Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is Laura and I writer. Welcome to
Speaker 1: a very special breaking news episode of wrongful conviction False Confessions.
Speaker 1: Here's why I'm dropping in with this episode. Over and over,
Speaker 1: Steve and I have told you about innocent people who
Speaker 1: ended up confessing the crimes they didn't commit. These stories
Speaker 1: usually have a common thread interrogators who lied about the
Speaker 1: evidence to get those false confessions. Lies like your DNA
Speaker 1: was founded the scene or the polygraph proves you guilty.
Speaker 1: These kinds of lies are known risk factors for false confessions.
Speaker 1: But here's the breaking news. Someone is finally doing something
Speaker 1: about it. For the first time in US history, bills
Speaker 1: have just been introduced in three states to prohibit police
Speaker 1: from lying during interrogations. It's happening right now in New York, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and my home state Illinois. I support these bills, and
Speaker 1: I hope you will too. In fact, we pulled together
Speaker 1: today's special episode just so I could introduce you to
Speaker 1: three heroes who were working together to make sure we
Speaker 1: make change. I'll be joined first today by New York
Speaker 1: Exonerie Marty tank Cliff. He falsely confessed to murdering his
Speaker 1: own parents when he was just seventeen. Then you'll hear
Speaker 1: from Illinois State Senator Robert Peters. He's the sponsor of
Speaker 1: Illinois Senate Bill twenty one twenty two, which would ban
Speaker 1: deception during interrogation. Finally, you'll hear from an old friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Dave Thompson. He's an experienced interrogator and police
Speaker 1: trainer who's with us all the way in our fight
Speaker 1: to end false confessions. I'm going to start with our guest,
Speaker 1: Marty tank Cliff. Murty woke up one fall morning and
Speaker 1: found his dad in another room, severely beaten and barely alive.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to Marty at the time, his mom had all
Speaker 1: been attacked in a different part of the house. In fact,
Speaker 1: she had already died because of her injuries. Like anyone
Speaker 1: would do, Marty called the police. But that's when an
Speaker 1: already terrible situation got even worse. So thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us, all three of you today. This
Speaker 1: is such an important topic and I'm so glad we're
Speaker 1: here to talk about this. I want to start things
Speaker 1: off by hearing from my friend Marty tank Cliffe. Right, Marty,
Speaker 1: you've got one of the most incredible stories of wrunful
Speaker 1: conviction and false confession that I've ever heard and lies
Speaker 1: about the evidence are at the heart of it. So
Speaker 1: let's bring our listeners back. You're seventeen years old, You're
Speaker 1: living with mom and dad in Long Island, New York,
Speaker 1: and what happens from there. September seven, nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: was supposed to be my first day of my senior
Speaker 1: of high school, and the night before, my father held
Speaker 1: a high stakes poker game with his business partner, Jerry
Speaker 1: Steuerman and others. And on September seventh, I woke up
Speaker 1: found that my house was unlocked, lights were on, and
Speaker 1: I walked through the house and discovered my father bleeding
Speaker 1: in his office chair, which is where the poker game
Speaker 1: happened the night before. Unbeknownst to you and your mom
Speaker 1: was in another room and had actually been blunted to
Speaker 1: death herself. I discovered my mom after that, but I
Speaker 1: knew my father was alive because I performed first aid.
Speaker 1: I could hear him breathing. I called nine one one,
Speaker 1: and shortly thereafter the police showed up, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital, but law enforcement wanted information
Speaker 1: who they thought was responsible. And you know, we all said,
Speaker 1: my family, my friends, everybody said, Jerry Stuhman. Jerry Stuhman,
Speaker 1: and he happened to be there the night before. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about what happened the night before.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned this. So the night before there was a
Speaker 1: high stakes poker game that included Jerry Stuhman. And Jerry
Speaker 1: Stuhman was my father's business partner, who, unbeknownst to me
Speaker 1: at that time, had threatened to cut my father's throat out,
Speaker 1: his tongue out weeks before my father started demanding money
Speaker 1: back from Jerry Steuerman, and it was so bad that
Speaker 1: my father had told the family attorney, Jerry's not gonna
Speaker 1: fuck with me because I know where the bones are buried.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of that back then. The only
Speaker 1: thing I knew was that there were some problems with
Speaker 1: Jerry Steuerman. And I knew there were no problems with
Speaker 1: me or my parents. I mean, we had a loving relationship,
Speaker 1: grew up in a great neighborhood, great family, traveled everything
Speaker 1: with my parents, so I knew there was no problems
Speaker 1: with us. But the police, I guess, weren't so sure.
Speaker 1: They brought it down to police headquarters and what happens.
Speaker 1: I really wasn't clothed, I was barefoot, was wearing shorts
Speaker 1: in a sweatshirt, and I was separated from family. I
Speaker 1: wasn't brought to the hospital. I was driven forty five
Speaker 1: minutes away by Detective James McCready. I was brought up
Speaker 1: to police headquarters in a windowless room that had a desk,
Speaker 1: empty file cabinet, two metal chairs, no phone, no windows,
Speaker 1: and you know, the questioning started, you know, where were
Speaker 1: you the night before? Who do you think was responsible?
Speaker 1: And that seemed to go on forever until there was
Speaker 1: a point where McCready left the room and he left
Speaker 1: the door open and you could hear him saying, really, great, really,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, that's great news. Wait till I tell Marty.
Speaker 1: And he came back in and he said, Marty got
Speaker 1: great news and bad news. He said. The great news
Speaker 1: is they pumped your father full of adrenaline. He woke
Speaker 1: up and he said, you committed the murders. You attacked
Speaker 1: your mother and your father. Just tell us you did that,
Speaker 1: because your father just said you did that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they continued by saying, listen, Marty, we have your hair
Speaker 1: and your mother's hands. Just tell us what we want
Speaker 1: to hear. Your father would want that. That's incredible. How
Speaker 1: did you react to those lies, Marty? My initial guard
Speaker 1: response was like, I'll take a lot detector, like I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. But it also came to the point
Speaker 1: where it was a kind of I guess you could say,
Speaker 1: like the floor under me just fell out, and kind
Speaker 1: of was like, well, if my father said I did it,
Speaker 1: maybe I did. Because my father's never lied to me,
Speaker 1: and police aren't supposed to lie to you, So I
Speaker 1: know I didn't do anything, but you're my father's saying
Speaker 1: that it was me and the copter saying was made.
Speaker 1: But I was brought up to trust the police, believe
Speaker 1: in them, and brought up to that they're not going
Speaker 1: to lie to you. They're they're your friends, they're gonna
Speaker 1: help you exactly. In fact, your dad was police commissioner,
Speaker 1: wasn't it. He was the police commissioner for the incorporated
Speaker 1: village of belt Hare where we live. And you start
Speaker 1: to doubt your own memory because you so trust the
Speaker 1: word of these authority figures, right, these police officers who
Speaker 1: are telling you what another authority figure your dad supposedly
Speaker 1: said without a doubt without a doubt. You kind of
Speaker 1: start going back and forth in your head. You kind
Speaker 1: of say, wait a minute, I know I didn't do anything,
Speaker 1: but they're saying I did. Screaming in your face, yelling
Speaker 1: at you, saying you know, Marty, we know you did this,
Speaker 1: and your father is saying you did this. Some people,
Speaker 1: Marty is some people that I've talked to, say, you
Speaker 1: know what, if I was being interrogated, right, if I
Speaker 1: was inside the interrogation room and I was innocent and
Speaker 1: police lied to me, it would be so easy to
Speaker 1: see through those lies, right, to not be influenced by
Speaker 1: those lies? Is it so easy when it's you in
Speaker 1: the moment? No farthest thing from that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't somebody who was thirty who had lived a life.
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I was a kid who was
Speaker 1: raised to trust your family and cops, and in this situation,
Speaker 1: one of them failed me. And it's so eventually you confessed.
Speaker 1: Eventually they said I confessed. What the reality was is
Speaker 1: that they didn't record anything, they ordered tape anything, and
Speaker 1: everything they said I said proved forensically to be wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: But you gave the series of statements that eventually the
Speaker 1: officers said amounted to a confession, right, and that was
Speaker 1: a huge part of the evidence that was used against
Speaker 1: you to secure your conviction in the murder of your
Speaker 1: own parents, which you ended up serving seventeen years in
Speaker 1: prison for before being exonerated. I mean, it's an incredible story,
Speaker 1: and it's one in which lies about the evidence are
Speaker 1: at the absolute bottom. I just want to know, Marty,
Speaker 1: when afterwards did you begin to realize that you had
Speaker 1: been lied to? There were two points for me. One
Speaker 1: was when I had an opportunity to make a phone
Speaker 1: call to a family member and the family member said,
Speaker 1: did you tell them that you did it? And I
Speaker 1: was like, they made me. That was the only thing
Speaker 1: I could say that they're doing that phone call. But
Speaker 1: hours later, when I met with a family member and
Speaker 1: an attorney, I went into much more detail. And back
Speaker 1: then somebody, you know, one of them said, we were
Speaker 1: afraid of this because they knew what Suffolk County's history was,
Speaker 1: and they knew that once I was isolated, that this
Speaker 1: was bound to happen. Wow, and what end? What was
Speaker 1: it like to understand that you've been lied to you
Speaker 1: by these authority figures right by these police officers. When
Speaker 1: you grew up trusting, I mean back then, it was
Speaker 1: still this disbelief. I mean it was almost like I
Speaker 1: was on Twilight Zone. There was no way that I
Speaker 1: could be waking up that should have been one of
Speaker 1: the best days of my life to literally turning into
Speaker 1: a living hell. That destroyed my life, my family's life,
Speaker 1: the community for you know, for years, and nobody should
Speaker 1: ever go through this. I mean, this is I mean
Speaker 1: just because they lied to me. You know, if you
Speaker 1: didn't lie, if you did your job, if you told
Speaker 1: the truth, if you would have just electronic you recorded
Speaker 1: where went out in that room, I may not have
Speaker 1: spent almost eighteen years in prison. Senator I want to
Speaker 1: bring you in. No, this is Senator Robert Peters from Illinois. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the best way to react to
Speaker 1: this is what happened to Marty's damn shame and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that you had to go through that, Marty. And
Speaker 1: what is so painful is that it's not surprising. We
Speaker 1: see this all the time. They look at you and
Speaker 1: they say, you're young, you don't really know any better,
Speaker 1: You're in a state of crisis, and they, instead of
Speaker 1: caring about figuring out what happened in this moment of
Speaker 1: pain and trauma. They became assured of their own answer.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the bill that you know I'm
Speaker 1: carrying in the Senate is built off of the fact
Speaker 1: that countless people roughly the same age as Marty or younger. Now,
Speaker 1: this happens to older folks, but the reason why young
Speaker 1: folks are targeted is because there's a power dynamic play
Speaker 1: and a limitation and how many rights you actually have
Speaker 1: or understand to have, And it's it's not about people's safety,
Speaker 1: and it's not about trying to solve or figure out
Speaker 1: the trauma that's happened. And at some point it becomes
Speaker 1: purely about winning the game in which you've solved something supposedly.
Speaker 1: You know, Senator I think you're exactly right, Marty. You
Speaker 1: spoke about County, New York, right where this happened to you.
Speaker 1: But of course we know of hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 1: cases of false confession around the country, one hundred alone
Speaker 1: in Illinois, one hundred and fifty when you combine Illinois
Speaker 1: and New York, and those numbers are all in all probability,
Speaker 1: just the tip of the iceberg. Because these cases are
Speaker 1: just now starting to come to light. Marty, you've heard
Speaker 1: the Senator talk about the need to ban lives, about
Speaker 1: the evidence in the interrogation room. Does what he said
Speaker 1: resonate with you? First of all, thank you Senator for
Speaker 1: trying to push this legislation through because more, Marty, Tank
Speaker 1: does have to be protected. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: about how challenging it was for me, and I think
Speaker 1: about all the young men and women in minority communities,
Speaker 1: the abuse that I went through. I can't even fathom
Speaker 1: what someone else goes through in a regular basis. It's
Speaker 1: me This legislation has to be passed. I mean universally,
Speaker 1: it has to be passed. So at this point I
Speaker 1: want to bring in my good friend Dave Thompson, who's
Speaker 1: here with us as well. Dave is the president of
Speaker 1: wick Lander Zulaski. You train police across the country and
Speaker 1: across the globe, and you've also conducted a few interrogations yourself. Dave,
Speaker 1: how many would you say you done? Yeah, quite a
Speaker 1: few hundred interrogations, I'd say, Laura, kind of across multiple
Speaker 1: sectors and across multiple jurisdictions. Wow, So there really is
Speaker 1: no one better for me to ask, Ben, do cops
Speaker 1: really need to lie during interrogations? No, there's other methods
Speaker 1: that they can be trained in which which we can
Speaker 1: discuss the law needs to change, and we also know
Speaker 1: it increases the fear of innocent people like Marty just
Speaker 1: just describe. And for detectives who are investigating somebody who
Speaker 1: is a guilty subject who does confess to a crime,
Speaker 1: but they used a tactic like this, all that does
Speaker 1: is potentially contaminate that confession and maybe jeopardize the reliability
Speaker 1: of a true confession as well. So it's really a
Speaker 1: very high risk, low reward strategy. Okay, So if police
Speaker 1: officers don't need to lie, then why do they do it?
Speaker 1: I think the simple answer is that's how they've been trained,
Speaker 1: and that's what they're allowed to do. It's not investigators,
Speaker 1: for the most part, doing something that they feel is
Speaker 1: unethical or unwarranted. If they're doing something that they've used
Speaker 1: for decades, they've been trained in that technique and maybe
Speaker 1: unaware of the negative implications as technique has on both
Speaker 1: innocent subjects and to the reliability of a true confession.
Speaker 1: So if we look at what's the root cause, what's
Speaker 1: the reason that we lie about evidence in the first place,
Speaker 1: and it's because if that evidence doesn't exist, we have
Speaker 1: this bias or this belief that the person sitting in
Speaker 1: front of us is the guilty party, but the evidence
Speaker 1: isn't there, which means we don't have enough to actually
Speaker 1: prove they're the guilty party. So we rely on this
Speaker 1: fictitious piece of information to persuade the suspect to tell
Speaker 1: us their guilty versus let the investigation stand on its own.
Speaker 1: And even furthermore, you know, innocent people they hear that
Speaker 1: there's this perspective of evidence. Right if I said, in
Speaker 1: an arson case, you know, we have video footage of
Speaker 1: you starting the fire, and that doesn't exist, an innocent
Speaker 1: person might think, well, I hope they have video footage
Speaker 1: because it'll clear my name. So almost that fictitious presentation
Speaker 1: of evidence incentivize as an innocent person just say fine,
Speaker 1: yeah I did it, because they hope that that evidence
Speaker 1: will prove that they didn't. Just to kind of find
Speaker 1: out that evidence doesn't exist in the first place. So
Speaker 1: I think Marty brought up one fact that investigators said,
Speaker 1: hair right, his hair in his mother's hand. And so
Speaker 1: let's say in a confession, somebody like Marty says, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you know, she must have grabbed my hair
Speaker 1: during whatever whatever happened. Well, now the subject giving that
Speaker 1: information in a confession, did they say that because they
Speaker 1: were actually part of the crime they remember that happening,
Speaker 1: or did they say that because that's what the investigators
Speaker 1: fact fed to them during the interview. So they're just
Speaker 1: agreeing to it. When you have somebody of a youthful age,
Speaker 1: they're looking at how do I escape this immediate situation
Speaker 1: and get back to safety. And that's what results in
Speaker 1: the false confession is I have faith that this evidence
Speaker 1: is going to prove my innocence to be true. Let
Speaker 1: me say whatever I need to get the hell out
Speaker 1: of the room and get back to safety and let
Speaker 1: the lawyers figure it out afterwards. Unfortunately, we see what
Speaker 1: that has turned into. I would imagine that when people
Speaker 1: sign up to be police officers, right when they joined
Speaker 1: police forces, they want to be the good guys. And
Speaker 1: then at a certain point, police officers who become interrogators
Speaker 1: learn that as a part of their job they're expected
Speaker 1: to lie. Are there some cops out there who maybe
Speaker 1: aren't come with them? First of all, the goal in
Speaker 1: most investigators are well intended to try to represent a victim,
Speaker 1: or a victim's family, or whoever might have been harmed
Speaker 1: in one of these cases. And so when you go
Speaker 1: into an investigation or an interrogation and you have this
Speaker 1: predisposed belief of who the guilty suspect is, and you've
Speaker 1: been trained that lying about evidence is a strategical way
Speaker 1: to get to a confession, then yeah, that's that's what
Speaker 1: a lot of officers are focused on. However, I think
Speaker 1: there's an overwhelming discomfort, especially with new detectives, to be
Speaker 1: put into a position where their own integrity is in jeopardy,
Speaker 1: where they know, if I lie to somebody about the
Speaker 1: evidence today, what does that do for my credibility tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I think there's a overwhelming support of law enforcement for
Speaker 1: more clear direction and distinction about what should be done
Speaker 1: so we can still solve cases, but do it in
Speaker 1: the most ethical and scientifically based way. Tell me, Dave,
Speaker 1: what does an interrogation look like if you take away
Speaker 1: lies about the evidence, it looks like asking open ended questions,
Speaker 1: a conversation where the investigator doesn't have a goal of
Speaker 1: a confession but has a goal of obtaining actionable and
Speaker 1: reliable information less of having confirmation bias and tunnel vision,
Speaker 1: non coercive evidence based interview methods that are progressively gaining
Speaker 1: traction across the United States. Senator, I want to go
Speaker 1: back to you for just one minute. You've introduced this bill,
Speaker 1: of course, in your home state of Illinois, and you're
Speaker 1: in great company because there are similar bills that have
Speaker 1: been introduced in New York, where Marty is from, and
Speaker 1: in Oregon as well, other bills that would ban lying
Speaker 1: about the evidence in the interrogation room. What does it
Speaker 1: mean to you to be part of this national ground
Speaker 1: swell for change? Wow? So I think that I always think,
Speaker 1: like when we try to make changes to something systemach,
Speaker 1: you can't just go it alone. And so to me,
Speaker 1: it's not just having it be Illinois, New York, or
Speaker 1: organ but to see it across the country. Right. But
Speaker 1: I also think it's just important that if we can
Speaker 1: do this in Illinois, a complex state, same with organ,
Speaker 1: same with New York, other states should try to follow
Speaker 1: and do the same thing. I think that's well said.
Speaker 1: And Dave in how many states is deception to use
Speaker 1: during interrogations? I mean the Supreme Court law is allowing
Speaker 1: it to be used across the United States. We've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of jurisdictions starting to move forward away from
Speaker 1: that proactively. Right, we can start training officers now, and
Speaker 1: we have been on methods that you don't need to
Speaker 1: use those tactics, and we start to look outside the
Speaker 1: United States. You know, the UK has banned deception for
Speaker 1: decades in their interview models. Canada has been moving away
Speaker 1: from it. So this is not a new problem by
Speaker 1: any means. It's just finally a solution to that problem.
Speaker 1: I think it is. It's a free, groundbreaking solution to
Speaker 1: this problem. Senator, you have introduced Illinois Senate Bill twenty
Speaker 1: one twenty two, which would band deception in the interrogation room.
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here? How can people get
Speaker 1: involved in supporting your effort to band deception. Let's put
Speaker 1: pressure on legislators. Let's shine a light on Illinois. There's
Speaker 1: a model for rare live whether that's Montana or Florida.
Speaker 1: Take this bill as piece of model legislation and say
Speaker 1: that this is something that needs to happen in your states.
Speaker 1: So let me repeat that Montana or Florida should have
Speaker 1: their own version of this bill. Absolutely absolutely. People can
Speaker 1: follow you on social media. Senator Robert Peters is your name.
Speaker 1: They can follow me at Laura and I Writer on
Speaker 1: Twitter or Instagram for tips on how to get involved
Speaker 1: in supporting the Illinois effort as well as the crucial
Speaker 1: New York and Oregon efforts as well. Marty, I want
Speaker 1: to let you close this out. You've been extraordinarily successful
Speaker 1: despite all of these odds stacked against you in your life.
Speaker 1: Since your exoneration, You've become a practicing attorney, you have
Speaker 1: become an adjunct professor. Can you become an inspiration for change?
Speaker 1: And I think that's what we're talking about today on
Speaker 1: this podcast. What does it mean to you that your
Speaker 1: story can and has inspired people like Dave, people like
Speaker 1: Senator Peters to fight for real change. I just want
Speaker 1: to say two things very quickly. One is that when
Speaker 1: you interroget an innocent person, you get a false confession,
Speaker 1: you arrest them. Do you've allowed the criminal party to
Speaker 1: remain free to commit additional crimes on our community? And
Speaker 1: you know this bill should be highlighted that it's not
Speaker 1: just about the coercion, it's really about the safety of
Speaker 1: everyone involved. And you know, if my voice can help
Speaker 1: make change somewhere, then you know, maybe my suffering was
Speaker 1: meant to be somewhere. As weird as it sounds, but
Speaker 1: there really shouldn't be any more Marty tank clifts, there are.
Speaker 1: You know, very few people get to suffer the way
Speaker 1: I have and be able to achieve what I've been
Speaker 1: able to achieve, you know, And for me, it's about education.
Speaker 1: It's about retraining and refocusing everyone's perspectives on the system.
Speaker 1: And thank you to Senator Peters and Dave Thompson. We're
Speaker 1: making a difference. And you know, if we can make
Speaker 1: a change in Illinois, we can do it universally and
Speaker 1: we can protect our kids. And just to make the
Speaker 1: record clear, I'm an adjunct professor at Georgetown not Law School,
Speaker 1: and I teach the class that Georgetown is nickname making
Speaker 1: an exonoree where we use undergraduate students to reinvestigate cases.
Speaker 1: And what's amazing is some of those students have been
Speaker 1: through tragedies that we've spoken about today, either directly or indirectly.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's the next generation of freedom fighters
Speaker 1: for us. Well. Inspired by you, Marty very much, and
Speaker 1: by you Senator Peters and by you Daves. Thank you
Speaker 1: all so much for joining us today. It has been
Speaker 1: a fascinating conversation. Best of luck with everything that each
Speaker 1: one of you is doing to change the world, make
Speaker 1: a difference, like Marty says, and most importantly, make sure
Speaker 1: that we're advancing this fight against wrongful convictions. Thank you
Speaker 1: all right, take care, guys. That's all the time we have,
Speaker 1: but I hope you get just how important it is
Speaker 1: to support Illinois State Senate Bill twenty one twenty two.
Speaker 1: There will be a vote on the bill Friday, April sixteenth,
Speaker 1: so we need you to weigh in now. Sign up
Speaker 1: to get involved at Innocence Project dot org, slash pledge,
Speaker 1: or tweet your support to the Illinois Senate Democrats at
Speaker 1: ill send deems that's I L S E N D
Speaker 1: E MS to learn how to support similar efforts in
Speaker 1: New York, Oregon and other states. You can also follow
Speaker 1: me at Laura and I Rider on Instagram or Twitter.
Speaker 1: Be well everyone, and thanks again to our guests. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction and False Confessions is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to our executive producers Jason Flam and Kevin Wardace.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Riva Goldberg and Connor Hall.
Speaker 1: Followed the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction