

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Speaker 1: his mom. Peter was granted a new trial, but the

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Speaker 1: prosecutor who'd convicted him was up in arms. He believed

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Speaker 1: Peter was guilty and vowed to take him to trial again,

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Speaker 1: but that didn't end up happening.

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Speaker 2: He delayed to a point where he dropped dead on

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Speaker 2: a golf course.

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Speaker 1: The prosecutor passed away of a heart attack at age

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Speaker 1: fifty four, so a new prosecutor, a young man named

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Speaker 1: Dennis Santour, takes over, and as he digs into the

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Speaker 1: case files, he finds a piece of evidence that had

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Speaker 1: never been disclosed to Peter's defense team. A police officer

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Speaker 1: and his wife had reported seeing Peter in downtown Canaan

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Speaker 1: the night of the murder as he was driving home

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Speaker 1: from his church youth group. They'd seen him only a

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Speaker 1: few minutes before Peter arrived home, found his mother's body,

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Speaker 1: and started calling for help. It was an air tight alibi.

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Speaker 1: Those few minutes didn't give Peter enough time to drive

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Speaker 1: home and kill his mother before making those phone calls.

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Speaker 2: Well, this was a so called exculpatory evidence which should

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Speaker 2: have been turned over to the state and then to

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Speaker 2: the courts, and once it was revealed, it took only

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Speaker 2: weeks before Peter Riley was fully exonerated.

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Speaker 1: The state of Connecticut formally dropped all charges on November

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Speaker 1: twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. Peter Riley's name was officially cleared.

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Speaker 1: After Peter's exoneration, the state police never found Barbara's real

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Speaker 1: killer and continued to insist that Peter was guilty.

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Speaker 2: The case went into the legal annals as a classic

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Speaker 2: false confession tragedy, and it was a prime example of

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Speaker 2: these systems on willingness to admit error in most of

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Speaker 2: these controversial cases.

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Speaker 1: Don Connery eventually wrote a book about the case, Guilty

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Speaker 1: until Proven Innocent, and he continued writing about cases of

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Speaker 1: wrongful conviction.

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Speaker 3: After the Peter Riley case, don Conry became his own

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Speaker 3: one man journalistic innocence project. He began taking cases in

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Speaker 3: Connecticut and investigating them and writing about them, and he

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Speaker 3: also began taking false confession cases from outside of Connecticut

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Speaker 3: as well.

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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, Connecticut police actually stopped

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Speaker 1: recording interrogation after Peter's case. Peter's interrogation tapes had made

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Speaker 1: them look bad, and they didn't want to look bad again.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty thirteen that Connecticut adopted a law

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Speaker 1: requiring interrogations to be recorded, and who testified before the

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Speaker 1: state legislature in support of that bill Peter Riley.

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Speaker 3: Peter said, Look, we shouldn't let law enforcement officers get

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Speaker 3: away with not recording interrogations, because what it does is

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Speaker 3: it makes it impossible for people like me to explain

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Speaker 3: to a jury or to the general public how it

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Speaker 3: is that I was made to confess to killing my

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Speaker 3: own mother. Peter was a powerful advocate for recording, and

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Speaker 3: his testimony was critical on getting the bill passed in

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Speaker 3: twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 1: Most importantly, Peter Riley's case woke the world up to

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Speaker 1: the problem of false confessions. This injustice was a rallying

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Speaker 1: cry for so many people, including Steve and me. Peter's

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Speaker 1: story epitomizes the profound humanity in so many wrongful conviction cases,

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Speaker 1: from the tragedy of the crime, to the ugliness of

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Speaker 1: false accusation, to the defendant's struggle and perseverance, to the

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Speaker 1: good people like Arthur Miller and the Canaan mothers who

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Speaker 1: fight for the truth no matter what. In nineteen ninety five,

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Speaker 1: the very first conference about False Confessions took place in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Speaker 1: Don Connery organized it, and the people who'd helped exonerate

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Speaker 1: Peter Riley spoke. Since then, hundreds of confessions had been

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Speaker 1: proven false around the country and were just getting started.

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Speaker 2: At the Hartford conference, Arthur Miller said at one point

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Speaker 2: that the record of mankind is full of confessions of

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Speaker 2: events that either never happened.

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Speaker 4: Or to which the accused had little or no connection.

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Speaker 4: After all, even Galileo confessed that the sun and all

387
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Speaker 4: the stars revolved around the motionless earth. Rather than face

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Speaker 4: the wrath of the Church, which for centuries had taught

389
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Speaker 4: the opposite. Confronted with great power against which one has

390
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Speaker 4: only a fragile defense, confession can begin to look like

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Speaker 4: the door to freedom. Confession can very readily turn into

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Speaker 4: a kind of coin with which to buy one's way

393
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Speaker 4: out of a frightening and painful situation. How then I

394
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 4: will eat to indict the criminal? Is there a good

395
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Speaker 4: substitute for confession as the mainstay of a prosecution case?

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Speaker 4: For starters, I would suggest evidence.

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Speaker 1: Wise words. We're not there yet, mister Miller. We're not

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Speaker 1: there yet, but we're getting closer every day.

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Speaker 5: Hello Peter Howard, and High State do them pretty good.

400
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,160
Speaker 1: It's really great to talk to you. What's your life

401
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: like these days?

402
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 5: While I'm sixty five, so I'm retired at this point,

403
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 5: which just means I come up with a whole lot

404
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 5: of work for myself that.

405
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 3: Don't get paid for it.

406
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Speaker 5: I'm still an avid musician. I play every day. It's

407
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 5: been something I've done since I saw the Beatles on

408
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 5: that Sullivan, so it's been a long time. I just

409
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 5: play a lot of music. I do what's positive for

410
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 5: me these days, and that's pretty much it. What's your

411
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 5: favorite song to play? I don't know anything by the

412
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 5: Alma Brothers.

413
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Speaker 1: You know, Steve and I are two lawyers who have

414
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: the honor of standing up in courts and fighting for

415
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: people we believe in. But we're also trying to change

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Speaker 1: the world here.

417
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Speaker 3: From the very beginning of my study of false confessions,

418
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 3: I have gone out into the world and to inform

419
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 3: people about what I've learned.

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Speaker 1: For the first ten years that I did this work,

421
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 1: we went around the country trying to convince anybody who

422
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,719
Speaker 1: would listen that false confessions even existed, that this happened

423
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: at all. And suddenly there's been this explosion of interest

424
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 1: in understanding that false confessions can happen to anyone, that

425
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 1: they could happen to you, they could happen to me,

426
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: and to see the urgency for reform that hearing these

427
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: stories produces. It's a sea change, and it's a very

428
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: very welcome sea change.

429
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Speaker 3: When I got started in this work in nineteen ninety five,

430
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: there were only two states that required electronic recording of interrogations,

431
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 3: and now they're twenty seven. There should be fifty. We

432
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 3: are getting to a point where I think that will

433
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 3: happen in my lifetime. So in addition to electronic recording,

434
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 3: one of the goals that Laura and I have is

435
00:28:54,480 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 3: to actually change the way in which police officers gate suspects.

436
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: I think that when people hear stories of grave injustice,

437
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: there's a human need to identify the bad guy, and

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Speaker 1: in some cases there are very clear bad guys. Police

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00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: have physically abused suspects, police have tortured suspects, But in

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Speaker 1: some cases police officers are following training that they don't

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00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: know is problematic. That's where I see we can make

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Speaker 1: a lot of change. Many other countries have developed new

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Speaker 1: interrogation techniques that you don't have to use lies. You

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00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: don't have to use false promises. You certainly don't have

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Speaker 1: to use fact feeding.

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Speaker 3: One of the most exciting developments recently has been the

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Speaker 3: creation of these conviction integrity units in prosecutors' offices.

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00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: When prosecutors are interested in actually doing real justice instead

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00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: of just closing cases, everything changes.

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Speaker 3: One of the things that's always excited me about this

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00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 3: work is that we get to rewrite history. When we

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00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 3: exonerate somebody, we get to change their life narrative. That's

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Speaker 3: part of what we're trying to do with this podcast

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00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 3: is not only tell these stories, but change the legacies

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Speaker 3: of the people who falsely confessed.

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Speaker 1: You're taking this false story that they've told about themselves

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Speaker 1: and you have to change it to a true story,

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Speaker 1: a story of innocence.

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Speaker 3: In the wake of making a murderer, which certainly put

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Speaker 3: both Laura and I on the map in a way

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Speaker 3: that no other television show or radio show or victory

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00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 3: in court had done. I felt like we had an

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00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 3: obligation to speak out on these issues that we care

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Speaker 3: so deeply about. I guess I was channeling Arthur Miller.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I could see Donald Connery saying I knew

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Speaker 3: Arthur Miller. You're no Arthur Miller, but we had the

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Speaker 3: opportunity to tell these stories, and I think we as

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Speaker 3: lawyers have an obligation to do that.

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Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to be a lawyer to

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Speaker 1: see the injustice here. You just have to be someone

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Speaker 1: with a conscience. These are stories of great tragedy. They

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00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 1: grip people, these stories unsettle people, and they move people

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Speaker 1: to make change. This is a movement that draws from

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Speaker 1: all walks of life, from ordinary folks who want to

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Speaker 1: channel their outrage into action, to those with a powerful

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Speaker 1: public platform, artists, musicians, writers, actors. We saw this in

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00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: the Peter Riley case with Arthur Miller. We saw it

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Speaker 1: in the West Memphis three case with Peter Jackson, Johnny Depp,

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00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: Eddie Vetter, Natalie Mains, and we see it today with

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Speaker 1: Brendan Dacy's case and all the people who are rallying

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Speaker 1: around him. These kinds of movements built on real people.

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Speaker 1: They're unstoppable, and we're not going to stop until we

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Speaker 1: can bring Brendon Dacy on this podcast as a free man.

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Speaker 1: Conviction False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good

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00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 1: Podcasts in association with Signal Company number One. Special thanks

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00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: to our executive producer Jason Flamm and the team at

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00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one. Executive producer Kevin wardis Senior producer

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00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: and Pope and additional production and editing by Connor Hall.

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00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jogi Hammer for additional script editing and

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00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: for wrangling and writing like a mad woman. Our music

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00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow me on

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00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter at Laura.

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Speaker 3: Nywriter and you can follow me on Twitter at s Drisen.

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

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00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at

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00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,479
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on

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00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction