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Speaker 1: Also media, and we're back to Behind the Bastards, the

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Speaker 1: podcast that's about people who are bad, which is today

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Speaker 1: this week doctor James Grigson and the broader industry cottage industry.

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Speaker 2: He helps ignite of psychiatrists who go to court and

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Speaker 2: be like, yeah, man absolutely killed that motherfucker, which is

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Speaker 2: only slightly less direct than the actual job was. With

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Speaker 2: us again, our guest Stephen wanta SELLI, Stephen, how you doing.

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Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm doing You're doing? I'm doing well, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I'm here.

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Speaker 2: What are you doing?

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Speaker 3: We're about to talk about some really really uplifting, heartening,

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Speaker 3: trust inducing stuff like makes me really love the system

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Speaker 3: and the medical profession as a whole.

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Speaker 2: It's good. I mean, you know, Here's what's frustrating is

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Speaker 2: the medical profession as a whole is trying to do

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Speaker 2: the right thing here, Like they keep being like this

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Speaker 2: guy's a crank, this sky's a crank. It just doesn't

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Speaker 2: matter for a long time. This is kind of an

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Speaker 2: early example of the hell where in now, where it's

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Speaker 2: like all of the people who know anything about for example,

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Speaker 2: climate or for example, how infectious diseases work, or anything

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Speaker 2: else to do with like vaccines, and medicine. All of

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Speaker 2: these people who know things space travel, people who know

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Speaker 2: things about that are being like, nah, this is all

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Speaker 2: this is really fucked up, Like you're shooting us in

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Speaker 2: the foot. All of these different cuts to research are horrible.

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Speaker 2: Everything that's being done is going to make life worse

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Speaker 2: for everybody. But the only people that matter are the

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Speaker 2: ones who are saying nuhuh. And you kind of get

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Speaker 2: an early version. This is like a prologue for all

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Speaker 2: of the hell that we're in right now, this like

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Speaker 2: anti science bullshit. Well, I feel like a good psychiatry

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Speaker 2: should be able to say, oh, yeah, this man is

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Speaker 2: definitely going to kill again because I've diagnosed him with

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Speaker 2: something I believe thanks to TV as a real diagnosis.

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Speaker 2: This is our like Star Wars prequel of the anti

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Speaker 2: science hell that we're all trapped in now.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. The sort of non expert expert, the person who

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Speaker 3: is more than willing to set aside all of the

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Speaker 3: good things about whatever field they nominally belong to in

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Speaker 3: order to like push some sort of quackery or ideology.

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Speaker 3: Yeah it's yeah, it's We've seen it in a lot

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Speaker 3: of fields, unfortunately, and to horrible extents, like the Russians

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Speaker 3: with their was it Lamarckism?

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Speaker 2: Oh god, no, no, no, think Lisenkoism.

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Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, Licinkoism. I'm certainly not an expert in the

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Speaker 3: history of genetic research, but I digress. Yeah, really really

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Speaker 3: horrible person here that we're talking about today.

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Speaker 2: It is interesting to compare it to la Senkoism, which

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Speaker 2: is like, you had obviously actual agricultural scientists in the USSR,

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Speaker 2: and then you had this guy being like, no, plants

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Speaker 2: work the same way. We're pretty sure people do, you know,

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Speaker 2: and you can like freeze a crop and you'll it'll

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Speaker 2: pass down cold resistance to It's like, no, that doesn't

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Speaker 2: And there were a lot of people saying, now that

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Speaker 2: doesn't work. But the scientists who happened to be in

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Speaker 2: alignment with the politics of the people you know in

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Speaker 2: charge was the scientist who got declared to be right

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Speaker 2: and damn the consequences. And likewise, here you've got the

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Speaker 2: whole APA being like, at no point should psychiatrists ever

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Speaker 2: do what this guy is doing, right, But you've got

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Speaker 2: people in Texas and prosecutors and the government of Texas

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Speaker 2: being like, no, this is pretty much how we think

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Speaker 2: it should work. So this guy's right, and he gets

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Speaker 2: to make a lot of money.

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Speaker 3: It's a tool of the state and its interest at

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Speaker 3: the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's great. So from this point forward in

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Speaker 2: the story, our boy, doctor Griggson aka Doctor Death is

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Speaker 2: going to continue to expand and extend his practice throughout

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Speaker 2: the eighties, will also dealing with constant and mounting criticism

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Speaker 2: from organized psychiatry as a field. Now, the core of

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Speaker 2: the complaints against him have to do with his continued

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Speaker 2: insistence on using the results of competency tests, which he's

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Speaker 2: not supposed to be doing, right, but there's some evidence

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Speaker 2: that he keeps doing it after he's told not to

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Speaker 2: by the Supreme Court, And then kind of the bigger

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Speaker 2: issue is again that he's he's making predictions about the future,

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Speaker 2: which he shouldn't be doing. Even after being chided by

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Speaker 2: the APA in that Supreme Court case, he continued to

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Speaker 2: rank sociopathy on a one to ten scale, with ten

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Speaker 2: being the worst, and as noted in an article by

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Speaker 2: the Death Penalty Information Center, he would regularly rank people

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Speaker 2: higher than ten, like the one through ten seem to

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Speaker 2: be like mostly pointless because he would always go above

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Speaker 2: ten right and up to twelve thirteen at even fourteen,

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Speaker 2: which is just what like again, like if you're going

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Speaker 2: to go above ten on a one to ten, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you just say, like he's an eleven, like a fourteen,

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Speaker 2: So why even have a one to ten scale? If

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Speaker 2: someone could be that high above it? What are you doing?

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Speaker 2: Like why even introduce that idea from begetting I promise

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to beat on that the whole time.

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Speaker 2: It's just very frustrating to me. Now, these numbers are

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Speaker 2: again infuriating if you know anything about psychiatry or probability.

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Speaker 2: But they get even more sickening when you dig into

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Speaker 2: the actual stories of the people that doctor Grigson diagnosed

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Speaker 2: as a one hundred percent sociopaths who would one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent kill again. He is often saying a ninety nine

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Speaker 2: percent chance they'll kill again. Sometimes he says one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent chance they'll kill again. Right, And we know that

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Speaker 2: in a lot of cases he was objectively wrong, and

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Speaker 2: because we have examples like and this is probably the

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Speaker 2: most prominent case of him being wrong, the tale of

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Speaker 2: Randall Dale Adams. In nineteen seventy seven, Adams was convicted

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Speaker 2: of the murder of a Dallas, Texas police officer Robert Wood.

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Speaker 2: Officer Wood was shot to death in late nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 2: the same year that Texas finally established its new rules

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Speaker 2: for deciding death penalty cases. Now we know who the

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Speaker 2: actual shooter was. It was a guy named David Harris

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Speaker 2: who framed Randal Adams to avoid being convicted of the crime.

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Speaker 2: Adams Is conviction relied heavily on testimony from three witnesses

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Speaker 2: who were illegally hidden from the defense until they showed

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Speaker 2: up in court and said testimony we also know was

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Speaker 2: at least partially perjured. So not only did the defense

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Speaker 2: hide these witnesses when they shouldn't have, but the witnesses

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Speaker 2: were coaxed and bribed into giving false testimony. And we

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Speaker 2: know this right, So we're already starting with crimes on

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Speaker 2: the part of the prosecution in this case. Now that

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Speaker 2: begs the question, why are the police and why is

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Speaker 2: the prosecutor so gung ho to go after a guy

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Speaker 2: with evidence they know like that they know they're having

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Speaker 2: to cook up right, that they know isn't true. And

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Speaker 2: you would assume, just knowing cops, it's because, like you know,

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Speaker 2: police just for whatever reason, decided this was the guy

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Speaker 2: and we're like, well, we can just kind of coax

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Speaker 2: the truth into making sure that we are able to

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Speaker 2: like make a stronger case, and the prosecutor went along

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Speaker 2: with it. Right, That's actually not what happened. So what's

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Speaker 2: really going on here is that David Harris, the guy

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Speaker 2: who actually kills this person and this robbery gone wrong,

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Speaker 2: is sixteen years old, right, And they know Harris does

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Speaker 2: it from the beginning. He's the first guy they take

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Speaker 2: into custody. They find that he, like the gun that

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Speaker 2: was used in the shooting was his dad's gun that

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Speaker 2: he had access to that night. So it's very clear

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Speaker 2: that this is Harris. But you can't give a sixteen

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Speaker 2: year old the death penalty in Texas, right, And it's

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Speaker 2: a cop. He's murdered, and so the police, even more

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Speaker 2: than making sure the right guy gets executed, the police

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Speaker 2: want to make sure that when a cop gets murdered,

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Speaker 2: someone gets executed, right. And when it becomes clear Harris

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Speaker 2: can't be executed, Harris is like, well, I'll give you

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Speaker 2: this other guy who like drove me there, right, And

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Speaker 2: Randal Adams. Part of why Adams is a good patsy

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Speaker 2: dependent on is that Darryl Harris is like a kid.

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Speaker 2: He like lives with his parents, so he's someone who

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Speaker 2: has something of like a normal life. And Randal Adams

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Speaker 2: is a drifter, right, he's like doing day labor. He

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Speaker 2: doesn't come from the state. He's kind of you know,

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Speaker 2: he's he's I think he has a car, but he's

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Speaker 2: essentially a homeless man, right, And so it's really easy

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Speaker 2: to kill him, right, and really easy to like kill

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Speaker 2: him because he's not going to have any kind of

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Speaker 2: money for defense, and because he's not the kind of

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Speaker 2: person anyone's going to care about. Right. So this kind

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Speaker 2: of fits what the cops want, which is we want

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Speaker 2: to make a show of force against somebody for the

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Speaker 2: death of this cop. Now, there's a lot of fucked

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Speaker 2: up details in the case. Everything that happens here, there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of like rule breaking and illegality. We don't

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Speaker 2: have enough time to go into. But every detail of

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Speaker 2: this case stinks about as much as it's possible for

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Speaker 2: a case to stink from the get go. In the end,

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Speaker 2: the jury declares Adam's guilty after almost no deliberation. And

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Speaker 2: as you know, because we've done our little clinic on

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Speaker 2: how the Texas death penalty worked. The next step is

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Speaker 2: they have to decide should this man die, right, and

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Speaker 2: this always comes down to will he commit an their

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Speaker 2: violent crime if we leave him alive. Determining this case

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Speaker 2: came down to doctor Grigson and another colleague testifying about

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Speaker 2: whether or not Adams was, in doctor Grigson's terms, a

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Speaker 2: maximum sociopath. Again not a diagnosis, but Grigson testified that

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Speaker 2: Randall would one hundred percent kill again if left alive. Adams,

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Speaker 2: he insisted, was an extreme sociopath, so we can't even

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Speaker 2: keep his terms straight. Adams is sentenced to die in

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, and the years tick by agonizingly. You know,

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Speaker 2: he's from this court case until three days before his execution,

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Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court stays it right. They give him

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Speaker 2: a stay of execution because Justice Lewis Powell writes that

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Speaker 2: there is grave concern regarding potential jurors in the case

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Speaker 2: who were excluded for being anti death penalty, even though

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Speaker 2: they promised to follow Texas law if appointed. Right, So

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Speaker 2: that's the whole thing that saves his life initially, is

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Speaker 2: that there's an appeal based on like jurors who are

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Speaker 2: weren't pro death penalty were excluded illegally from service, right,

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Speaker 2: and so that that's the only reason he's saved initially.

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Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with his innocence, nothing to

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Speaker 2: do with other aspects of the case. It's just this

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Speaker 2: issue with the jury. Now by rights, because this has

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Speaker 2: been found by the Supreme Court, Adam should have gotten

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Speaker 2: a new trial, right, it's been determined that his trial

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Speaker 2: was like not valid because the rules were broken here

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Speaker 2: enough that they stayed as execution. You should have a

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Speaker 2: new trial. But the Dallas DA at the time Henry Wade.

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Speaker 2: And does that name sound familiar to you, Henry Wade.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we talked about him. I'm pretty sure doctor Phillips

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Speaker 3: and I on one of the episodes on it could

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Speaker 3: happen here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he Wade from Roe v. Wade, Right, Like that's

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Speaker 2: that's the and he's on the bad side of the case, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So doctor Wade or Henry Wade, not doctor Wade. The

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Speaker 2: DA comes in and he's like, we don't need to

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Speaker 2: give this guy a new trial. It would be a

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Speaker 2: waste of money, right, And it'll be a waste of

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Speaker 2: money because I'm going to have the governor commute Adam's

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Speaker 2: a sentence to life in prison. Right, So he's not

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Speaker 2: going to get killed anymore, so why do we care

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Speaker 2: about giving him a new trial?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 2: So Adams's people are still like, we want a new

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Speaker 2: trial because he's innocent and he doesn't want to spend

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Speaker 2: the rest of his life in prison, but a Texas

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Speaker 2: Criminal Court of Appeals insists that, like, well, now that

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Speaker 2: he's not going to be executed, there's no longer any

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Speaker 2: error in the case. So it's fine, right, because you know,

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Speaker 2: those jurors were just being excluded because of their opinion

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Speaker 2: on the death penalty. No death penalty, everything's good here.

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Speaker 2: So that's what the Court of Appeals decide. Come on,

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Speaker 2: and so Adams, a man everyone knows has been railroaded

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Speaker 2: and do a guilty verdict. A lot of this is

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Speaker 2: out now and had been nearly executed due to a

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Speaker 2: crooked case, seemed set to spend the rest of his

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Speaker 2: life behind bars. And this is the case that he

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Speaker 2: stays in until March of nineteen eighty five. And the

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Speaker 2: reason why he gets another shot and ultimately, thank god,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to spoil it a little bit, gets freed

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Speaker 2: is because of we can thank documentarian Errol Morris. So,

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Speaker 2: Errol Morris is paying attention during that nineteen eighty three

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Speaker 2: Supreme Court case against doctor Griggson, and he's like, this

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Speaker 2: seems really fucked up. Like this doctor death guy seems

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Speaker 2: like a real asshole who's killing a shitload of people.

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Speaker 2: I wonder if we can do anything about that, you know,

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Speaker 2: me being literally Errol Morris. So he starts working on

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Speaker 2: a documentary that's initially supposed to be primarily about doctor Grigson.

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Speaker 2: And the documentary that comes out is called The Thin

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Speaker 2: Blue Line, right if you've heard of that, Like, that

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Speaker 2: is the documentary that he makes about this case. Ultimately,

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Speaker 2: So Morris starts working on this case, and that obviously

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Speaker 2: brings a lot of attention to it, and you know,

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Speaker 2: he's able to put some resources behind it and to

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Speaker 2: talk about what happened next. I'm going to quote from

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Speaker 2: an article by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University.

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Speaker 2: Morris's intent had not been to question the guilt of

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Speaker 2: defendants and whose cases Grigson had testified, but only to

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Speaker 2: question his psychiatric conclusions. When Morris met Adams, the focus

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Speaker 2: of the project changed. Morris learned from Randy Schaeffer a

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Speaker 2: volunteer Houston lawyer who had been working on the case

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Speaker 2: since nineteen eighty two, that Harris had not led an

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Speaker 2: exemplary life. After helping to convict Adams, Harris, which is

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Speaker 2: the guy who gives Adams up, had joined the army

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Speaker 2: and been stationed in Germany, where he had been convicted

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Speaker 2: in a military court of a series of burglaries and

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Speaker 2: sent to prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. A few months after

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Speaker 2: his release, Harris had been convicted in California of kidnapping,

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Speaker 2: armed robbery, and related crimes. So Morris is like, well,

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Speaker 2: the guy who said Adams was guilty in the first

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Speaker 2: place and had been the initial suspect really seems like

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Speaker 2: the kind of guy who'd murder a cop, whereas Adams doesn't.

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Speaker 2: And there's a bunch of other irregularities in the case.

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Speaker 2: The more he looks into it, the more he finds.

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Speaker 2: For one thing, it comes up again that Harris's father

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Speaker 2: had owned the gun that was likely used in the

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Speaker 2: shooting and that Harris had stolen it. Now, this is

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Speaker 2: all looking pretty bad, but what comes up next is

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Speaker 2: even worse. And I'm gonna continue. Quoting from that article,

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Speaker 2: Morrison Schaeffer discovered that Officer Turko, who's one of the yachts,

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Speaker 2: the officer that survives her partner is killed and she

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Speaker 2: testifies about the murder. That Officer Turko had been hypnotized

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Speaker 2: during the investigation and initially had acknowledged that she had

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Speaker 2: not seen the killer, facts that the prosecution had illegally

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Speaker 2: withheld from the defense. Morrison. Schaeffer also found that robbery

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Speaker 2: charges against the daughter of IWitness Emily Miller had been

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Speaker 2: dropped after Miller agreed to testify Adams as Woods's killer.

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Speaker 2: The new information, coupled with the fact that Miller initially

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Speaker 2: had described the killer as Mexican or African American, became

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Speaker 2: the basis for a new trial motion. Right, So they

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Speaker 2: find all this shit is fucked up and like there's

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Speaker 2: not really any evidence whatsoever that ties Adams to the murder,

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Speaker 2: and ultimately, you know, there's a new trial motion. The

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Speaker 2: case becomes a major cornerstone for the Death Row Innocence

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Speaker 2: Project like movement, right for the people who are are

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Speaker 2: trying to you know, especially as forensic science is advancing

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Speaker 2: and we've got DNA now trying to look at a

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Speaker 2: lot of these people who are definitely innocent and get

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Speaker 2: them off death row, get them out of prison. So

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, during a three day hearing in a

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Speaker 2: Dallas district court, Harris finally recants and admits that he

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Speaker 2: killed the cop that Adams was convicted of murdering. The

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Speaker 2: judge in that case recommends a new trial for Adams

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Speaker 2: and that Adams be paroled in immediately. In the meantime,

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Speaker 2: the Board of Pardons and Appeals initially refuses to let

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Speaker 2: Adams out, but agrees to a new trial, and then

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Speaker 2: after like a couple of weeks, he gets released anyway,

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Speaker 2: and then a few days later all charges against him

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Speaker 2: are dropped. And I think this is a case of

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Speaker 2: as soon as they looked back into it, they're like, oh,

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Speaker 2: there's no case whatsoever without the shit that the cops

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Speaker 2: and the prosecutors falsified. There's absolutely nothing. We can't even

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Speaker 2: give him a new trial, Like, there's not enough to

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Speaker 2: even try and accuse him of here.

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Speaker 3: It's ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's good, right, this is an innocent

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Speaker 2: man gets out of prison, you know, after having his life.

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Speaker 4: Still Yeah, it got that had to get to that point.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's a major win. Obviously Randal Adams and

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Speaker 2: everyone who believed in his innocence, you know, scratch up

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Speaker 2: a w. But this represents a serious problem for doctor

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Speaker 2: Grigson because he had guaranteed in court that this man

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Speaker 2: was an incurable sociopath who what one hundred percent kill again?

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Speaker 2: So people start asking him like, hey, you said this

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Speaker 2: innocent guy was definitely associopath. Were you wrong? And this

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Speaker 2: is part of why I love that Vanity Fair piece

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Speaker 2: where Rosenbaum spent like weeks traveling with doctor Death because

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Speaker 2: you know, this is written in nineteen ninety, but it's

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Speaker 2: during a period of time in which he keeps getting

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Speaker 2: questioned about Adams because Adams is just like Freedom eighty eight.

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Speaker 2: So Grigson is still testifying constantly, and defense attorneys are

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Speaker 2: using this against him. Unfortunately, it's less successful at hurting

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Speaker 2: his testimony than you might imagine. Now, this part in

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Speaker 2: that Vanity Fair article comes after Griggson is just testified

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Speaker 2: in one of three death penalty cases. He's doing in

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Speaker 2: like a long weekend with the goal of getting three

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Speaker 2: people killed. Right, He's trying to kill the most people

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Speaker 2: that he's ever killed in his career in the shortest

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Speaker 2: period of time, like, that's what this article is about.

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Speaker 2: He's got like three cases in a couple of days.

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Speaker 2: He's got he's like, can I break my record of,

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Speaker 2: you know, getting people executed by the state. So during

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Speaker 2: one of these cases, he's testifying and the defense attorney asked,

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Speaker 2: do you recall the Randall Dale Adams case. The doctor

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Speaker 2: nodded warily and said, I recall it. Well, yes, sir.

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Speaker 2: Are you as sure about this defendant as you were

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Speaker 2: when you declared Randal Dale Adams was guilty and would

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Speaker 2: kill again again? The courtroom tensed up, even out on

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Speaker 2: the prairie the papers had reported on the Adams case.

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Speaker 2: Looking totally unperturbed, the doctor said dramatically, those people that

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Speaker 2: were involved in the case know that he is guilty.

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Speaker 2: I examined, mister Adams, there is no question in my mind,

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Speaker 2: as well as the mind of the jury who convicted him,

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Speaker 2: that he is guilty. And did you say, if Randal

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Speaker 2: Adams that he will continue his previous behavior? I most

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Speaker 2: certainly said that, the doctor said, defiantly, and he will, right.

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Speaker 2: So that's two years later He's like, no, they were wrong.

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Speaker 2: He's definitely still guilty. I know it because of my

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Speaker 2: psychiatry brain, and I guarantee you he's going to kill again, right.

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Speaker 3: It just hasn't happened yet.

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Speaker 2: It hasn't happened yet, but at one hundred percent will

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Speaker 2: right now. Rosenbaum talks to the doctor after this case,

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Speaker 2: which the prosecution wins, even though this gets brought up,

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Speaker 2: and talk to him about Adams. He's like, it just

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Speaker 2: seems really weird that you're insisting this guy is still

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Speaker 2: guilty after all the evidence that Morris uncovered and the

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Speaker 2: fact that the legal system backpedaled, And doctor Grigson is like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: the guy's guilty. Harris only Recanton took credit for the

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Speaker 2: murder because he wanted to jack the system around, right,

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Speaker 2: And in another trial a week later, when asked the

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Speaker 2: same question, doctor Grigson continued to insist that not only

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Speaker 2: was Adams guilty, but again he will one hundred percent

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Speaker 2: kill again like that. I am one hundred percent sure

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Speaker 2: this now freeman will commit another murder like he testified that.

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Speaker 2: So that seems like a pretty good case to judge

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Speaker 2: his credibility on, given that this is happening in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety and we have twenty five years of additional data

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Speaker 2: into this guy's life, right, seems like something we should

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Speaker 2: look into, which we will after these ads.

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Speaker 3: Wow, that was so professional. That was a good one.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. I try. We're back. So you could say,

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Speaker 2: I think it'd be fair to say that a lot

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Speaker 2: of doctor Grigson's credibility rests on the Randall Adams case, right,

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Speaker 2: because number one, this is a guy he said was

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Speaker 2: definitely guilty who then got exonerated. And number two, he

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Speaker 2: has now provided In nineteen ninety he said one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent he'll kill again now that he's free. That's a

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Speaker 2: falsifiable statement. And we have a lot of time since

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety to kind of look at And about fourteen

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Speaker 2: years after he made that statement, in two thousand and four,

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Speaker 2: there was a study I found an article about it,

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Speaker 2: based on the study by the Texas Defender Service into

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Speaker 2: the records of one hundred and fifty five convicted killers

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Speaker 2: to determine how often they actually engaged in violent behavior

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Speaker 2: post conviction and what doctor Grigson and other experts had

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Speaker 2: predicted they would do. Right, So these guys are looking

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Speaker 2: into like, what can we actually tell based on the

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Speaker 2: predictions made about these convicted killers and what they actually

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Speaker 2: did how accurate these predictions were, right, So you know

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Speaker 2: that's good. I'm gonna quote from that now. Adams fifty

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Speaker 2: five is exhibit A in a study to be released

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Speaker 2: today that found experts witnesses predictions of violent behavior were

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Speaker 2: wrong ninety five percent of the time.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, so that's way worse than a third, right exactly.

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Speaker 3: That's like, you know, statistically significant confidence interval, like you

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Speaker 3: basically can say it's gonna happen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that is you would think if if you

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Speaker 2: and I were just guessing, if we just got to

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Speaker 2: go to court and like flip a coin and be like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that guy, I'll kill again, like you'd expect us to

398
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Speaker 2: be righter than that. Yep. Oh boy, that's an incredible

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Speaker 2: degree of wrong.

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Speaker 4: Right.

401
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Speaker 2: So, of the one hundred and fifty five convicted killers studied,

402
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Speaker 2: only eight engaged in later behavior that resulted in serious injury.

403
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Speaker 2: So eight out of one hundred and fifty five seriously

404
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,760
Speaker 2: hurt another person after their conviction. A full twenty percent

405
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Speaker 2: of these convicts had zero disciplinary violations while in prison

406
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Speaker 2: of any kind, and seventy five percent had only minor

407
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 2: non violent day fractions like owning lottery tickets, right, So like, yeah,

408
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Speaker 2: a bunch of them got in trouble after a conviction,

409
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Speaker 2: but it was because they had an illegal lottery ticket.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't because they were killing or hurting anybody. Not

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Speaker 2: one of the one hundred and fifty five convicted killers

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Speaker 2: ever murdered again, right, So very bad like rate of

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Speaker 2: accuracy here. Now, it's important to note this is two

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Speaker 2: thousand and four, which is after doctor Griggson dies and

415
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 2: well after he stopped practicing. But it's important to note

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Speaker 2: that even at the end of the nineteen eighties the

417
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Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties, there's good documented evidence that not only

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Speaker 2: had Griggson been wrong on a case, but during his

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Speaker 2: whole career he'd very likely been wrong on a grand scale.

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Speaker 2: I want to quote from a two thousand and three

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Speaker 2: article for the Washington Times. Here Andrea Kellen, an attorney

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Speaker 2: with the Texas Defender Service, said she knew of dozens

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Speaker 2: of former death row inmates whose sentences were reduced for

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00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,440
Speaker 2: various reasons and who have never been involved in any difficulties,

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Speaker 2: though doctor Griggson testified they should be executed because they

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Speaker 2: would likely commit murder again. In nineteen eighty eight, a

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Speaker 2: report compiled by an assistant district attorney in Dallas concluded

428
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Speaker 2: that after the study of eleven specific death penalty verdicts

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Speaker 2: where the defendant's terms had been reduced, not a single

430
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 2: one had been anything other than a model prisoner. Mister

431
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 2: Halpern and a brief for other prisoners concluded that despite

432
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:19,160
Speaker 2: doctor Grigson's near identical predictions that each inmate would beyond

433
00:22:19,160 --> 00:22:22,000
Speaker 2: an need doubt, absolutely and without any question, commit acts

434
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 2: of dangerousness in the future, that prosecution prepared report proved

435
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:30,439
Speaker 2: the psychiatrist was seldom accurate. So a DA report, this

436
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 2: is a prosecutor did a study of eleven death penalty

437
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,399
Speaker 2: verdicts where doctor Grigson said they will definitely continue to

438
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,959
Speaker 2: commit crimes if not executed, and these people were not executed,

439
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 2: their sentences were reduced and none of them did violence. Again,

440
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 2: that's one hundred percent wrong for doctor Grigson, right, based

441
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 2: on those eleven cases, you know, Jesus, So I'm not

442
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 2: overly optimistic that he was right a bunch of the

443
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,040
Speaker 2: time that we don't have data on based on that

444
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:04,640
Speaker 2: and based on the Adams case, so you know, going

445
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,560
Speaker 2: into the nineties here though, despite the fact that there

446
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 2: is evidence building that doctor Grigson is wrong an awful lot.

447
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 2: He is continuing to do a shitload of these cases

448
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 2: and to be very prominent in the media, and the

449
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 2: Adams case does nothing initially to slow his career or

450
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:24,160
Speaker 2: halt his body count. There was, however, a minor uproar

451
00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 2: as a result of Morris's documentary and Adams's exoneration. In

452
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, the Texas State Supreme Court responded to

453
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 2: the epidemic of junkt science experts, but only in civil cases.

454
00:23:36,119 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 2: So they ruled that expert testimony could only be admitted

455
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 2: if it was proven to be both relevant and reliable,

456
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,479
Speaker 2: a bar that doctor Grigson's work could not pass, as

457
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 2: if any psychiatrists not named doctor Grigson were consulted on

458
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 2: the matter. However, this only applied the civil cases, like

459
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 2: I said, not capital cases. So there's an uproar, but

460
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 2: it only stops psychiatrists from testifying in the cases that

461
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 2: doctor Grigson isn't testifying in. Now there is still an

462
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 2: uproar even in Texas about this. There are a lot

463
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 2: of professionals that are angry about what Grigson is doing.

464
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 2: It's just not able to stop things. Like one of

465
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 2: the things I found that was really wild is John Edens,

466
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 2: who was a professor of psychiatry at my alma mater,

467
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,919
Speaker 2: Sam Houston State, said, in the wake of this ninety

468
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,239
Speaker 2: three decision of doctor Grigson, It's hard to imagine this

469
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 2: kind of testimony would be allowed. It does not meet

470
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 2: the criteria of reliability. There is a known error rate

471
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,439
Speaker 2: which is remarkably high. So Sam Houston State not a

472
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 2: liberal university. This is the criminal justice school in Texas. Right, Like,

473
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,439
Speaker 2: this is not it's set. It's located right next to

474
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 2: death row.

475
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 3: Right, why is there nothing? Why are we just letting

476
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 3: this happen?

477
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 2: Then, because any ruling against doctor Grigson could be seen

478
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 2: as attempting to like slow the death penalty, and it's

479
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 2: really popular, unfortunately, and these are We're coming into the

480
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 2: Bush years now, right, doctor Grigson is going to be

481
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 2: really active during Bush's time as governor, and so like

482
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 2: we're kind of ramping up in the nineties to the

483
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 2: period where Texas is like considering its ability to continue

484
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 2: its death row. As like, this is like something that

485
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 2: is really important to the state, Right, It's something we

486
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 2: take a degree of pride and like, my family did

487
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,959
Speaker 2: you know? So it's it's not like the fact that

488
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 2: all of these experts are very much saying this guy

489
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 2: is not reliable is not hurting his business yet, so crazy.

490
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: And it's also prosecutors have a lot of power, a

491
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 2: lot of political power, right, Das have a lot of

492
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 2: political power, and they find him useful.

493
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 3: So he was too important of a cog in a bouder,

494
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 3: bigger machine.

495
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: Right, He's really politically useful, and he's useful to all

496
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 2: their careers, right because a lot of these prosecutors part

497
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 2: of what they're building their careers on, a lot of

498
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 2: them want to go into other politics. Is like, not

499
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 2: only do I have this many convictions, but I sent

500
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 2: this many danger risk sociopaths to death row right, I

501
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 2: made our states safer? Yeah okay, yes, yeah yeah.

502
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 3: And it's one of those things where, yeah, if you

503
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,719
Speaker 3: put numbers up on the board, it sounds good. You

504
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 3: can claim that you took dangerous repeat criminals who would

505
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,239
Speaker 3: have been threats to their communities off the streets, and

506
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 3: then if you succeed in actually killing them, you don't

507
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 3: face the scrutiny of what you just described, whether or

508
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 3: not they actually would live up to that potential future

509
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 3: that's been predicted by this expert.

510
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: Yep, sheesh. Yeah, okay, so this is cool, right, We're happy.

511
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, works works as expected? Right. The purpose of a

512
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 3: system is what it does.

513
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 2: Right, And in this case, yeah, the system is doing

514
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 2: exactly what the people who set it up wanted to do.

515
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,199
Speaker 2: Doctor James Grigson in nineteen ninety five was finally drummed

516
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 2: out of the APA for his continued insistence on diagnosing

517
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 2: subjects without ever talking to them. The next year, the

518
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,919
Speaker 2: Texas is Xiety of Psychiatric Physicians expelled him. In nineteen

519
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 2: ninety six, New York University psych professor Michael Wiener wrote this,

520
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 2: the problem with doctor Griggson was not that inmates were

521
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 2: placed on death row, but that he was fundamentally biased

522
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 2: in his assessments and was performing cursory evaluations and drawing

523
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: broad and damning conclusions from only limited information. A problem

524
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 2: of credibility and objectivity. And you know, I would say

525
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: part of the problem is that people were being placed

526
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 2: on death row based on bad evidence. But I think

527
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 2: he's making the point that, like doctor Griggson isn't responsible

528
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 2: for the way prosecutions work for how that, like lying

529
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 2: about the evidence is incentivized in these cases and stuff.

530
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 2: He's responsible for this aspect of it, which is probably

531
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 2: fair to say. Now, it is impossible for us to

532
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,399
Speaker 2: know to a point of certainty how often he was wrong,

533
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 2: but something like a hundred of the people he testified

534
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 2: about for money were put to death, and most of

535
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 2: those cases were never revisited. However, we do have a

536
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 2: few more case studies on times when he was proven wrong.

537
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen eighty six, a carpenter named David Wayne

538
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: Stoker was charged with the murder of a convenience store

539
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 2: clerk north of Lubbock. Five months after the murder, a

540
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 2: man described by prosecutors as low life scum snitched a

541
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 2: police that Stoker had done the murder and handed over

542
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 2: what he claimed to be the murder weapon. Well, this

543
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 2: low life scum had the murder weapon and says, this

544
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 2: other guy did it. That's all I need to know.

545
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: Why would he have a bias?

546
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 4: Right?

547
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 2: So, Stoker did have an assault prior, and he had

548
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 2: a drug issue, right, and was arrested in short order. Again,

549
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 2: it's one of these like, oh yeah, this guy doesn't

550
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 2: have any way to fight this, Yeah, let's go after him.

551
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: Like many such death penalty cases, his was dogged by

552
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 2: poor quality representation in a system in which people like

553
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: him who are expected to be guilty get railroaded through

554
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 2: to a conviction. Per an article by the Death Penalty

555
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 2: Information Center. Felty, the lead lawyer, the defense attorney, and

556
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 2: a former prosecutor, later gave up his law license in

557
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 2: the face of disciplinary action. Felty forced the signatures of

558
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 2: two clients on a settlement check, then pocketed the money.

559
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 2: Record show he also lead guilty to felity charges for

560
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 2: forging a judge's signature on a court order and falsifying

561
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 2: a government document. He was sentenced to five years of

562
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 2: community service. So that's this guy's defense attorney. And again

563
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 2: not shitting on the concept of defense attorneys, but it's

564
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 2: a major problem that a lot of these guys, in particular,

565
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 2: these are like the kind of the lowest of the low,

566
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: and they benefit from the very worst service on average, right,

567
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: they are very likely to get the defense attorneys who

568
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 2: are not competent. It's, as we'll talk about, weirdly common

569
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: for death penalty cases for the defense attorneys to later

570
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 2: get disbarred for incompetence or other similar issues. The guy

571
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 2: who had snitched on Stoker claimed in court to not

572
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 2: have been given anything for his testimony, that just like

573
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 2: I wanted the truth to come out, I didn't get

574
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 2: any kind of special deal. But the day he testified,

575
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 2: charges he had for drug possession and for possession of

576
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 2: a firearm illegally in the next county over were dropped

577
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: and he received one thousand dollars from crime Stoppers as

578
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 2: there were all ward for turning this guy in, and

579
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:05,600
Speaker 2: further documents made it clear that there had been a

580
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: written quid pro quote with the DA for one thing,

581
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 2: that county didn't have a crime Stoppers program until it

582
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 2: was started for this by the DA, and the check

583
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: was sent to him by an investigator for the DA's office.

584
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 3: Lovely stuff.

585
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 2: Not bribery, though not bribery.

586
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 3: No, not picking cases that you think can win, even

587
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 3: if it might not be the right guy. And certainly

588
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 3: no Shenanigan's or bribery with regard to acquiring potentially suspect

589
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 3: testimony or evidence.

590
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 2: Not at all, Absolutely not no, that would be that

591
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 2: would be unethical.

592
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 3: There's no gambling in this casino. That's yeah, that's crazy.

593
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 2: And this casine. No, so there's much more that reeks

594
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 2: about this case. But things really got nasty once doctor

595
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: Grigson entered the arena. Quote during sentencing, the prosecutor called

596
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: doctor James P. Griggson, the psychiatrist nicknamed doctor Death. But

597
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:00,239
Speaker 2: Grigson never examined Stoker. He testified Stoker was associopath who

598
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 2: would absolutely be violent. Again, with Stoker's life in the balance,

599
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: Felty put on only one witness a sentencing, Stoker's mother.

600
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 2: She testified briefly about the most superficial aspects of the

601
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 2: Stoker family. Felty, who works as a supervisor at home Depot,

602
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 2: defended his work. When we went to trial, we were

603
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot better prepared than the DA's office.

604
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 2: Felty set, so not a lot of winter. He's not

605
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 2: necessarily wrong because the DA's just lying and bribing somebody.

606
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 2: But also, when your lawyer gets disbarred for felonies and

607
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 2: winds up working at a home depot, that's not a

608
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 2: great sign in terms of the quality of representation you received.

609
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, the look at my lawyer, dog.

610
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: My lawyer, dog, I'm getting executed. Yeah, unfortunately, that is

611
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 2: just such beautiful shade on that article too, just noted

612
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 2: that he's working at home depot now. Almost kind of

613
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 2: unnecessary except for the point they're trying to make here,

614
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 2: But it's good color. It is good color now. Unfortunately,

615
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 2: unlike Adams's story, this story does not end with an

616
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 2: eleventh hour stay of execution and eventual exoneration. Stoker was

617
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 2: executed in nineteen ninety seven during George W. Bush's governorship,

618
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 2: when he pushed Texas to execute inmates at a rate

619
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 2: not before seen in modern times. Even within the ranks

620
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 2: of Bush appointees, though the Stoker case was looked at

621
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 2: as egregious. Thomas Moss had been appointed by the governor

622
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 2: to the Board of Partons and Paroles, and he voted

623
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: to give Stoker clemency. That he only did this twice

624
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 2: in his entire career, and once was with Stoker, because

625
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 2: he was like, yeah, this is just too messy a case.

626
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 2: This is you know, a lot kept coming out. The

627
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 2: local police chief eventually testified that no, the Crime Stoppers

628
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 2: Group wasn't real. You know, we founded it expressly for

629
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 2: this purpose. Basically, a DA's investigator made the payment, and

630
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 2: as this stuff came to light, eventually like the local

631
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: sheriff testified that there was no direct tie between Stoker

632
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 2: and the crime he'd been executed for committing. Now, had

633
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 2: Stoker been put under life imprisonment, had his execution basically commuted, right,

634
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 2: but given life imprisonment at this point, he likely would

635
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 2: have lived long enough to get retried, right. That probably

636
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: would have happened eventually, because there was just enough, you know,

637
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,479
Speaker 2: good evidence on his side of things for this. But

638
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 2: doctor at Grigson helped to ensure that this could not happen,

639
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 2: right by testifying he would definitely kill again. One juror

640
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 2: in the Stoker case later said, you couldn't help but

641
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 2: listen to what he was saying. He's a doctor. He

642
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 2: had a lot of influence on what we decided. And

643
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 2: several jurors later said, yeah, if I'd known these other

644
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 2: facts about the case, I wouldn't have voted for the

645
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 2: death penalty. So, yeah, this guy gets executed, And a

646
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 2: big part of why is that Grigson said he needed

647
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 2: to be and we can say fairly confidently that this

648
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 2: was an innocent man who doctor Griggson helped put to death. Here, Yeah,

649
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 2: throughout the Bush years and the bloodiest period for Texas's

650
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 2: death Row. Doctor Grigson was prolific and influential even in

651
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: cases where he personally did not testify. That death Penalty

652
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 2: Information center Piece discusses another psychiatrist, doctor Eclake Griffith, who

653
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 2: often testified along the same lines as doctor Griggson and

654
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 2: had clearly built his profession in the other man's image.

655
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,320
Speaker 2: Like Grigson, he used a one to ten scale for

656
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 2: judging defendants and regularly went above ten in order to

657
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 2: make his point, as he did when reviewing the nineteen

658
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 2: eighty four case of David Wayne Spence. Now, Spence again

659
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 2: was not tied to the triple homicide that he was

660
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 2: accused of committing via any evidence, just the testimony of

661
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 2: seven informants, all of whom had good reason to lie

662
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: about what had happened. Several of these people later confessed

663
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 2: to being fed information by investigators and being shown crime

664
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 2: scene and autopsy photos, as well as being bribed behind

665
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 2: bars with privileges and leniency. Like Stoker, Spence was executed

666
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty seven or nineteen ninety seven. The issues

667
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:48,879
Speaker 2: we've discussed in all these cases have been proven via

668
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 2: subsequent study to be rampant within Texas's criminal justice system,

669
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 2: particularly death row cases. An investigation of the one hundred

670
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 2: and thirty one executions during George W. Bush's time as

671
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 2: governor showed that in at least twenty nine cases, the

672
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 2: prosecution had presented testimony from a psychiatrist, often doctor Griggson,

673
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 2: that the defendant would commit future violence. In most of

674
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 2: these cases, the psychiatrists had not seen or examined the

675
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 2: defendant beyond the issues most relevant to Grigson. In forty

676
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,280
Speaker 2: three of those cases, the defendant was represented at trial

677
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,399
Speaker 2: by an attorney who was later suspended. Again, I want

678
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 2: to really go into that one hundred and thirty one executions.

679
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 2: Of those, in forty three of the cases, the defendants

680
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 2: defense attorney was later disbarred or suspended.

681
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 5: That's insane, Yeah, like so like he not only destroyed

682
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 5: people's lives and got them killed, but then he also

683
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 5: destroyed defense attorneys in the process.

684
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 2: I think the point that this is more a broader

685
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 2: point about the fact that most of the people on

686
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 2: death row did not benefit from a vigorous defense, like

687
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 2: you were entitled constitutionally one, and they clearly didn't get

688
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 2: it right.

689
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 3: I'm completely misunderstood. Yeah, No, that makes a lot more

690
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 3: sense that just you. You're dealing with a very poor

691
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 3: level of representation where it is clearly falling underneath the

692
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 3: bar time and time again, and at a very large scale. Okay.

693
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 2: And part of the problem is that because in so

694
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 2: many of these cases, at least twenty nine, doctor Grigson

695
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 2: and others are testifying, you don't have these kind of

696
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,479
Speaker 2: checked out defense attorneys don't have the wherewithal and often

697
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 2: don't have the funding to properly counter the expert that

698
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: the prosecution has brought up.

699
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:26,919
Speaker 4: Right.

700
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 2: They also found this is getting into another set of pseudoscience,

701
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 2: but I think it's worth bringing up. In twenty three

702
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,479
Speaker 2: or more, at least of these one hundred and thirty

703
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 2: one cases, the prosecution's case relied on the visual comparison

704
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 2: of hairs, which is not real science and has now

705
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 2: largely been banned as being wildly ineffective. One study of

706
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 2: sixty two convictions that were later cleared by DNA evidence

707
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 2: found that in at least eighteen of those cases, prosecutors

708
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 2: had used hair analysis to get the initial conviction.

709
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 3: Wow.

710
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 2: And this brings me to an important point, which is

711
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,919
Speaker 2: that while doctor Grigson is the most colorful of these

712
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 2: experts testify in favor of the death penalty during this

713
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 2: golden age of executing people in Texas, he was not

714
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 2: the only or the most obviously fraudulent one. In their

715
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,720
Speaker 2: review of the role fake forensic experts play in these cases,

716
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 2: the Death Penalty Information Center also cited the case of

717
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 2: Charles Lynch. Now, this is an expert hair analysis guy right,

718
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 2: and his expert hair comparison analysis was used in the

719
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: cases of two people who were executed under Bush. So

720
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 2: he helps with two executions as a result of matching

721
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 2: hairs and this is not a DNA match. I really

722
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 2: need to emphasize that he's looking at hairs and saying, oh, yeah,

723
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 2: these hairs come from that guy right, Like that's what

724
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 2: he's literally doing.

725
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 3: So I just have to bring up this one bit

726
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 3: that seems somewhat relevant to how much of a shit

727
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 3: show Texas court systems in criminal law has been for

728
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,279
Speaker 3: some time. It wasn't until the past like five years

729
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 3: or so. I'm trying to remember the exact year, but

730
00:37:54,560 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 3: very recently that hypnosis as a tool for testimony and

731
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 3: in criminal investigations was banned.

732
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 2: So many people got convicted by on the with that

733
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 2: as a factory.

734
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yeah, someone allowed hypnotists to come in and

735
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 3: then do hypnosis as if it were a legitimate, repeatable

736
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 3: scientific approach for acquiring legitimate testimony or uncovering forgotten memories

737
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 3: or whatever that is being used for. So yeah, I

738
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 3: mean that was recently. That was in this century, not

739
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 3: last century.

740
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 4: Now.

741
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 2: It took a shocking amount of time for us to

742
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 2: be like, no, we shouldn't be doing this.

743
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 4: I mean, when did the FBI stop doing that fucking

744
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 4: gene pattern thing. We're like they this made yeahb.

745
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 2: As we've talked about it, forensic science is rife with bastardy.

746
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 2: But I want to talk about Charles Lynch a little more.

747
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 2: I want to read another quote from that Deaf Culty

748
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:56,399
Speaker 2: Information centerpiece because it's so funny. Again, this guy's hair

749
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 2: analysis has used in the case to execute two people.

750
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 2: The Dallas News reported that Lynch had been committed in

751
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four to a psychiatric war due to concerns

752
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 2: about his depression and drinking. Lynch was considered it danger

753
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 2: to himself and others, but he was temporarily released to

754
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 2: provide incriminating hair analysis testimony against Kenneth Myth Duff, who

755
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 2: was executed in nineteen ninety eight. The prosecution did not

756
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 2: disclose Lynch's status to the defense, even though Lynch's residence

757
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 2: in the psychiatric ward might have been used to challenge

758
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 2: his credibility.

759
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 3: It's incredible.

760
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,360
Speaker 2: I don't want to people who you know, wind up

761
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: in a psychiatric war. That doesn't mean they can never

762
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 2: do a serious job again, but if you probably shouldn't

763
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 2: be releasing someone from a ward to testify and then

764
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: putting them back in because they're a danger to themselves

765
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 2: and others. But they can definitely testify. This guy needs

766
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: to fry, right, that seems like a stretch.

767
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 3: Listen, you gotta do what you gotta do.

768
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 2: You gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah, get this

769
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 2: guy out. We can't let this guy have his own

770
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 2: like fucking butter knife, but let him. Let him tell

771
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 2: this jury that a man needs to die, Like holy shit, insane.

772
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 2: That's that's like just coming across that story, Like, Wow,

773
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 2: it really was the wild ass West for a while. Huh,

774
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 2: you could get away with anything.

775
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 3: Kind of still can't, kinda still can yeah.

776
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 2: Now. Another of doctor Grigson's colleagues was doctor Ralph Erdman,

777
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,919
Speaker 2: who testified in numerous capital cases until nineteen ninety four,

778
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 2: when he pled no contest to seven felonies over a

779
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 2: falsifying evidence and fucking up autopsies. He had claimed to

780
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 2: have examined organs in deecedents that had been removed in

781
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: surgery before their deaths. For one thing, right, Like in

782
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 2: his autopsy reports, he's like writing about the appendixes of

783
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 2: people who had no appendix when they died, despite claiming

784
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 2: to be a scientist providing his unbiased opinion no matter

785
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 2: who hired him. A special investigator appointed to examine Erdman

786
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,760
Speaker 2: found if the prosecution theory was that death was caused

787
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: by a martian death ray, then that was what doctor

788
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: Erdman reported, right, Yeah, which is you're talking here about

789
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,600
Speaker 2: the same thing we're seeing with doctor Grigson. Right, this

790
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 2: is a guy who's not doing science. He's coming in

791
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:03,879
Speaker 2: and he's saying, like, yeah, based on my expertise, whatever

792
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 2: the prosecution says is true. Right now, because Erdman is

793
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: working in autopsies, he gets caught, but there's no kind

794
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 2: of there's nothing to catch doctor Gregson on really, right,

795
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,919
Speaker 2: because psychiatry is largely like yeah, is this psychiatrist think

796
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 2: this person has something. You know, there's more rigor built

797
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 2: that's supposed to be built into the system. But when

798
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 2: it comes to the way these court cases are working,

799
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 2: it's really just this guy saying, yeah, I'm a doctor,

800
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,120
Speaker 2: and I say this is what's going on.

801
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,800
Speaker 3: It's kind of like the medical equivalent of a mob lawyer.

802
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 3: They're playing this role that is pre defined for them,

803
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 3: and they know what they're supposed to do, and they

804
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 3: just go along with whatever the request is, whatever the

805
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 3: need is, they'll say, yeah, sure, go for it. I mean,

806
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 3: in the case of Gregson, it seems like, yeah, he

807
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 3: may have claimed there were cases which he was not

808
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 3: eager to do so, but yeah, I don't know. Maybe

809
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 3: he just knew how to pick a winner.

810
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:57,879
Speaker 2: Maybe he knew how to pick a winner. And also

811
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 2: when he says a third of the case I didn't

812
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 2: take because I didn't think you know the person, we

813
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: don't know that. There's no evidence of that. Sure, we're

814
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,439
Speaker 2: just trusting this guy, you know, right, and I don't

815
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: trust him. Now. Doctor Erdman did have to surrender his

816
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:15,719
Speaker 2: medical license, you know, doctor Gregson never did. And we're

817
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 2: going to talk about what else happens with doctor Gregson.

818
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 2: But first let's have our second ad break. Okay, we're back.

819
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 2: So over the years, when he was pushed on this,

820
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: he would repeatedly say, hey, I didn't always testify for

821
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 2: the prosecution, right, and sometimes I just wouldn't take cases.

822
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 2: And we can't back up the ladder, but we can

823
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 2: back up the amount of times that doctor Gregson testified

824
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 2: for the prosecution versus the defense. During his career. He

825
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:51,839
Speaker 2: testified in one hundred and sixty six capital like death

826
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:55,240
Speaker 2: penalty cases in Texas, and in nine of those times

827
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 2: he testified for the defense. So I think it's fair

828
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 2: to say, basically all a prosecution witness. And by the way,

829
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 2: we'll talk later about what some of those other nine

830
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 2: times would have been, because it's not like he just

831
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 2: really thought the defense was right in that situation. So

832
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 2: we'll get to that. During the busiest period of his

833
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: career in the nineteen eighties, he was making one hundred

834
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,439
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars a year with this business, which

835
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 2: was equivalent to someone making somewhere between five and six

836
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars a year today, right like he is

837
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 2: making fucking bank in the eighties. That nineteen ninety Vanity

838
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 2: fair piece finds him it close to the peak of

839
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 2: his career and his sense of impunity over what he

840
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 2: was allowed to do. In thousands of words of recorded conversations,

841
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 2: he refers to his colleagues in psychiatry as liberal fools

842
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 2: and seems to take a great degree of joy and

843
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 2: like righteous pleasure in getting people executed. His stated goal

844
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 2: to the journalist in that article is that he wants

845
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 2: to execute like three people in three days, basically something

846
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 2: like that, and break his personal record for most death

847
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,839
Speaker 2: penalty convictions scored in a short window of time. One

848
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 2: of these cases was the case of galand Bradford, who

849
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 2: definitely shot and killed a security guard during a robbery.

850
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,479
Speaker 2: There is recorded on video. There's no doubt about whether

851
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 2: or not he committed a murder, But once he wasn't

852
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 2: in bars, the jail tested his IQ and found it

853
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 2: to be sixty eight. The defense psychologists who examined him

854
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,240
Speaker 2: said it was seventy five. Either of those, and again

855
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 2: I have my issues with IQ, but this isn't the

856
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 2: place to really bring it up. The point is that,

857
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 2: based on the way the system works, either of those

858
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 2: findings could be low enough to count his diminished capacity

859
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 2: and spare him the death penalty. Right, Both of those

860
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 2: are potentially low enough to do.

861
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 3: So for sure.

862
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 2: So during a dinner after winning his first two cases,

863
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 2: but before the Bradford case, this is like the night

864
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 2: before he testifies in this guy's case, doctor Griggson, while

865
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 2: hanging out with Rosenbaum, that journalist gets hammered. He has

866
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: like four Martinez in an hour, like celebrating that he's

867
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 2: gotten two people killed. And then he winds up hungover

868
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 2: in court the next morning. And he kind of fucks

869
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,280
Speaker 2: up his testimony in the Bradford case a little because

870
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,439
Speaker 2: he doesn't just say Bradford is associopath, but he also

871
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 2: insists he's of normal intelligence. I can tell he wasn't

872
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 2: being asked this, but he's like, I know he's of

873
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 2: normal intelligence, and I'll guarantee you he's killed more than once.

874
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 2: We just didn't catch him, right, And then he tells

875
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 2: the jury based on nothing, literally nothing, Galen Bradford is

876
00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 2: one of the most dangerous killers I've ever examined or

877
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 2: come into contact with. Right, And again, there's not any

878
00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:23,919
Speaker 2: evidence of this, and he certainly did not do anything

879
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 2: that would allow him to determine whether or not this

880
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 2: guy was competent to stand trial. He just does not

881
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:31,879
Speaker 2: do that work. And in this one instance, the defense

882
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 2: attorney calls him out on it and questions like, well,

883
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 2: based on what aspects of doctor Bradford's personality, since you

884
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 2: have not talked to him, have you concluded all of

885
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 2: this that he killed someone before and is hiding it?

886
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 2: And doctor Grigson ultimately the only specific thing he cites

887
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 2: is that the guy is a weird haircut with a

888
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 2: lightning bolt in it, and the defense attorney, I know,

889
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 2: first off, holy shit. The defense attorney, Paul Brockley responds,

890
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 2: pretty good reason to kill him, right, And there's like

891
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 2: this silence in the courtroom. I go to quote from

892
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: that Vanity of Therapies. The doctor himself was speechless for

893
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 2: a moment something I'd never seen before. Then lamely plaintively

894
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 2: he volunteered, well, I'd never seen a haircut like that,

895
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 2: great medical science, did you say?

896
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 3: The defense attorney's name was Paul Brocli.

897
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, B R A U C H L E.

898
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 3: Okay.

899
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 2: I don't know how else it would be pronounced.

900
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 3: Okay if I had a different spelling in my head.

901
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 3: It's still really funny rocle Maybe.

902
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm calling it broccoli. Yeah, I'm going

903
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 2: with Brocley.

904
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 3: Yeah for the justification to be this guy looks fucking weird.

905
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 3: I don't like it.

906
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:43,439
Speaker 2: Wait his fucked up hair. Yeah, he's definitely criminally insane.

907
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 4: Wow.

908
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now the bad news is again this guy still

909
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 2: gets convicted. James Grigson in no way pays for his crimes.

910
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 2: The best I can say is that his career does

911
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 2: take a hit in the late nineteen nineties, in part

912
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 2: as the result of the fallout from the Adams case

913
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 2: and in part out of the fact that he has

914
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 2: now been drummed out of every professional organization in his field. Now,

915
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 2: another reason why he stops testifying as often is that

916
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 2: some of the savvier Texas defense attorneys develop a strategy

917
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,280
Speaker 2: for mitigating the harm he could cause. Per an article

918
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 2: by Mike Tolson for the Houston Chronicle, defense attorneys fearful

919
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 2: of the effect of Grigson's testimony began to call him

920
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 2: and discuss their clients, with the result being that Grigson

921
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,760
Speaker 2: could not be hired by the state in those cases.

922
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 2: I love this shit, Like, well, look if this guy's

923
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 2: talked about this case before being brought on. He can't testify,

924
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 2: so let's just call him and talk about it, and

925
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 2: then we know he's fucked. It's very funny stuff. Grigson

926
00:47:41,440 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 2: eventually like figures out what's going on, and he gets

927
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 2: angry because this is costing him money. So several defense

928
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 2: attorneys agree to, like, hey, what if we just pay

929
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 2: you as a consultant as soon as we think we

930
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 2: have a case you might get involved in, and that

931
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 2: way you don't have to do anything. You're not going

932
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:57,799
Speaker 2: to actually testify, You're not going to do any work

933
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 2: for the defense usually, but once we're hiring you, the

934
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 2: prosecution can't hire you, right, And he's okay with this

935
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: because he's still getting paid.

936
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: Wow.

937
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 2: This snowballs into prosecutors adopting a similar tactic out of

938
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:12,280
Speaker 2: fear that he might show up and help the defense.

939
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 2: So he starts getting hired to not work as long

940
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 2: as like oneside can lock him down first. Like that.

941
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 2: He spends kind of the latter chunk of his career

942
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,280
Speaker 2: doing this, like getting paid to not do his job,

943
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 2: and you know, eventually this practice dies out during the

944
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 2: two thousands, particularly the practice of bringing in forensic psychiatrists

945
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 2: like doctor Grigson declines in popularity the kind of late

946
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 2: nineties early two thousands, and there's there's several reasons for this,

947
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:42,319
Speaker 2: but a big one is the constant professional animus that

948
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 2: Griggson and others who followed his example like started to

949
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 2: get right, Like, this has just kind of been poisoned

950
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 2: as a field. Now. Another reason that's less optimistic for

951
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 2: why this dies out is that prosecutors realize, we don't

952
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 2: need to spend money on these guys. Texas jury's love

953
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 2: killing people, right, Like, you don't actually need this guy

954
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 2: to testify to convince them that someone needs to die, right,

955
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,439
Speaker 2: you know, like you could usually just kind of talk

956
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 2: him into it, which is less optimistic. Okay, yeah, okay,

957
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 2: that's less fun. So in two thousand and three, doctor

958
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 2: James Grigson, a lifetime chainsmoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer.

959
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 2: In one of his last interviews, he told a reporter

960
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 2: he had zero regrets about his life or career. He

961
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 2: insisted he had just been there as a medical professional,

962
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 2: separating the truly ill from the fakers who needed to

963
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 2: be locked up and executed. By the end of his career,

964
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 2: he was just working in civil law. But after his

965
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 2: death in two thousand and four, a number of experts

966
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 2: came out to state that his impact on the legal

967
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 2: system had been far reaching. Cynthia Or, president of the

968
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 2: Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association, told The Chronicle he had

969
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 2: a tremendous impact on Texas death penalty litigation. He really

970
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:51,439
Speaker 2: provided ammunition to the state to try and establish one's

971
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,359
Speaker 2: future dangerousness when ordinarily it would have been pretty tough

972
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 2: to do. He was willing to go further than anyone else.

973
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, so horrible. Yeah, and he ended up just getting

974
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 3: to chill, just getting to chill, yep, and get paid

975
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 3: to not work, get.

976
00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 2: Paid to not work. Nice retirement.

977
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 3: I hate to say it, kind of a dude's rock moment,

978
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 3: but yeah.

979
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 2: It is the dream, right.

980
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 4: You got to die of lung cancer, so that's you know.

981
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 2: He does die of lung cancer on June third of

982
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, after what his family described as

983
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 2: seventy two great years. Yeah. Alas, Now, the nature of

984
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 2: the death penalty and the time involved clearing such cases

985
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 2: meant that a lot of people that he had helped

986
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:36,720
Speaker 2: to put there remained on death row after his death.

987
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 2: And in fact, the most recent case I can find

988
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 2: of someone he put there like having, you know, basically

989
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 2: widening up in the news is in twenty sixteen. Jeffrey Wood,

990
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 2: aged forty three, was like scheduled. He was supposed to

991
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 2: be executed in twenty sixteen over a nineteen ninety six

992
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 2: robbery in which a man was murdered. Grigson had testified

993
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 2: against him and stated that would would be violent in

994
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 2: the future, and he obviously did not examine Wood. Now,

995
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 2: Wood had never actually murdered in the first place. He

996
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 2: didn't fire the gun in the nineteen sixty ninety six

997
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 2: robbery that he was being executed for, right, but obviously accomplices.

998
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 2: He was like driving the car, can be convicted of murder,

999
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 2: but still like the fact that he's saying he'll definitely

1000
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 2: kill again. Well, he never killed him the first place, right,

1001
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 2: Like not really, so Wood was supposed to be executed

1002
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen. The actual gunman was executed in two

1003
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 2: thousand and two, but Wood's case, like his execution was

1004
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 2: stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because of

1005
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 2: doctor Grigson, right because he had been part of getting

1006
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 2: the guy on death row. And the fact that he

1007
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 2: has been so burned, like convinced the Texas Court of

1008
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 2: Criminal Appeals in twenty sixteen like, yeah, we probably shouldn't

1009
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 2: execute this guy, right, So the court ruled seven to

1010
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 2: two to stay the execution, and uh, yeah that just

1011
00:51:56,920 --> 00:52:01,319
Speaker 2: you know, this guy's impact outlasted him. But it is

1012
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 2: kind of at least nice that now he is So

1013
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 2: he's been so discredited that in twenty sixteen a court

1014
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 2: voted seven to two that like, yeah, we can't execute

1015
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 2: a guy based on this dude's testimony. So at least

1016
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:19,879
Speaker 2: he's completely discredited and dead and dead, yeah, and dead.

1017
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 3: He innovated in the field road the wave and died

1018
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 3: before it became fully discredited. Sorry to say, but yeah,

1019
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 3: he's at least dead.

1020
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:33,799
Speaker 2: He's at least dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1021
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,279
Speaker 3: I'm just glad to hear that we no longer have

1022
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:40,359
Speaker 3: legal hypnosis as a form of testimony and that, yeah,

1023
00:52:40,560 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 3: quacks like this guy are not being taken seriously anymore.

1024
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 3: So I guess there's a silver lining.

1025
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:49,040
Speaker 2: Like you said, yep, things are good forever now. We

1026
00:52:49,200 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 2: figured out how to not do bad stuff with executing people,

1027
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 2: and there's no more longer any problems with death row

1028
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 2: or capital crimes at all.

1029
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 3: It's all don't need to worry about it, kittens, it's

1030
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 3: all good.

1031
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 2: Don't look into it. Don't look into it. Yeah, you

1032
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 2: anything to plug at the end here, Steven.

1033
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 3: You know, just follow me on Blue Sky or I

1034
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,399
Speaker 3: don't post on Twitter anymore, So don't don't go there.

1035
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 2: That's good. Yeah, bad to post on Twitter.

1036
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 3: I'm writing for a few different outlets. The Barbed Wire

1037
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 3: Texas Observer just had something in MESNBC and hell yeah,

1038
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 3: I post all that on Blue Sky. It's probably the

1039
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 3: easiest way to follow my shit. So go there, or

1040
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 3: go read the literary magazine. I published Protein Magazine. It's

1041
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 3: got some good shit in it.

1042
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,280
Speaker 2: Yes, Protean has a lot of good shit in it. Stephen.

1043
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 2: You can also find and it could happen here from

1044
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,359
Speaker 2: time to time talking about Texas, which continues to be

1045
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 2: one of the most important subjects in the country. Why

1046
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 2: is Texas the way it is? What's going on there? Yeah,

1047
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 2: like it's it's been. It was happening there before, it's

1048
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 2: happening wherever you are, odds.

1049
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:57,720
Speaker 3: Are, it's been happening. It's been happy to be happening.

1050
00:53:57,800 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 3: Still and yeah, if we can figure out what the

1051
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 3: folk going on here, I feel like we could figure

1052
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 3: out a lot. Yeah, no, working on it.

1053
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 2: Well, this has been Behind the Bastards and you have

1054
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 2: been listening to a podcast. Shame on you.

1055
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media.

1056
00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 4: For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1057
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 4: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1058
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1059
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 4: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1060
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 4: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

1061
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 4: at Behind the Bastards