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 found at 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 Tankloff. He falsely confessed to murdering his own
Speaker 1: parents when he was just seventeen. Then you'll hear from
Speaker 1: Illinois State Senator Robert Peters. He's the sponsor of Illinois
Speaker 1: Senate Bill twenty one twenty two, which would ban deception
Speaker 1: during interrogation. Finally, you'll hear from an old friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Dave Thompson. He's an experienced interrogator and police trainer who's
Speaker 1: with us all the way in our fight to end
Speaker 1: false confessions. I'm going to start with our guest, Marty Tankliff.
Speaker 1: Marty woke up one fall morning and found his dad
Speaker 1: in another room, severely beaten and barely alive. Unbeknownst to
Speaker 1: Marty at the time, his mom had all been attacked
Speaker 1: in a different part of the house. In fact, she
Speaker 1: had already died because of her injuries. Like anyone would do,
Speaker 1: Marty called the police. But that's when an already terrible
Speaker 1: situation got even worse. So thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, all three of you today. This is such
Speaker 1: an important topic and I'm so glad we're here to
Speaker 1: talk about this. I want to start things off by
Speaker 1: hearing from my friend Marty Tankliff. Right, Marty, you've got
Speaker 1: one of the most incredible stories of wrongful conviction and
Speaker 1: false confession that I've ever heard and lies about the
Speaker 1: evidence are at the heart of it. So let's bring
Speaker 1: our listeners back. You're seventeen years old, You're living with
Speaker 1: mom and dad in Long Island, New York, and what
Speaker 1: happens from there.
Speaker 2: September seventh, nineteen eighty eight, was supposed to be my
Speaker 2: first day of my senior year of high school, and
Speaker 2: the night before, my father held a high stakes poker
Speaker 2: game with his business partner, Jerry Struman and others. And
Speaker 2: on September seventh, I woke up up, found that my
Speaker 2: house was unlocked, lights were on, and I walked through
Speaker 2: the house and discovered my father bleeding in his office chair,
Speaker 2: which is where the poker game happened the night before.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to you and your mom was in another room
Speaker 1: and had actually been bludgeoned to death herself.
Speaker 2: I discovered my mom after that, but I knew my
Speaker 2: father was alive because I performed first aid.
Speaker 3: I could hear him breathing. I called my one one.
Speaker 2: And shortly thereafter the police showed up, and I wanted
Speaker 2: to go to the hospital, but law enforcement wanted information
Speaker 2: who they thought was responsible, and you know, we all said,
Speaker 2: my family, my friends, everybody said, Jerry Struman.
Speaker 3: Jerry Stuerman, and he happened to be there the night before.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what happened the night before.
Speaker 1: You've mentioned this.
Speaker 2: So the night before there was a high six poker
Speaker 2: game that included Jerry Stuerman. And Jerry Stuman was my
Speaker 2: father's business partner, who, unbeknownst to me at that time,
Speaker 2: had threatened to cut my father's throat out, his tongue
Speaker 2: out weeks before my father started demanding money back from
Speaker 2: Jerry Stuerman, and it was so bad that my father
Speaker 2: had told the family attorney, Jerry's not going to fuck
Speaker 2: with me because I know where the bones are buried.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any of that back then. The only
Speaker 2: thing I knew was that there were some problems with
Speaker 2: Jerry Steuerman. And I knew there were no problems with
Speaker 2: me or my parents. I mean, we had a loving relationship.
Speaker 3: I grew up in a.
Speaker 2: Great neighborhood, great family, traveled everything with my parents, so
Speaker 2: I knew there was no problems with us.
Speaker 1: But the police, I guess, weren't so sure. They broughady
Speaker 1: done to police headquarters. And what happens.
Speaker 2: I really wasn't clothed, I was barefoot, was wearing shorts
Speaker 2: in a sweatshirt, and I was separated from family. I
Speaker 2: wasn't brought to the hospital. I was driven forty five
Speaker 2: minutes away by Detective James McCready. I was brought up
Speaker 2: to police headquarters in a windowless room that had a
Speaker 2: desk and empty file cabinet, two metal chairs, no phone,
Speaker 2: no windows, and you know, the questioning started, you know,
Speaker 2: where were you the night before?
Speaker 3: Who do you think was responsible?
Speaker 2: And that seemed to go on forever until there was
Speaker 2: a point where McCready left the room and he left
Speaker 2: the door open and you could hear him saying, really, great, really,
Speaker 2: that's amazing, that's great news. Wait till I tell Marty.
Speaker 2: And he came back in and he said, Marty, I
Speaker 2: got great news and bad news. So the great news
Speaker 2: is they pumped your father full of adrenaline. He woke
Speaker 2: up and he said, you committed the murders. You attacked
Speaker 2: your mother, and your father just tell us you did that.
Speaker 2: Because your father just said you did that. I mean,
Speaker 2: they contained by saying, listen, Marty, we have your hair
Speaker 2: in your mother's hands, just tell us what we want
Speaker 2: to hear. Your father would want that.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible. How did you react to those lies, Marty?
Speaker 2: My initial gut response was like, I'll take a lot
Speaker 2: of detector, like I didn't do anything. But it also
Speaker 2: came to the point where it was kind of I
Speaker 2: guess you could say, like the floor under me just
Speaker 2: fell out, and kind of was like, well, if my
Speaker 2: father said I did it, maybe I did. Because my
Speaker 2: father's never lied to me, and police are not supposed
Speaker 2: to lie to you, So I know I didn't do anything,
Speaker 2: but my father's saying that it was me, and the
Speaker 2: Copps are saying was me.
Speaker 3: But I was brought up.
Speaker 2: To trust the police, believe in them, and brought up
Speaker 2: to that they're not going to lie to you. They're
Speaker 2: your friends, they're going to help you.
Speaker 1: Exactly. In fact, your dad was police commissioner, wasn't he.
Speaker 2: He was the police commissioner for the incorporated village of
Speaker 2: Beltare where we live.
Speaker 1: And you start to doubt your own memory because you
Speaker 1: so trust the word of these authority figures, right, these
Speaker 1: police officers who were telling you what another authority figure
Speaker 1: your dad supposedly.
Speaker 2: Said without a doubt, without a doubt. You kind of
Speaker 2: start going back and forth in your head. You kind
Speaker 2: of say, wait a minute, I know I didn't do anything,
Speaker 2: but they're saying I did. Screaming in your face, yelling
Speaker 2: at you, saying you know, Marty, we know you did this,
Speaker 2: and your father is saying you did this.
Speaker 1: Some people, Marty, some people that I've talked to, say,
Speaker 1: you know what, if I was being interrogated, right, if
Speaker 1: I was inside the interrogation room and I was innocent
Speaker 1: and police lied to me, it would be so easy
Speaker 1: to see through those lies, right, to not be influenced
Speaker 1: by those lies? Is it so easy when it's you
Speaker 1: in the moment?
Speaker 2: No farthest thing from that. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't somebody who was thirty who had lived a life.
Speaker 3: I was a kid.
Speaker 2: I was a kid who was raised to trust your
Speaker 2: family and cops, and in this situation, one of.
Speaker 3: Them failed me.
Speaker 1: And it's so eventually you confessed.
Speaker 2: Eventually, they said I confessed. What the reality was is
Speaker 2: that they didn't record anything, they didn't audio tape anything,
Speaker 2: and everything they said I said proved forensically to be wrong.
Speaker 1: Right, But you gave the series of statements that eventually
Speaker 1: the officer said amounted to a confession, right, and that
Speaker 1: was a huge part of the evidence that was used
Speaker 1: against you to secure your conviction in the murder of
Speaker 1: your own parents, which you ended up serving seventeen years
Speaker 1: in prison for before being exonerated. I mean, it's an
Speaker 1: incredible story, and it's one in which lies about the
Speaker 1: evidence are 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?
Speaker 2: There were two points for me. One was when I
Speaker 2: had an opportunity to make a phone call to a
Speaker 2: family member and the family member said, did you tell
Speaker 2: them that you did it? And I was like, they
Speaker 2: made me. That was the only thing I could say
Speaker 2: on there during that phone call. But hours later, when
Speaker 2: I met with a family member and an attorney, I
Speaker 2: went into much more detail. And back then somebody, you know,
Speaker 2: one of them said, we were afraid of this because
Speaker 2: they knew what Suffolk County's history was, and they knew
Speaker 2: that once I was isolated, that this was bound to happen.
Speaker 1: Wow, And and what was it like to understand that
Speaker 1: you've been lied to by these authority figures right by
Speaker 1: these police officers. When you grew up trusting, I.
Speaker 2: Mean back then, it was still this disbelief. I mean
Speaker 2: it was almost like I was on Twilight Zone. There
Speaker 2: was no way that I could be waking up that
Speaker 2: should have been one of the best days of my
Speaker 2: life to literally turning into a living hell. That destroyed
Speaker 2: my life, my family's life, the community for you know,
Speaker 2: for years, and nobody should ever go through this. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is I mean, just because they lied to me.
Speaker 2: You know, if you didn't lie, if you did your job,
Speaker 2: if you told the truth, if you would have just
Speaker 2: electronically recorded we went out in that room, I may
Speaker 2: not have spent almost eighteen years in prison.
Speaker 1: Senator I want to bring you in now, as is
Speaker 1: Senator Robert Peters from Illinois.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess the best way to react to
Speaker 5: this is what happened to Marty's damn shame and I'm
Speaker 5: sorry that you had to go through that, Marty. And
Speaker 5: what is so painful is that it's not surprising. We
Speaker 5: see this all the time. They look at you and
Speaker 5: they say, you're young, you don't really know any better,
Speaker 5: You're in a state of crisis, and they, instead of
Speaker 5: caring about figuring out what happened in this moment of
Speaker 5: pain and trauma. They became assured of their own answer.
Speaker 5: And so you know, the bill that you know I'm
Speaker 5: carrying in the Senate is built off of the fact
Speaker 5: that countless people roughly the same age as Marty or younger. Now,
Speaker 5: this happens to older folks, but the reason why young
Speaker 5: folks are targeted is because there's a power dynamic at
Speaker 5: play and limitation and how many rights you actually have
Speaker 5: or understand to have. And it's not about people's safety,
Speaker 5: and it's not about trying to solve or figure out
Speaker 5: the trauma that's happened. And at some point it becomes
Speaker 5: 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 Suffolk County, New York, right where this happened
Speaker 1: to you. But of course we know of hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of cases of false confession around the country, one
Speaker 1: hundred alone in Illinois, one hundred and fifty when you
Speaker 1: combine Illinois and New York, and those numbers are all
Speaker 1: in all probability, just the tip of the iceberg. Because
Speaker 1: these cases are just now starting to come to light. Marty,
Speaker 1: you heard the senator talk about the need to ban
Speaker 1: live about the evidence in the interrogation room. Does what
Speaker 1: he said resonate with you?
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you Senator for trying to push
Speaker 2: this legislation through, because more, Marie time does have to
Speaker 2: be protected. You know, I think about how challenging it
Speaker 2: was for me, and I think about all the young
Speaker 2: men and women in minority communities, the abuse that I
Speaker 2: went through. I can't even fathom what someone else goes
Speaker 2: through in a regular basis.
Speaker 3: It's me.
Speaker 2: This legislation has to be passed. I mean universally, it
Speaker 2: has to be passed.
Speaker 1: So at this point I want to bring in my
Speaker 1: good friend Dave Thompson, who's here with us as well.
Speaker 1: Dave is the president of Wick Landers Zulawski. You train
Speaker 1: police across the country and across the globe, and you've
Speaker 1: also conducted a few interrogations yourself. Dave, how many would
Speaker 1: you say you've done?
Speaker 4: Yeah, quite a few hundred interrogations, I'd say, Laura, kind
Speaker 4: of across multiple sectors and across multiple jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: Wow, So there really is no one better for me?
Speaker 1: To ask, then do cops really need to lie during interrogations?
Speaker 4: No, there's other methods that they can be trained in
Speaker 4: which we can discuss the law needs to change, and
Speaker 4: we also know it increases the fear of innocent people
Speaker 4: like Marty just describe, and for detectives who are investigating
Speaker 4: somebody who is a guilty subject who does confess to
Speaker 4: a crime, but they used a tactic like this, all
Speaker 4: that does is potentially contaminate that confession and maybe jeopardize
Speaker 4: the reliability of a true confession as well. So it's
Speaker 4: really a very high risk, low reward strategy.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if police officers don't need to lie, then
Speaker 1: why do they do it?
Speaker 4: I think the simple answer is that's how they've been
Speaker 4: trained and that's what they're allowed to do. It's not investigators,
Speaker 4: for the most part, doing something that they feel is
Speaker 4: unethical or unwarranted. If they're doing something that they've used
Speaker 4: for decades, they've been trained in that technique and maybe
Speaker 4: unaware of the negative implications this technique has on both
Speaker 4: innocent subjects and to the reliability of a true confession.
Speaker 4: So if we look at what's the REOs cause, what's
Speaker 4: the reason that we lie about evidence in the first place,
Speaker 4: and it's because if that evidence doesn't exist, we have
Speaker 4: this bias or this belief that the person sitting in
Speaker 4: front of us is the guilty party, but the evidence
Speaker 4: isn't there, which means we don't have enough to actually
Speaker 4: prove they're the guilty party. So we rely on this
Speaker 4: fictitious piece of information to persuade the suspect to tell
Speaker 4: us they're guilty and versus let the investigation stand on
Speaker 4: its own. And even furthermore, you know, innocent people they
Speaker 4: hear that there's this perspective of evidence. Right if I said,
Speaker 4: and an arson case, you know, we have video footage
Speaker 4: of you starting the fire, and that doesn't exist, an
Speaker 4: innocent person might think, well, I hope they have video
Speaker 4: footage because it'll clear my name. So almost that fictitious
Speaker 4: presentation of evidence incentivizes an innocent person to just say, fine,
Speaker 4: yeah I did it, because they hope that evidence will
Speaker 4: prove that they didn't, just to kind of find out
Speaker 4: that evidence doesn't exist in the first place. So I
Speaker 4: think Marty brought up one fact that investigators said, hair right,
Speaker 4: his hair in his mother's hand. And so let's say
Speaker 4: in a confession, somebody like Marty says, well, yeah, I
Speaker 4: guess you know, she must have grabbed my hair during
Speaker 4: whatever whatever happened. Now, the subject giving that information and
Speaker 4: a confession, did they say that because they were actually
Speaker 4: part of the crime they remember that happening, Or did
Speaker 4: they say that because that's what the investigators fact fed
Speaker 4: to them during the interview. So they're just agreeing to it.
Speaker 4: When you have somebody of a youthful age, they're looking
Speaker 4: at how do I escape this immediate situation and get
Speaker 4: back to safety. And that's what results in the false
Speaker 4: confession is I have faith that this evidence is going
Speaker 4: to prove my innocence to be true. Let me say
Speaker 4: whatever I need to get the hell out of the
Speaker 4: room and get back to safety, and let let the
Speaker 4: lawyers figure it out afterwards. Unfortunately, we see what that
Speaker 4: has turned into.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that when people sign up to be
Speaker 1: police officers, right when they joined police forces, they want
Speaker 1: to be the good guys. And then at a certain point,
Speaker 1: police officers who become interrogators learn that as a part
Speaker 1: of their job they're expected to lie. Are there some
Speaker 1: cops out there who maybe aren't come struggle with that.
Speaker 4: First of all, the goal and most investigators are well
Speaker 4: intended to try to represent a victim or a victim's family,
Speaker 4: or whoever might have been harmed in one of these cases.
Speaker 4: And so when you go into an investigation or an
Speaker 4: interrogation and you have this predisposed belief of who the
Speaker 4: guilty suspect is, and you've been trained that lying about
Speaker 4: evidence is a strategical way to get to a confession,
Speaker 4: then yeah, that's what a lot of officers are focused on. However,
Speaker 4: I think there's an overwhelming discomfort, especially with new detectives,
Speaker 4: to be put into a position where their own integrity
Speaker 4: is and jeopardy where they know, if I lie to
Speaker 4: somebody about the evidence today, what does that do for
Speaker 4: my credibility tomorrow. I think there's a overwhelming support of
Speaker 4: law enforcement for more clear direction and distinction about what
Speaker 4: should be done so we can still solve cases, but
Speaker 4: do it in the most ethical and scientifically based way.
Speaker 1: Tell me, Dave, what does an interrogation look like if
Speaker 1: you take away lies about the evidence.
Speaker 4: It looks like asking open ended questions, a conversation where
Speaker 4: the investigator doesn't have a goal of a confession, but
Speaker 4: has a goal of obtaining actionable, reliable information less of
Speaker 4: having confirmation bias and tunnel vision non coersive evidence based
Speaker 4: interview methods that are progressively gaining traction across the United States.
Speaker 1: Senator, I want to go back to you for just
Speaker 1: one minute. You've introduced this bill, of course, in your
Speaker 1: home state of Illinois, and you're in great company because
Speaker 1: there are similar bills that have been introduced in New York,
Speaker 1: where Marty is from, and in Oregon as well, other
Speaker 1: bills that would ban lying about the evidence in the
Speaker 1: interrogation room. What does it mean to you to be
Speaker 1: part of this national ground swell for change?
Speaker 5: Wow? So I think that I always think like when
Speaker 5: you try to make changes to something systemic, you can't
Speaker 5: just go it alone. And so to me, it's not
Speaker 5: just having it be Illinois, New York, or organ but
Speaker 5: to see it across the country.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: But I also think it's just important that if we
Speaker 5: can do this in Illinois, a complex state, same with Oregon,
Speaker 5: same with New York, other states should try to follow
Speaker 5: and do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I think that's well said. And Dave in how many
Speaker 1: states is deception used during interrogations?
Speaker 4: I mean the Supreme court law is allowing it to
Speaker 4: be used across the United States. We've seen a lot
Speaker 4: of jurisdictions starting to move forward away from that proactively. Right,
Speaker 4: we can start training officers now, and we have been
Speaker 4: on methods that you don't need to use those tactics,
Speaker 4: and we start to look outside the United States.
Speaker 3: You know, the UK has.
Speaker 4: Banned deception for decades in their interview models. Canada has
Speaker 4: been moving away from it. So this is not a
Speaker 4: new problem by any means. It's just finally a solution
Speaker 4: to that problem.
Speaker 3: I think it is.
Speaker 1: It's a free, groundbreaking solution to this problem. Senator, you
Speaker 1: have introduced Illinois Senate Bill twenty one, which would ban
Speaker 1: deception in the interrogation room. Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: How can people get involved in supporting your effort to
Speaker 1: ban deception.
Speaker 5: Let's put pressure on legislators. Let's shine a light on
Speaker 5: Illinois as a model for rarely, whether that's Montana or Florida,
Speaker 5: take this bill as piece of model legislation and say
Speaker 5: that this is something that needs to happen in New states.
Speaker 5: So let me repeat that Montana or Florida should have
Speaker 5: their own version of this bill.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, People can follow you on social media. Senator
Speaker 1: Robert Peters is your name. They can follow me at
Speaker 1: Laura and I Writer on Twitter or Instagram for tips
Speaker 1: on how to get involved in supporting the Illinois effort,
Speaker 1: as well as the crucial New York and Oregon efforts
Speaker 1: as well. Marty, I want to let you close this out.
Speaker 1: You've been extraordinarily successful despite all of these odds stacked
Speaker 1: against you in your life. Since your exoneration, You've become
Speaker 1: a practicing attorney, you have become an adjunct professor. I
Speaker 1: You've become an inspiration for change. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today on this podcast. What does
Speaker 1: it mean to you that your story can and has
Speaker 1: inspired people like Dave, people like Senator Peters to fight
Speaker 1: for real change.
Speaker 2: I just want to say two things very quickly. One
Speaker 2: is that when you entirely get an innocent person, you
Speaker 2: get a false confession and you arrest them, you've allowed
Speaker 2: the criminal party to remain free to commit additional crimes
Speaker 2: on our community. And you know, this bill should be
Speaker 2: highlighted that it's not just about the coercion, it's really
Speaker 2: about the safety of everyone involved. And you know, if
Speaker 2: my voice can help make change somewhere, then you know,
Speaker 2: maybe my suffering was meant to be somewhere.
Speaker 3: As weird as it sounds.
Speaker 2: But there really shouldn't be any more Marti tank lifts
Speaker 2: there are. You know, very few people get to suffer
Speaker 2: the way I have and be able to achieve what
Speaker 2: I've been able to achieve, you know, And for me,
Speaker 2: it's about education. It's about retraining and refocusing everyone's perspectives
Speaker 2: on the system. In thak you to Senator Peters and
Speaker 2: Dave Thompson. We're making a difference. And you know, if
Speaker 2: we can make a change in Illinois, we can do
Speaker 2: it universally and we can protect our kids. And just
Speaker 2: to make the record clear, I'm an adjunct professor Georgetown
Speaker 2: not Law School, and I teach the class that Georgetown
Speaker 2: is nicknamed making an exonery where we use undergraduate students
Speaker 2: to reinvestigate cases. And what's amazing is some of those
Speaker 2: students have been through tragedies that we've spoken about today,
Speaker 2: either directly or indirectly. And to me, that's the next
Speaker 2: generation of freedom fighters for us.
Speaker 1: Well. Inspired by you, Marty very much, and by you
Speaker 1: Senator Peters, and by you Dave Thank you all so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. It has been a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 1: Best of luck with everything that each one of you
Speaker 1: is doing to change the world, make a difference, like
Speaker 1: Marty says, and most importantly, make sure that we're advancing
Speaker 1: this fight against wrongful convictions.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you, Lura.
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 to 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 Innocenceproject dot org, slash pledge, or
Speaker 1: tweet your support to the Illinois Senate Democrats at ill
Speaker 1: send deems that's il s E n d e MS
Speaker 1: to learn how to support similar efforts in New York,
Speaker 1: Oregon and other states. You can also follow me at
Speaker 1: Laura and I Wrider on Instagram or Twitter. Be well everyone,
Speaker 1: and thanks again to our guests. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one. Special thanks to our executive
Speaker 1: producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: by Riva Goldberg and Connor Hall. Followed the show on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction