WEBVTT - #116 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Robert Davis 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:05.720 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer. 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:06.880 And I'm Steve Drison. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.120 In our previous episode, we talked about how the interrogation 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:11.799 room works. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:13.720 Today we're going to show you. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:16.200 Steve and I are going to tell you about a 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.800 young man named Robert Davis. This is a frightening story 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.720 of a murder investigation that went horribly wrong. Roberts was 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.480 one of the first false confession cases I worked on, 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.720 and I'll never forget it because it taught me how 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.159 easily an ordinary person can get caught up in a 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:45.519 web of injustice. We first learned about Robert Davis back 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.080 in twenty eleven. The story came from a local newspaper 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:50.640 out of Charlottesville, Virginia. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:53.960 I was in a space at the time where I 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:58.080 was looking for false confessions wherever I could find them, 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:03.560 and one day an article about Robert's case turned up 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:07.280 in my newsfeed. And when I read the article, I 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.240 was attracted to it for a number of reasons. One 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:15.400 was that there was a recording of the entire interrogation process, 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:21.000 and that's sort of the gold that everybody was looking for. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:27.479 Can you see how police manipulate an innocent suspect into 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.559 confessing to a crime they didn't commit. 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.600 Yeah, I mean, so many people think that's only for 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.319 extremely young children, that's only for intellectually limited people. But 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.760 Robert Davis is every man's us. He's a normal, normal 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.880 guy in every sense, you know, to the extent there 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:46.160 is a normal person. Robert Davis could be your neighbor, 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:50.240 he could be your kid's friend. And there's no better 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.000 illustration of the power of the interrogation room, the way 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:55.880 these techniques work, the way they can transform the innocent 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.280 into the guilty in a matter of hours than this case. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:05.080 After receiving the interrogation video, I knew I had to 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.720 get involved in this case, and I knew I had 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.120 to work on it with Laura. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.760 Robert Davis's case was my first case where I became 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.320 involved as an expert. The interrogation video it's one of 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.720 the most coercive videos I've ever seen. It speaks for itself. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.320 It's horrible to watch, and it calls out for action. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.359 In many ways. Robert's case was an early incarnation of 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.280 the kind of clemency campaign that Laura and I recently 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:35.480 mounted in the case of Brendan Dacy. Using clips from 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.040 the interrogation to tell what had happened him, bringing in 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.960 experts from different fields, including law enforcement, to weigh in 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.680 on what was wrong with that interrogation, and helping to 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.600 personalize Robert through the media. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.720 Robert Davis's story begins in Crozy, Virginia, a middle class 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.040 suburb of Charlottesville. Robert lived in a small house with 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.160 his mom, and they were really close. In the winter 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:07.600 of two thousand and three, he was a senior in 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.480 high school and with graduation just a few months away, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.400 Robert was looking forward to the next phase of his life. 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.600 But on the night of February nineteenth, a terrible tragedy 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.519 happened on Robert's block. Fire broke out in a neighboring house, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.120 the home of a young mother and her three children. 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.000 The fire department is called. They arrive at the scene. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.520 It's a snowy night right snowflakes are coming down fast 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.400 and furious firefighters get there. They battle through the snow. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.600 They put out the fire, and once the fire is subdued, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.160 they go upstairs to one of the bedrooms, which is 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.680 where they find the body of the homeowner, a forty 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.640 one year old woman named Nola Charles, and when they 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.480 turned Nola's body over, they saw a knife in her back, 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.360 and suddenly it became very clear that this fire had 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.200 been set to cover up a murder. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.560 Then the firefighters walked down a hallway to look in 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.800 some of the other bedrooms. This is a very small house, 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:08.160 so it was just a short walk and under some 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.120 debris they found the body of Nola's young son, Thomas Charles, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.480 and he had died of smoke in elation. You know, 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:22.200 this was a horrific crime anyway you slice it. You know, 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:27.960 the murder of a mother, the death of a small child, stabbings, 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.400 an arson to try to cover up the crime. This 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.520 is something that would have been unheard of in Crose 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.720 and just would have been a complete and total shock 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:41.680 to the entire community. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.240 An investigation starts and pretty soon the police identify some 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.400 likely suspects. It's actually two other teenagers. Their names are 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.440 Rocky and Jessica Fugit. Rocky was nineteen. He was also 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.000 a senior in high school, like Robert Davis, but he 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.359 was somebody who had a really troubled past. He'd struggled 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:02.280 with drug addiction, with alcoholic and he'd gotten in trouble 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.480 with the police for doing things like leaving dead birds 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.240 in church sanctuaries. His sister, Jessica was fifteen, and she 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:15.080 had struggled her whole life with mental illness, delusions, hallucinations. 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.320 She was somebody who really grappled with her own demons, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:23.040 and she was friends with Nola Charles's teenage daughter, Wendy, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.279 but Jessica didn't like Wendy's mom. Jessica was known to 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.960 have a grudge against Nola Charles, and so based on 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:31.839 all this information, the police picked up Rocky and Jessica 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.400 within only a few days of this fire, and they 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:36.880 bring them down to the police station for questioning, and 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.280 soon enough, the two of them confess that they were 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.799 involved in the killing of Nola Charles and the setting 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.280 of the house on fire. After they confessed, Jessica led 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.520 the police to a snowy field behind Nola charles home 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.880 where she and Rocky had buried an iron bar that 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.040 had been used to bludgeon Nola Charles before she was stabbed, 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.440 and that iron bar still had Nola's DNA all over it, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.840 So Jessica was able to lead the police to this 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.960 new evidence that they didn't know about that corroborated her confession. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.120 The confession's true. Rocky and Jessica are guilty. They've never 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.200 said otherwise. Case closed. And if this was the end 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.280 of the story, right, we wouldn't be telling it to you. 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.440 But it's not the end of the story. Because the 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.200 police were convinced that Rocky and Jessica had not acted alone, 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.599 and they each started rattling off a list of names 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.240 other kids in their high school. The police determined that 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.680 each one of these other high schoolers had an ironclad 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.719 alibi until the last name on the list, which is 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:43.520 Robert Davis. Robert had been at home alone asleep, not 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.000 a very good alibi, so the police decided to bring 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:48.200 him in for questioning. 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:54.000 Two Now, from the get go, Robert Davis and Jessica 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.000 and Rocky being together in the same space committing a 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:03.120 horrific cry maiden no sense at all. These two kids 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:08.640 picked on Robert, especially Rocky. The idea that Robert would 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.280 be with them and would commit a murder was absurd 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.920 and it didn't take a lot of smarts to see that. 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.080 But nonetheless, right the police go and pick up Robert Davis. 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.160 They bring him in for questioning. In the middle of 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:28.720 the night. Now, before we hear what happens next, I 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:30.720 want to stop for a minute and talk to you 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.880 about how interrogations work. Obviously, the goal is to get 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.280 the suspect to confess to the crime, but how does 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.800 that happen exactly? In the last episode, Steve and I 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.600 shared some of what we've learned from watching many hours 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.920 of interrogation tapes. But as shocking as what we described is, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.120 you should know that interrogations used to be even worse. 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.200 One hundred years ago, it was common for police to 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.840 use physical violence. Innocent and guilty suspects alike were beaten, 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:03.360 hung from window, and otherwise tortured until they confessed just 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.320 to escape the suffering. Then, starting in the nineteen forties 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.840 and fifties, reform was in the air. Physically abusive practices 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.080 were thrown out. Police were trained to use words instead 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.920 of fists, and this change seemed like a progressive one 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.360 at the time. But now we know that psychological interrogation 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.360 techniques can also be highly problematic. They're very good at 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.760 persuading actual criminals to admit guilt, but they can also 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:34.880 produce false confessions. The manipulation begins with the interrogation room itself. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.000 Like Steve said, these rooms are designed to make the 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.240 suspect feel isolated, cut off from all sources of support 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.480 or help. This is the type of room where police 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.440 brought Robert Davis on February twenty second, two thousand and three, 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.840 at about one o'clock in the morning. He's by himself. 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.960 He's eighteen years old, and he's sitting in there alone, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:02.280 not knowing what's happening now terrifying circuit stances. And then 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.080 all of a sudden, with the video camera rolling, the 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:09.800 police come into the interrogation room, two officers, big burly guys, 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:11.600 and they say to him. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:21.400 Robert, which murder Thoma Charles, of Thomas Charles, you're when 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.560 we talked with the attempted murder of the two Charals daughters, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.920 Katie and Wenney. Now it's really gotten serious. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.240 This has exactly right. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.720 And literally, you know, when you watch Robert react to 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.960 being accused of murder, you can feel the fear and 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:43.680 the panic and the anxiety just radiating off this video 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.080 and you could just watch his mind spin. 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:46.600 What can I do? 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:48.440 What can I do to convince these guys they've got 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.800 the wrong person? And so Robert says to them, what 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.720 any of us I think in that situation would say, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:56.640 I swear. 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.120 To out all my life right now that I did 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.160 not do nothing oh this matter, I have nothing to 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.440 do with this. I will take a polygraph test right 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.640 now to prove to you that I did not have 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:08.760 nothing to do with this. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:14.319 Interrogation trainers teach law enforcement officers that if a suspect 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:20.280 affirmatively asks for a polygraph exam, that that's one indicator 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:26.920 of innocence. It's not rock solid proof that somebody is innocent, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.600 but it's a powerful statement that they have nothing to 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.920 fear and that they're willing to put their innocence to 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:33.440 the test. 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.280 And the officers shut them down. They tell them, no, 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:38.760 we don't have a polygraph, even though they actually have 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.280 one in the room next door. Now, why are they 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:44.760 refusing to listen to Robert as he's asserting dozens of 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:49.280 times his innocence. Well, that's how officers are trained to interrogate. 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.719 Interrogation is basically a two staged process. The goal of 0:10:57.760 --> 0:10:59.880 the first stage, which we've just heard a little bit of, 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.640 is to bring the suspect down to hopelessness. This officer 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.760 is telling Robert that it's pointless to say he's innocent 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.560 because they already know he's guilty. An interrogator's job is 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:14.479 to make the suspect feel trapped, using every tool available, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.600 and as many people don't realize, these tools can include lying. 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:19.600 Underskin. 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:21.720 It is the worst saying. 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:23.040 The world was for the dust. 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:24.520 Can you see it? 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.880 They say to him, we found your DNA in the 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.120 house from your skin cells that just shed naturally off you. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.000 And of course this is false, right. The house have 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.720 gone up in flames, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:37.160 recovered from the scene. 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.719 It's a complete lie. 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.960 But in the United States, police are allowed to lie 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:48.400 during interrogations. And again you can see radiating off this 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.680 videotape the terror in Robert's face. Right, how can this be? 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.280 I've never been in that home. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.240 And then the officer says something I have never seen 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.720 in any other interrogation, and I've seen that thousands of 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:02.679 hours of interrogations. 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:04.480 I can't lie about the evidence. 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.040 I can't lie about the evidence, Robert. I mean, talk 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.680 about a whopper. Not only can he lie during the interrogations, 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.160 but he can lie about the evidence. And he's lying about. 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:18.720 A lie exactly, talk about a mind fux. 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.200 We'll just drop the F word, drop the F bomb. 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.800 It's appropriate in this case, right, I mean, this is 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.000 the psychological game that twists the world for people in. 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:30.440 The box, and it works. 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.000 Now, let's take a moment to remember that Robert is 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.000 going through this ordeal completely alone. At eighteen years old, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.040 he's legally an adult, but even if he were younger, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.240 in most states, it's perfectly legal to question a child 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.600 without notifying their parent or guardian. This is a desperate situation, 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.439 and like anyone would, Robert asks for the best protector 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.559 he has. He asks for his mom, but that request 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.120 is turned around and used to break him down even further. 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:06.560 I will talk to mom, please, I'd do that, but 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:12.280 ALI will cooperations. 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:19.280 Then they do something especially insidious. The lead investigator says 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.640 that he had just had a phone call with Robert's 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.400 mother and his mother was crying hysterically on the phone. 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.240 You know, And this investigator tells Robert, your mom wants 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.920 you to cooperate. Your mom is saying, Robert, you know, 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.199 tell the truth so that I can help you to 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:40.160 go on with your life, right. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.440 To save your life exactly, And of course, that's all 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.120 made up, right. He didn't actually have this conversation with 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.679 the mother at all. It's horrible to watch the police 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.720 twist a mother child relationship into a bludgeon to be 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.800 used in the interrogation room. It's a disgusting ploy, deeply manipulative, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.520 and it's it's. 0:13:58.160 --> 0:13:58.920 Very hard to watch. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.839 There are other moments that are just you know, classic 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:09.640 threats of punishment and promises of leniency and the calculated 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.920 choice of words on the part of this officer have 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:14.319 always intrigued me. 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:16.880 And I'm trying to keep you from that must ultimate 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:18.520 the punishments you can get and you're not in. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:19.480 Healthyly help you. 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:24.120 He refuses to say death penalty. He uses the words 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:30.720 ultimate punishment as if that's somehow less direct a threat. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.080 You know, it's an effort to dance around something that 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.520 everybody knows is true, which is Robert is fighting for 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.200 his life in this interrogation room. 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.720 This is the moment when all of these psychological techniques, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.160 all of this mind fuck, finally takes hold, and Robert 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.200 looks up at these officers from the corner of the 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.200 interrogation room. 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.040 And he says, I did to get out of. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.440 This that's the climax of the entire interrogation. What can 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.680 I say I did to get me out of this? 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.560 Once the suspect has been brought down a hopelessness, once 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.520 their will has been broken, that's when the second stage 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.760 of interrogation begins. This is the moment when the suspect 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.720 is offered a choice. What's going to happen if they 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.960 don't confess, and what will happen if they do. For Robert, 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.200 option number one looks pretty terrible. The ultimate punishment or 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:36.840 best case scenario, ninety years in prison. But on the 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.480 other hand, the police tell Robert that if he confesses 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.960 his involvement in the crime, if he cooperates, the judge 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.160 will go easy on him. He might get as few 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.880 as five to ten years in prison, and at the 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.720 very least, they tell him he'll save his own life. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.120 The interrogators have finally achieved their goal to make confessing 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.440 look like the best choice Robert has. 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.200 So you can see Robert breaking down. But he has 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.840 a problem. He's never been in that house, he's never 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.640 been with these people. He doesn't know who the people 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.800 are that are accusing him of these crimes. Even if 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.760 he wants to confess to this crime. He has no 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.160 idea of what happened. 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.240 So now the game becomes not convincing Robert that he 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.560 has to confess, but rather simply telling him what to say. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:28.840 And so that's how the final few hours of this 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.040 interrogation are spent. Robert starts out not even knowing who 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.800 his accomplices are, and they have to give him the 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.520 names Rocky and Jessica. Okay, so Robert adopts those. Yes, 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.600 I was there with Rocky and Jessica, and we went 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.000 in the back door of the home. 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:44.880 No. 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.720 In fact, the evidence of the scene was that the 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.040 entry had occurred through the front door, so the officers 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.040 have to correct that. No, Robert, the three of you 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.960 went through the front door. Then he's telling a story 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:56.640 in which he and Rocky and Jessica are down on 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.720 the first floor of the home and he Robert stays 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.720 down there during the attack. But of course Nolah Charles's 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.000 body was found in an upstairs bedroom. He's getting it 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.040 wrong again. So again, no, no, Robert, you were upstairs. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:08.600 We know you were upstairs. You have to say you 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:09.280 were upstairs. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:11.520 And this goes on and on and on. 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:17.880 I got somebody else Cluverner, you did another act. 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:19.040 You know what that act is? 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:20.320 You stabbed that one. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.280 And the amazing thing is that while the officers are 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.160 feeding Robert all of this information correcting his mistakes, while 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.840 they're doing it, there's a level of self awareness because 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:31.960 they say to him, Robert, you realize that if I 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.520 have to tell you what you did, that defeats the purpose, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.240 and then they do it anyway. After Robert creates this 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.199 confession and seals his own fate, he looks up at 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.879 these officers and he says, do you think by me 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.040 telling you all this, it's going to get me home? 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:52.600 And the officer looks at him and says, no, you're 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.560 not going to go home. You'll see a judge on Monday. 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:56.720 And Robert looks at him. 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.400 And says, this to just. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:08.480 Sun, I'm lying to you about all of this. It 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:12.280 is the clearest recantation I have ever seen. 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.199 And the most immediate. I mean, he hasn't left the 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:16.480 interrogation room yet. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.280 He thought he's going to go home, back to his mom, 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.240 back to his high school life, and instead he is 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.040 handcuffed and led out of that room to a jail 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.920 cell where he's booked for double murder and arson, and 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:37.520 where in fact he's staring at decades in prison. Robert 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.040 Davis couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, so the court 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.399 appointed one for him. And when that happens, some people 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.360 get a lawyer like Lynn Kachinsky, the guy who botched 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:48.240 Brendon Dazzy's case in Wisconsin. 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:50.480 But for Robert this was a. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.520 Moment when he finally got some amazing luck because the 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.919 lawyer appointed to defend him was a man who's dedicated 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:02.520 his life to fighting for people without a voice. 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.800 My name's Stephen Rosenfield, been practicing law for forty three years. 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.240 I'm a civil rights lawyer. 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.520 Steve Rosenfield is one of my heroes. 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.800 Mine too. And when Steve looks at the tape, he 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:19.480 sees everything that we've just talked about. He sees that 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:25.159 police officers browbeat a teenager into confessing to a crime 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.720 that he didn't even know how to describe, and that 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.959 they were the ones who scripted this confession. 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.960 Steve threw himself into this case with the passion of 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.320 a father who saw how worthless this confession was, but 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.040 who also saw the stakes. The real stakes here were 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.800 the rest of this eighteen year old's life. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.879 So the job of a good lawyer, when faced with 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.520 a confession is to try to do everything in their 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:55.000 power to keep that evidence out of the trial and 0:19:55.119 --> 0:20:00.840 to argue that that confession was involuntary and unreliable. And 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.000 that's exactly what Steve did. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.920 Our goal was to keep the confession out because it 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.520 was coerced and did not reflect what really happened on 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:12.680 the night of the murders. 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.119 Steve litigated this case, fought hard for Robert hired a 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.160 psychological expert to talk about the tactics that were used 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.480 by police officers, and he pointed out all of the 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.600 highlights that we've been talking about. 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.720 I was able to call our expert witness, and he 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.879 went through the kinds of factors that lend themselves toward 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:39.640 false confessions. Why a young man, having been threatened with 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.560 a death sentence might say that he had done something 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:44.720 when in fact he had not. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.400 And if you want to understand the problem of false confessions, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:49.399 why this happens so much, Why people are convicted on 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.400 the basis of confessions like this one, it's because too 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.400 many judges believe that the law does not clearly prohibit 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.960 even threats that someone will face death if they don't 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.119 confess right, even cases where they have to be told 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.080 exactly what to say by their interrogators. This judge didn't 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.640 think the law prohibited that and allow this confession to evidence. 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.720 And when that happened, of course, then Robert Davis had 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:16.120 a horrible choice to make. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.960 Knowing Steve, he was very clear and honest with Robert 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.520 about what the options were and what the chances are 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:25.399 of his being convicted. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.720 Confessions are powerful. There was a more than likely chance 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.760 of him being convicted, and with a conviction surely would 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.840 have come a very hefty sentence. We were guessing that 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:39.399 it would have been a huge number of years or 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.160 life sentences for the killing of the child and the mother. 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.879 Do I go to trial and risk being sent to 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.919 prison for the rest of my life for something I 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:53.639 didn't do? Or do I accept an offer that the 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.280 prosecution has made to me if I plead guilty to 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.160 one count of murder, I will be said to twenty 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:06.440 three years. Robert was eighteen years old when he was arrested, 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.240 so that would mean that he could get out at 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.239 the age of forty one. He would still have a 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.840 life half a life half a life. He could have 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:20.320 a family, he could have some future. 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:20.720 Right. 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.280 It's a horrible choice, but it's the kind of choice 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.120 that defendants face in courtrooms around the country every single day. 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.240 Robert chose the deal. He entered a plea of guilty 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:36.719 in exchange for those twenty three years, a horribly difficult, 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.240 deeply unjust decision that he was forced to make, but 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.480 also one that I can't fault inform the slightest. I 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.439 think any of us in that position would probably do 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:46.040 the same thing. 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.239 But what Steve said to Robert is I will not 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:54.720 give up on you. I will continue to investigate this case. 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.840 Steve Rosenfield promised Robert Davis that he would walk with him, 0:22:57.880 --> 0:22:59.439 that he would stay with him, he would visit him 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:01.320 in prison. You wouldn't forget him. 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.399