WEBVTT - #127 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Huwe Burton 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer, 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.559 and I'm Steve Drisen. Today we'll tell you the story 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.960 of Hugh Burton. In nineteen eighty nine, when he was 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.840 sixteen years old, he was charged with the murder of 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.680 his own mother at his family's home in the Bronx. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.400 Forget blind justice. This is a classic case of tunnel 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.520 vision because even as Hugh was bulldozed into a false confession, 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.760 the real killer was living in the apartment just one 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.520 floor below. 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.080 When I was asked to look into Hugh Burton's case 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.680 by the Innocence Project, Laura and I were just beginning 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.800 the process of setting up the Center on Wrongful Convictions 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.400 of Youth, which was a project focus on false confessions 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:57.360 taken from young people. 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.000 Children and teenagers are between two and three times more 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.600 likely than adults to falsely confess, and we were seeing 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:10.480 a particularly disturbing pattern multiple cases of young people falsely 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.399 confessing to the murders of their own family members. When 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.480 Hugh's story came to us, it fit that pattern. 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.000 To a t. What is it that could make someone 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.399 confessed to the most horrific crime imaginable? The murderer of 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:27.399 a parent or a loved one. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.759 Hugh's story begins in the Wakefield neighborhood of the Bronx, 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.800 a working class section of New York City that's home 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.840 to a thriving Jamaican American community. In nineteen eighty nine, 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.160 when our story starts, Hugh was sixteen years old and 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.160 in tenth grade. He was the only child of two 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:51.160 Jamaican immigrants, Kaziah and Raphael Burton. Kaziah was a nurse 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.760 and Raphael was a successful building contractor, so successful that 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.880 the family was able to buy real estate, a red 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.400 brick apartment building three stories tall on Eastchester Road. The 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.160 Burtons moved into the second floor and rented out the 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.160 rest of the building. Hugh was a good kid, and 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.840 his parents were proud of him at sixteen. He was smart, 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.480 soft spoken, good looking. He did love the emerging rap scene, 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:20.120 and he'd cause his old school parents no end of 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.280 worry by hitting the dance clubs till closing time. But 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:30.560 the family was close, loving and prosperous. An American success story. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.880 It's January third, nineteen eighty nine. Rafael Burton was out 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.560 of the country. He'd gone back to Jamaica to check 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.239 on relatives who'd been hit by Hurricane Gilbert a few 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.760 months earlier. It's a Tuesday, and Hugh gets home from 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.840 school at two thirty. No sign of his mom, but 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.040 he does notice that the TV's on his mom's car 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.919 is gone and her pocket book had been dumped out 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.320 on the living room floor, but Hugh doesn't think too 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.160 much about it. He had plans to hook up with 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.560 a girl after school, and off you went to her place. 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.040 At five point thirty, Hugh comes back home and makes 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.200 a horrible discovery. His mom, Kaziah, is lying on the 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.919 bed in the master bedroom. A telephone chord is wrapped 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.760 around her wrist and her underwear has been pulled down. 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.680 A serrated steak knife is lying next to her on 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.960 the bed, and there's a gaping knife wound in her neck. 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.400 Hugh called nine to one one in a panic and 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.960 tells them, I think my mother's been murdered. The police 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.560 arrive and pronounce Kaziah Burton dead. They soon conclude, though, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.000 that she hasn't actually been raped. Instead, her underwear has 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.920 been pulled down to make it look like a rape. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.440 The real motive seems to be robbery. The attacker made 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.480 off with her brand new nineteen eighty eight Honda Accord. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.880 When the police came to the crime scene, they took 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.960 notice of a couple of things. One of the things 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.080 was that Hugh was sitting outside and to then he 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:05.800 appeared too calm, too cool, to collected. They had heard 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.040 his frantic nine one one call, and his lack of 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.480 emotion or apparent lack of emotion at the crime scene 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.000 was a red flag to them. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:15.320 I mean, this is a kid who had just come 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.359 across his mother's stabbed body, and he is panicking on 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.520 that nine one one call. But by the time the 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:25.680 police arrived, shock had set in, which they read as remorselessness. 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.360 So as the police are at the scene, they decide 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.720 to question Hugh about his mom's murder, and that evening 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.119 he agreed to go down with police to the forty 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.080 seventh Precinct for questioning. Even while his dad, who was 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.880 still in Jamaica, was catching the first flight back to 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:41.320 New York. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.560 He had nothing to worry about. This is what he 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.520 wanted to do. He wanted to find out who had 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.320 killed his mother, and so he went down there to 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.560 do anything he could do to help the police find 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:53.960 and catch her killer. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.960 The police questioned Hugh, and he gives them every detail 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.560 of his activities, from putting in a full day at 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.200 school to meeting up with a girl in the afternoon, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.880 right up until he discovered his mother's body in the evening. 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.720 After they finished questioning, he spends the night at his 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.200 godmother's house because his dad hasn't gotten back to. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:16.880 New York yet. 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.040 The next day, Hugh returns to the precinct and the 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:27.159 same three detectives question him again for hours. Now, we 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.559 don't have a videotape of the whole interrogation. Police only 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.000 turned on the cameras at the end to capture Hugh's 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.640 final confession, but Hugh says he remembers what happened in 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.640 that room. Hugh says he confessed because of a threat. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.359 Remember the girl whose house he'd gone to that afternoon, Well, 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.359 she was fourteen, and under New York law, Hugh was 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:54.160 potentially liable for statutory rape, even though they were consenting classmates. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.239 The police told him he'd go down for murder plus 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:03.279 statutory rape and be sent to Write Island unless he confessed. Now, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.159 Hugh didn't know exactly what statutory rape was, but he 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.920 knew the word rape was really bad, and he knew 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.680 well enough what Riker's Island was, a notorious New York 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.440 jail with a reputation for horrific violence. On the other hand, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.080 the police told him that if he confessed, he would 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.880 go to family Court where his dad could pick him 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.320 up in a few days. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:26.720 Which is a blatant lie. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.160 It's total bullshit. The police also tell Hugh that they 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.560 talked to his teacher and her records didn't confirm that 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.240 he was at school during first period. How is that possible? 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.280 He knew he had been there all day, but it 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.520 was starting to be clear the detectives didn't believe him. 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.400 They were developing their own theory of Keziah's murder with 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:49.880 Hugh as the killer. 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.240 And of course the police said to Hugh, it was 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.120 an accident and everybody will see that it was an accident. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.960 So your options are murder and statutory rape and Riker's 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:08.200 Island or admitting to an accident, being sent to family court, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.080 and being picked up by your father within a few 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.600 hours of your first court appearance. 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.440 And over time, Hugh realized the only way for him 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.800 to get out of that room was to cop to 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:24.760 these charges. So by the early morning of January fifth, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.040 Hugh Burton found himself signing a confession to the murder 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:29.960 of his own mother. 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.040 And let me tell you, this confession is weird. 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.080 It's written in stilted formal language, and the story it 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:42.360 tells is all about crack cocaine. I, Hugh Burton, know 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.160 an individual by the name of Bugs, who I owed 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.120 two hundred dollars to for some crack I received from 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.600 him to sell. Instead of selling the crack, I kept 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.880 it for my own personal use. The confession goes on 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.800 to describe Hugh getting high on crack the night before 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.360 his mom died. He comes home, gets into a quote 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.280 stat with his mother, and wakes up the next morning 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:06.440 still high. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.840 This time stimulated on drugs. 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.760 Who uses the word stimulated? How you say I was high? 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.600 I walked to the kitchen, the confession continued. 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.080 I got a kitchen steak knife and I came back 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:20.680 into the room. 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.080 She then asked, are you going to kill me? 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.840 And I said and if I was, she went to 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.040 smack me and I moved. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.480 That's when I accidentally stabbed my mother in her neck. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.680 It wasn't planet purposely, you know, I just wanted to 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.840 scare a little bit, see what she was going to do. 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.720 According to the confession, Hugh washes off the knife, leaves 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.720 it on the bed, and gives his mom's car to bugs. 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.239 This was no accident because iad Burton had been stabbed 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:55.160 twice in the neck, very deep, violent stab wounds. And 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.040 there were other parts of this confession that made no 0:08:58.200 --> 0:08:59.599 sense whatsoever. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.200 Got a call from person to old money too? And 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.040 who's that personal? Bugs? Do you know his name? 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:06.320 No? 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:06.760 I don't. 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.800 You couldn't tell the police anything about books, who he was, 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.800 where he lived, or even what he did with the car. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.240 Any telephone number that would have been help, I don't know. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.920 Back in the day, the Jamaican immigrant community didn't use 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.000 the banks a lot and used parents were no different. 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:31.760 They kept little pockets of cash and secret places throughout 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.640 their home, places that you, as a kid, knew about. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:38.120 It was two hundred. 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.760 Who gives a ten thousand dollars car to somebody to 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.559 settle a two hundred dollars debt? If you needed two 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.920 hundred dollars, he could have found that money in a jiffy. 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.760 So none of this is making any sense. You also 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.440 was not known to use crack, much less run up 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.120 debts with dealers or behave in a sort of depraved 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.719 way that would lead a crack addict to attack his 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:03.880 own mom. He wasn't Hugh Burton, But it's the story 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:04.480 of the. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.839 Confession school and I left. 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.720 So where did this whole crack theme come from? It 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.720 came from the late nineteen eighties culture of fear about 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:16.599 the New York City drug epidemic. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.880 Between nineteen eighty six and nineteen ninety three. That time frame, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:27.160 New York was averaging two thousand murders a year, and 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:32.000 police were attributing a significant percentage of them to crack cocaine. 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.200 And think about it from the police perspective. Here you 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:39.680 have a kid who's got no criminal background by all accounts. 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:43.080 He has a deep and abiding love for both of 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.559 his parents. He's a respectful kid when it comes to 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.520 his parents, and all of a sudden, he snaps and 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.960 stabs his mother to death over two hundred dollars that 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.199 she would have gladly given him. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.040 The crack theme came from the police, not from Hugh. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.640 And there it is in the very first lines of 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.560 this confession that word once this story is about a 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.800 kid using cracker, selling crack. Nothing else matters. 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:18.560 Well, that's are off. Sure enough, Hugh is arrested and 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.040 the media headlines go for maximum shock value. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.800 Crack craze teen stabs mom to death. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.240 Hugh is charged with second degree murder, and he's sent 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.600 not to family court but to the place he feared most, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.200 Riker's Island. Those promises the cops made to him were 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:37.199 nothing but lies. 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:41.280 From the minute that Hugh was charged with his offense, 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.160 his father knew that Hugh was innocent. He just knew it. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.360 He knew his son, his whole family stood by him, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.560 but it was too late. He'd confessed. From the depths 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:56.200 of his jail cell, Hugh writes a eulogy for his 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.120 mom and mails it to a relative so it can 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.439 be read out loud at her funeral, and then he 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.760 grieves alone. 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.480 Let's stop for one second, Laura. You know when the 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.920 police were questioning Hugh, they did what all police officers do. 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.760 Do you know anybody, Hugh who might have wanted to 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.400 hurt your mother? Can you give us any leads as 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.160 to who might have done this? And Hugh came up blank. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.199 He said, I don't know anybody who would want to 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.560 hurt my mother. But I think what you need to 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.240 be focused on is what happened to my mother's car. 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.520 The person who had taken my mother's car, that's the 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.640 person who probably killed her. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.440 Fast forward to January eleventh, six days after Hugh confessed 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.360 and was arrested. On the evening of January eleventh, police 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.920 in Mount Vernon, New York, pull over a car for 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:05.319 running a stop sign. It turns out that car was 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:10.840 Kaziah Burton's missing nineteen eighty eight gray Honda Accord. So 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:15.400 who was the driver. Emmanuel Green was the first floor 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.760 tenant in the Burtons apartment building. He just moved in 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.840 there with his girlfriend Stacy. Emmanuel was twenty two years old, 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.800 five foot eleven, two hundred and thirty pounds. 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.480 You should see the body on this guy. 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.880 He was cutting totally ripped. This guy could bench you, Steve. 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.320 And he wasn't exactly a choir boy. He'd done time 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.720 for a knife point rape and attempted robbery. In fact, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.840 Emmanuel Green was on parole at the time that Kaziah 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.280 was murdered, and only a month before he'd been arrested 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.680 for assaulting his previous landlord, Hugh. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:54.199 Burton, only knew Immanuel Green in passing. Their lives were 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.320 in completely different places. Emmanuel Green was a bouncer at 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.959 a club who worked the late shift and slept during 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.880 the day, and Hugh was in school during the day 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.920 and at home most nights, and on the weekends if 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.640 he went out with his friend's clubbing, he went to 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:16.720 New Jersey, not where Emmanuel Green was. These were complete strangers. 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.600 After police catch Emmanuel in Kezi Burton's car, they bring 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.840 them in for questioning, and he's interrogated by the same 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.400 officers who questioned Hugh Burton. After only a few hours, 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.360 Emmanuel goes on videotape to make a statement of his own. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.840 He says that on the morning of the murder January third, 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.560 Hugh had knocked on his door downstairs on the first 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.040 floor apartment, and Hugh had told Emmanuel that he planned 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.440 to steal his mom's nineteen eighty eight Honda Accord, and 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.360 he asked Emmanuel if he knew how to get rid 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.560 of a stolen car, I'll take care of my mother, 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.320 Hugh supposedly said, and the two of them agreed to 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.920 split the cash. Emmanuel claimed that Hugh then went back 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.400 upstairs by himself and all almost immediately. Emmanuel said, I 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.880 heard arguing, screaming in a thumping noise. He said he 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.120 overheard Hugh yelling you won't give me the money. Fuck 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.000 you bitch, I'll kill you and take it. A few 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:16.600 minutes later, he reappeared outside Green's apartments, supposedly distraught, and 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.200 he confesses to a manual. I killed my mother. I 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:26.800 stabbed her. I stabbed her. Emmanuel continues, my criminal mind 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.000 took over and I said, let's make it look like 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.120 a robbery. He claimed to have gone back upstairs with 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.680 Hugh to the Burton family apartment. They stole two hundred 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.040 dollars from Kaziah's pocket book, and Emmanuel told Hugh to 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.240 get rid of the knife somewhere outside. Then Emmanuel took 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:50.720 off with Kaziah's car. So we have two statements, one 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.240 of them from a slick talking bouncer with a history 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.160 of rape and robbery and attacks on his landlords, the 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.200 guy who was actually found with Kaziah Burton's car, and 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.800 the other one from a sixteen year old with no 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:02.800 criminal history. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.280 The train had already left the station for Hugh Burton 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.000 after his arrest. The detectives who were involved in the 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.800 interrogation leaked information about the case to the press, and 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.520 they were quoted widely in newspaper articles that grace the 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.840 front page of the New York Times and the Post 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.840 in the Daily News. And so when Emmanuel Green shows 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:32.120 up with Keziah Burton's car, these police officers needed to 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.600 figure out a way to reconcile these two very different stories. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.960 Remember, h Was confession never mentions Immanuel Green his downstairs 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.560 neighbor at all, and Green's confession never mentions crack, cocaine 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:46.560 or any drug debt. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.440 The confession of Emmanuel Green was cooked up in the 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.280 interrogation room in Mount Vernon by the same detectives who 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.560 took the confession of Hugh Burton. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.440 So the case against Huburton plowed forward, and before too long, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.480 Hugh found himself convicted of the murder of his own 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:08.120 mother and sentenced to life in prison. For his part, 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.399 Emmanuel Green was never charged with Keziah's murder. He was 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.000 only ever charged with crimes relating to the theft of 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.639 her automobile, but he was never convicted. Before his trial, 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.960 Emmanuel Green was stabbed to death as part of a 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.359 dispute arising out of a lover's triangle. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.520 So when the case came across my desk, it was 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.840 sometime in two thousand and eight early two thousand and nine. 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.919 I was sent a letter from Hugh Burton and some 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.879 materials related to his case by a woman at the 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:40.440 Innocence Project. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.800 At the Center on Wrongful Convictions, we get referred false 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.840 confession cases a lot, but when Steve looked at Hugh's case, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.760 he realized it was different than a lot of the 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.240 other cases we've told you about on this podcast. DNA 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.359 testing wasn't an option here. 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.520 There was no evidence left at the crime scene that 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.879 if ten could lead to a different outcome. It was 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.520 really all about the confession and all about trying to 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.160 prove the guilt of the true perpetrator and Manuel Green. 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.359 As soon as we took the case in two thousand 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.600 and nine, Hugh, thank goodness, was released on parole after 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:21.840 almost two decades behind bars. And this was a wonderful thing. 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.840 Having your client out is a blessing, even before they 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:29.560 are exonerated. We want to get them out because when 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:33.080 they're out they can help us with our investigation. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.360 It's easier to represent someone who's free. You can call 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.480 them whenever you need to, and you can meet with 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.199 them face to face without glass or guards or prison 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:47.280 walls between the two of you. For his part, Hugh 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.080 was able to begin a new life on the outside. 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.240 He's always been a runner, but instead of doing laps 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.280 around the prison yard, he started running long distances in 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.560 the free air. And, as Hughes said his sites on 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.800 the New York City Marathon, his legal team embarked on 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:08.360 its own marathon investigation because even though Hugh was free, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.879 he was still a convicted murderer who needed his name cleared. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:17.480 Steve invited Laura Cohen, an attorney and professor at Rutgers University, 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:30.720 to join the team, and we got to work pretty soon. 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.080 We discovered powerful evidence of Hugh's innocence. Hugh had described 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.199 killing his mom with a serrated steak knife found on 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.600 the bed. That was the theory embraced by police at 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.520 the time of the interrogation, But after Hughes interrogation, the 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.800 autopsy showed that Keziah Burton had actually been stabbed with 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:54.000 a smooth edged blade. The steak knife wasn't the murder weapon. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:58.360 The fact that Hugh's confession incorporated an error that police 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.119 believed was true at the time. That's a red flag. 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.119 The police were feeding Hugh their own theory of the crime. 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:08.600 Emmanuel Green, on the other hand, had known that the 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.199 steak knife wasn't the murder weapon he described, using a 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.959 different blade, one that he told Hugh to dispose of outside. 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:22.000 This was information only the real perpetrator would know. Months 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.400 of investigation turned into years, and we were gathering evidence 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.840 slowly but surely, and then finally we got a couple 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.640 of lucky breaks. You see, in twenty sixteen, a new 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.399 DA got elected in the Bronx and we saw a 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.399 new opportunity to have a conversation about Hugh's case. So 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.720 we got in touch with our friends at the Innocence 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:47.640 Project in New York, Susan Friedman and Barry Sheck. Susan's 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.760 a rock star attorney at the Innocence Project, and Barry 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.960 co founded the project with Peter Neufeld. He's one of 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:57.960 the real ogs in the exoneration movement. And before long, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.679 Barry was able to put us in touch with a 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:05.000 special new division of the Bronx DA's office, the Conviction 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.600 Integrity Unit. Here's very now. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.560 One of the things that the Innocence Project and myself 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.240 in particular, had been involved in a lot is the 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.800 creation of what are known as conviction integrity units. The 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.919 whole point of a conviction integrity process is to have 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.720 a non adversarial search for the truth, where you set 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.760 up an investigative plan that both sides agree to go 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.040 forward with it, and you develop a process where you 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.199 share information and go back and forth. You just forget 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.600 about the legal technicalities and you just look at the 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.399 evidence and investigate it together and see where it leads. 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.520 And for the next three years we worked in collaboration 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:54.680 with the Conviction Review Unit. It was an extremely cooperative experience. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:22:01.360 We shared documents, we interviewed witnesses together, brought in experts 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.520 to educate them about all of the changes that had 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:09.879 taken place with regard to false confessions and new understandings 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:10.720 from the science. 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.200 As we started working with the Bronx Conviction Integrity Unit, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.080 that's when we really got lucky. 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.600 We'd all huddled at the offices of the Bronx Defender, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.439 who were giving us a place to stay, and Steve 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:27.320 googled one last time for something about the officers involved 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:28.040 in his case. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:34.359 Detectives who obtained false confessions are often serial offenders. I 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.199 typed in the names of these detectives in a search 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.399 for other cases, and I hit gold. 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.919 All of a sudden, he hit for whatever reason, we 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.480 don't know. An opinion that appeared in the New York 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.320 Law Journal by Judge Steve Barrett that was quite incredible. 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:56.320 What Steve found was shocking a court decision describing how 0:22:56.320 --> 0:23:00.280 the same cops who interrogated Hugh had coerced a false 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.879 confession out of another man in a completely different case. 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.919 And by sheer chance, the evening before we're going in 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:10.959 to talk to the conviction Integrity unit, we found it. 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:15.439 Finding that these detectives had been involved in another false 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:20.360 confession just three months earlier than you. Burton's case began 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:24.320 to raise questions about who these detectives were and whether 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.600 we could trust their accounts of what happened in that 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:28.560 interrogation room. 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.600 In the end, this may not have all happened if 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:33.880 it weren't for Dennis Kossa's courage. 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:36.800 Dennis koss is the man who'd falsely confessed at the 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:40.080 hands of the same interrogators just three months before they 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:44.920 questioned Hugh. So Steve and Barry arranged a meeting with Dennis, 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:48.080 and the story he told them was heartbreaking. 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.440 We brought him in to our office at the Innocents 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:56.040 Project late at night and we began asking Dennis to 0:23:56.160 --> 0:23:59.720 recount for us what happened when he gave this confession 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:05.960