Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolute shambles, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, just absolutely really heavant blood on
Speaker 1: his clothing the day after the alleged detemp.
Speaker 2: On a shallow mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think most of the people are used.
Speaker 2: To me, there are good people. I think a really
Speaker 2: important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous
Speaker 2: prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 1: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 1: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 1: Amy Maguire.
Speaker 2: And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign
Speaker 2: Prisoner Support Service. Our producer is Paul Watts. Music by
Speaker 2: Clint Curtis and produced in collaboration with the Brisbane Indigenous
Speaker 2: Media Association. And a warning, this series contains the names
Speaker 2: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might said
Speaker 2: some listeners. Now another reminder, if you're joining us for
Speaker 2: the first time in this episode, you might want to
Speaker 2: go back and start from the beginning because there's a
Speaker 2: lot of information that we've covered in the first three
Speaker 2: installments of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Last week we told you about Kevin Henry's confession. It's
Speaker 1: the only thing that really ties Kevin to Linda's death. Remember,
Speaker 1: Linda's official cause of death was drowning, and she was
Speaker 1: found on the opposite side of Tanuba House on the
Speaker 1: racecourse side of the river two kilometers downstream. Before she
Speaker 1: was placed in the Fitzroy River, she was victim to
Speaker 1: a horrific assault perpetrated by three women and witnessed by
Speaker 1: about twenty people, including Kevin. Now, in the last episode,
Speaker 1: we read out an excerpt of Kevin's confession, which was
Speaker 1: recorded in the Rock Campden Police station by Senior Constable
Speaker 1: Leslie Girk and Senior Constable Robert Hunt.
Speaker 2: In this episode, we're going to continue looking at Kevin's confession,
Speaker 2: and we'll be doing that with a very special guest.
Speaker 2: But before we introduce him, let's go back and stick
Speaker 2: with us to two thousand and two, the Academy Awards
Speaker 2: or Oscars over in America and ASCAR.
Speaker 1: Nominee in nineteen ninety seven for his performance in pulp fiction,
Speaker 1: Samuel L.
Speaker 4: Jackson. You've just seen powerful evidence of how a documentary
Speaker 4: can chronicle, illuminate, or move a people to action. One
Speaker 4: of the following documentary features has been selected to join
Speaker 4: their company.
Speaker 2: That's Glenn Close introducing Samuel L. Jackson, who was announcing
Speaker 2: the winner of that year's Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Speaker 4: And the Oscar Goals Too Murder on a Sunday Morning.
Speaker 1: Now, later in the episode, we're going to be joined
Speaker 1: by one of the stars of that documentary, Patrick McGinnis,
Speaker 1: a public defender in Florida who is expert in tearing
Speaker 1: apart forced confessions.
Speaker 2: But first, we thought we'd start this episode with a
Speaker 2: very simple experiment. I thought I would try it out
Speaker 2: on Amy I rang her earlier in the week. Have
Speaker 2: you got a pen and paper?
Speaker 1: I've got yeah, I've got yes, I got paper, Okay, cool.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it's going to work. Is normally
Speaker 2: the way this read technique works because you actually need
Speaker 2: to be sitting there. But so, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it will work over the phone.
Speaker 1: We're going to at least try.
Speaker 2: We're going to try. So you've got a pen and paper, yep,
Speaker 2: and we're recording. Yeah, okay, write down the numbers one, two, three, four. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: write down the name of a vegetable and tell me what.
Speaker 1: It is now, oh, carrot?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and pick a letter from the alphabet pretty quickly,
Speaker 2: and not J and R. Okay, what was that? H? Okay?
Speaker 2: And of those numbers one, two, and three four, circle
Speaker 2: one of the numbers? Yep? Which one did you circle two?
Speaker 1: After I'd done that, Martin had me sign into a
Speaker 1: joint Gmail account because as I was writing down my answers,
Speaker 1: he was also predicting what I was going to write. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just signing into the Gmail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, you're in yep. Okay. Now it would be
Speaker 2: pretty easy for me to have sent you something. So
Speaker 2: go now to the trash trash, Yeah, what's in the
Speaker 2: trash can?
Speaker 1: To carrot? H?
Speaker 2: And what did you write down to carrot? H?
Speaker 1: But did you just write that? When did you write that?
Speaker 2: As I was asking you the question?
Speaker 1: Really, because I don't understand how you did that?
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 2: It's very easy. So I did it to Mum beforehand,
Speaker 2: but people can do it at time, and it's very simple.
Speaker 2: It's basically just word tricks to get someone to give
Speaker 2: an answer you want. And the reason you do that
Speaker 2: it has nothing to do with the answers you've given.
Speaker 2: Most people pick A or h N of people.
Speaker 3: Pick carrot, are you serious?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And left handers tend to pick two, and right
Speaker 2: handers tend to pick three. Are you left or right? Oh?
Speaker 1: A right hand?
Speaker 2: Okay, So that's okay. So normally what you would do
Speaker 2: is you start with the carrot type one and that's
Speaker 2: all you need because the reason you do that in
Speaker 2: an interrogation, it's called a bluff. And what you're bluffing
Speaker 2: is that I know things that I don't know that
Speaker 2: can't be true, but I'm getting you to think I
Speaker 2: know it, and because it's come from your mouth, but
Speaker 2: I know it, I'm just hiding your level of anxiety.
Speaker 2: So now what I know I can do is I
Speaker 2: can lie to you and I can make you believe
Speaker 2: those lies, so I can feed you information and have
Speaker 2: you repeating them thinking that they're your own answers.
Speaker 1: So you told me you led me to pick those answers.
Speaker 2: I led you to pick those answers. And so now
Speaker 2: when I lead the interview, and we know Kevin did
Speaker 2: this in terms of giving yes or no answers, if
Speaker 2: I lead you to a question, and all I need
Speaker 2: you to do is say yes. Suddenly, that becomes a
Speaker 2: very easy way of extracting a confession. Now, that tactic
Speaker 2: I just used on Amy was one of the read
Speaker 2: interrogation techniques. They're widely used in North America, but have
Speaker 2: come under a great deal of scrutiny because of concerns
Speaker 2: they lead to false confessions. We told you previously about
Speaker 2: the rates of false confessions in the United States. Now
Speaker 2: we aren't saying that this technique was used on Kevin,
Speaker 2: but in it you see how susceptible any person is
Speaker 2: to this type of interrogation technique. We don't know what
Speaker 2: happened to Kevin before the tape began rolling and during
Speaker 2: and when they stopped the tape twice. You, as a
Speaker 2: listener would have probably come up with your own interpretation
Speaker 2: based on the transcript of Kevin's confession. Today, we're going
Speaker 2: to give you a little more background to the history
Speaker 2: of false confessions. And we're doing that with Pat McGinnis,
Speaker 2: who was the public defender featured in Murder on a
Speaker 2: Sunday Morning.
Speaker 5: I'm Pat McGuinness and I defended people charged with killing people.
Speaker 1: Murder on a Sunday Morning documented the trial of Brenton Butler,
Speaker 1: an African American teenager who was picked up while walking
Speaker 1: to put in a job application on a Sunday morning
Speaker 1: and then charged with the murder of a white tourist
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, Florida. He was falsely identified by the husband
Speaker 1: of the victim as being the perpetrator and then later
Speaker 1: forced to sign a statement confessing to the crime. Before
Speaker 1: that it was establishing court that he had been punched
Speaker 1: and intimidated by a cop prior to giving that statement.
Speaker 2: Brenton was acquitted as the charge, and another man was
Speaker 2: later convicted based on a tip sent to Pat McGinnis,
Speaker 2: a personally being very inspired by mister McGinnis's legal worker
Speaker 2: over the years, all stemming from that documentary. Now we
Speaker 2: contacted Pat because the issue of false confession formed a
Speaker 2: central part of murder on a Sunday Morning. But when
Speaker 2: we contacted him, we found he had several other cases
Speaker 2: that more closely fit Kevin's case. Rang him at his
Speaker 2: Florida office earlier this week and apologies for the sound
Speaker 2: quality of this recording.
Speaker 3: Patrick McGinnis, thank you for joining us Son Kurt in
Speaker 3: the podcast.
Speaker 5: Must we commend the care.
Speaker 3: It's well known to many Australians who follow Prime Documentary's
Speaker 3: Crime series about your work on murder on a Sunday
Speaker 3: morning in the Brenton Butler case. But I was wondering
Speaker 3: if you could tell us more about the work you've done,
Speaker 3: not just on that case, but other cases that involve
Speaker 3: false confessions.
Speaker 2: Certainly, there's a.
Speaker 5: Topic that's interested me greatly. For over thirty years. During
Speaker 5: the course of my career, I've been involved in the
Speaker 5: representation of between four and five hundred try to be homocide.
Speaker 5: During that time a fair number of what I would
Speaker 5: call false confessions. They come in a variety of summer
Speaker 5: confessions which are given simply a result of pusion by
Speaker 5: the interrogating authorities, and some, because of the efficacy of
Speaker 5: their efforts, are actually come to believe recently in the
Speaker 5: truthfulness of the actual confession of Vegre, which are in
Speaker 5: fact false. Because of that, I've studied the area somewhat
Speaker 5: and try to stay a breast of developments and research
Speaker 5: in the area, and a number of the social science
Speaker 5: authors have fortunately been writing on it in the last
Speaker 5: two decades.
Speaker 3: And can you tell me when you come across a
Speaker 3: statement or a case, is there anything that tips you
Speaker 3: off for is there something primarily you look for in
Speaker 3: a confession or a statement that suggests to you something's
Speaker 3: not wrong.
Speaker 5: Well, for me, the most telling and obvious is is
Speaker 5: there a conflict between a statement that obtained and the
Speaker 5: demonstrable physical evidence. When people are trying to please their interrogators,
Speaker 5: they don't make statements. But unless the police, which is
Speaker 5: not uncommon, feed than information about defense, they will often
Speaker 5: get factual matters wrong. I mean, I have a case
Speaker 5: not long ago or fortunately an American law its detectives
Speaker 5: to lie during interrogation to tender's evidence that there is not.
Speaker 5: And they took the stngman of substandard intelligence. They questioned
Speaker 5: him over a period of say seventeen hours. They told
Speaker 5: him that they had DNA which implicated him there has
Speaker 5: other bits of evidence, and he came to believe that
Speaker 5: they were correct because they gave him a mechanism for
Speaker 5: you know, they told him he had likely had a
Speaker 5: blackout and said he's been drinking and so on, and
Speaker 5: he came to believe what they were telling him. But
Speaker 5: he couldn't get a single fact about the killing correct.
Speaker 5: On the tape, they take a topographical map, and they say, well,
Speaker 5: shows where it happened, and he points to the electric
Speaker 5: substation with no Peter, you know that or not? And
Speaker 5: he points to the parking lot and they say no, Peter,
Speaker 5: and then they pick his hand up and bring it
Speaker 5: down the map behind the hospitals and we could buy
Speaker 5: that and that sort of feeding information when he clearly
Speaker 5: doesn't know what's going on. They asked him howie builder
Speaker 5: and the whore around with my fist, and they responded, Peter,
Speaker 5: you know that or not? If he just looks at them, nonplussing.
Speaker 2: Us a rock.
Speaker 5: And that's one instance. I've had many other cases where
Speaker 5: if there was a false confession, the evidence doesn't match up.
Speaker 5: In one arson case with seven dead, my client gave
Speaker 5: an elaborate story about where a non purchase kerosene and
Speaker 5: and come back to this hotel and seat of the plant.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately for the police, it wasn't a kerosene that was
Speaker 5: used as an excellant in that fire.
Speaker 3: Right, And I'm wondering, can you tell me in your
Speaker 3: experience what percentage of these false confessions take place with
Speaker 3: no lawyer prison virtually.
Speaker 5: All of them, and the attorney would generally never permit
Speaker 5: them to engage in the tactics which illicit false confessions.
Speaker 5: In most instances, police use some variation of what's called
Speaker 5: the read taken, which is a very old, time tested
Speaker 5: methods for getting interrogated or confessions. The problem, of course,
Speaker 5: is that it will get confessions from people who are
Speaker 5: not only guilty, but also from people who are innocent,
Speaker 5: and they use recognizing technique clams. They want to isolate
Speaker 5: the suspect from any source of assistances such as an attorney.
Speaker 5: They during the course of the interrogation will absolutely and
Speaker 5: repeatedly reject any claim of innocence. They'll engage in deception,
Speaker 5: intimating or stating that there is evidence of the client's
Speaker 5: guilt which doesn't exist. They'll rely on stress and exhaustion,
Speaker 5: and essentially where the person is down to the point
Speaker 5: where they either want the interrogation to stop so badly
Speaker 5: because it's so overbearing and think they can maybe sorted
Speaker 5: out at a later date, or they may come to
Speaker 5: believe that their recollection is faulty because of this physical
Speaker 5: evidence police indicate to them exist as to their guilt,
Speaker 5: and that is key to the integration process, undermining the
Speaker 5: subject's confidence in their own claim unocence.
Speaker 3: Right, And I was wondering too if you could tell
Speaker 3: us often police will write down the statement for a person.
Speaker 3: It's something everyone who's seen murder on a Sunday morning
Speaker 3: will be aware of. Often the words and not actually
Speaker 3: the words of the person who's allegedly giving the statement,
Speaker 3: but those of the police.
Speaker 2: How much of a factor is that they teach forces.
Speaker 5: On this to integrating officers they try, For instance, they
Speaker 5: have the error in assertion trick, which is where they
Speaker 5: actually write things down wrong, either if that's telling or
Speaker 5: some aspects of the statement. They're time through it a
Speaker 5: couple of times each page, and then when they get
Speaker 5: the client to sign it, they have them initial all
Speaker 5: the changes on those alleged errors to make it seem
Speaker 5: as though he actually read it and understood it and
Speaker 5: corrected it one. In fact, that's just their technique. They
Speaker 5: are told, and I'm going right now from the LAPD
Speaker 5: Police manual. Operate on the principle of you did it,
Speaker 5: We know you did it, we have overwhelming evidence to
Speaker 5: prove you did it, but the reason makes a difference,
Speaker 5: So why don't you tell me about it? So they
Speaker 5: start with the assumption of guilt and the work hours,
Speaker 5: frequently using a variety of techniques, including actual physical portion
Speaker 5: but also psychological portion, threats about the penalties that may
Speaker 5: be involved, or promises about the possibility of bond or
Speaker 5: a lenient sentence, and they often will either do it
Speaker 5: themselves or have a client put in actual matters in
Speaker 5: the written statement that ultimately he proved to be demonsterly
Speaker 5: faults because they are operating on that information at the
Speaker 5: time they questioned them.
Speaker 2: In in case of.
Speaker 5: Mission going to go the parson, they believed it was kerosene,
Speaker 5: and so they had the clients put it in there
Speaker 5: on the tax It was not right.
Speaker 3: So I'm wondering as well. One thing that comes up
Speaker 3: quite frequently when we're talking about false confessions and trying
Speaker 3: to explain it to the public is many people say
Speaker 3: to us, well, I would never confess to something I
Speaker 3: didn't do. I'm sure it's something you've heard. Could you
Speaker 3: explain to people why that's just not the case. I
Speaker 3: know you've gone over the methods that law enforcement often use,
Speaker 3: but I guess can you explain to the general public
Speaker 3: why their resertion or assumption that if they were arrested
Speaker 3: for something they didn't do. They claim they would just
Speaker 3: not ever confess, And yet here we have all these
Speaker 3: confessions that are clearly false.
Speaker 5: Well, what happens is, as a masonary they auate the
Speaker 5: individual from any sources support the consumption in a very
Speaker 5: aggressive fashion, often meddling accusations, and in getting there a
Speaker 5: certain the results of threats about in a placement in beginning, well,
Speaker 5: this is intentionally yeah, in the beginning of life, this
Speaker 5: is merely an accident. Be much less. Well, use threats, inducements,
Speaker 5: physical intimidation, will feign sympathy. They'll provide moral justifications, such
Speaker 5: as an a rate case so that they also dressed
Speaker 5: like a tart or something like that. They are working
Speaker 5: continuously on the weekend the subject's resistance. And of course
Speaker 5: some people are more susceptible to read interrogation tactics than others.
Speaker 5: That's particularly true of those that you know intellect retardation,
Speaker 5: who are compliant or acquiesce in to authority, generally juvenile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess would you include the long would you
Speaker 3: include illiteracy in that?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Because in the case we're discussing on curtain the podcast,
Speaker 3: the client Kevin Henry is illiterate and yet somehow read
Speaker 3: himself the pages and pages of statements and signed them
Speaker 3: to be accurate, which seems quite fanciful. Another question I
Speaker 3: really wanted to ask you about, giving your years of expertise,
Speaker 3: is what do you think of the prosecutors who take
Speaker 3: these confessions to try, often as one of the sole
Speaker 3: pieces of evidence, often the only piece of evidence against
Speaker 3: the accused. I'm not sure how much you can say
Speaker 3: about that, but do you have an opinion on the
Speaker 3: other side? I guess who do put someone's life on
Speaker 3: the line and in the hands of a jury, surely
Speaker 3: seeing the same holes that you do in the confession,
Speaker 3: I have fairly.
Speaker 5: Strong feelings on it. But the fact that many times
Speaker 5: the pastors in these cases are relying on the police,
Speaker 5: and in good seats at least initially believe what the
Speaker 5: police are selling them. And of course it's easy to
Speaker 5: do that because they are each other's greatest clients. Prost
Speaker 5: furious can't function without the assistance of police, and the
Speaker 5: police are useless without the past purious, so they have
Speaker 5: an offensive to overlook and mistakes and so on in
Speaker 5: each other's work. Where a prosecutor has no corroborating to
Speaker 5: his glovenments a statement in comparatory statement, they think under
Speaker 5: circumstances that indicate some degree of court and I think
Speaker 5: they are ethically bound. It's a big much harder before
Speaker 5: they present that to a jury.
Speaker 3: Most of them do not right, And I was wondering
Speaker 3: as well, again given you years of experience here and
Speaker 3: as again, not to labor the point, but our listeners
Speaker 3: will know. I'm a big fan of your work and
Speaker 3: also of the documentary that covers just one case. What
Speaker 3: do you make of the law enforcement officers who extract
Speaker 3: these confessions and are there any standout features or similarities
Speaker 3: many of them may have who participate in this sort
Speaker 3: of unethical and irresponsible work.
Speaker 5: The detectives that I have met that engage in these
Speaker 5: sort of things, they often commit themselves of the correctness
Speaker 5: of their position, and as a consequence that prepared to
Speaker 5: stretch the truth of our outright lie to pain the
Speaker 5: result that they think the condition of the person they
Speaker 5: have determined to be the kilty. Frequently they will ignore
Speaker 5: any evidence, physical or testimonial, which would suggest the innoference
Speaker 5: of the client because it said oddous with their own views.
Speaker 5: Will they will detegrate important physical evidence simply because it's
Speaker 5: not in harmony with their periy of the case. They
Speaker 5: will if it's not recordedness, they will frequently falsify their
Speaker 5: claims as to the discussions which took place which were
Speaker 5: not taped. And generally, if they have developed these techniques,
Speaker 5: it will show up in more than one case over
Speaker 5: a period of time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Also, I know this is something you've worked on professionally
Speaker 3: and clearly an interest of your own as well, And
Speaker 3: that's something you speak on too, is that how can
Speaker 3: we sife gouds against these false confessions ever occurring? And
Speaker 3: what measures should the community be calling to be put
Speaker 3: in place to prevent these things from happening.
Speaker 5: Well, I believe, first off, it's so inexpensive and using
Speaker 5: to do that. All police interrogations on major crimes should
Speaker 5: be videotaped from beginning to end. You're softening them up
Speaker 5: for a period of hours, no prior conversations, and get
Speaker 5: them in the interview room, start the tape and then
Speaker 5: take it so that everybody knows what happens, and that
Speaker 5: protects both the police and the clients. I think there
Speaker 5: should be protections for juvenile, they should not be questioned
Speaker 5: without the consent and assistance of their parents and lawn attorney.
Speaker 5: I don't know about Australia, but here in Florida, if
Speaker 5: a policeman is suspected of some wrong journey, if they
Speaker 5: are bad shooting, he will not ever give a statement
Speaker 5: until his union council is present. But we afford much
Speaker 5: less protection to the average citizen. The statement should be
Speaker 5: checked against forensic evenance carefully and actually. And where you
Speaker 5: have officers who have participated in in proper and course
Speaker 5: of technieks of introgation on the past, they should be
Speaker 5: compelled to the leather force to receive retraining.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, my funds. Absolutely. Just one final question. You've done
Speaker 3: some incredible work over decades. I think I'm just one
Speaker 3: of many legal advocates around the world that's been inspired
Speaker 3: by your work. I was wondering if you could tell
Speaker 3: us finally, what's your inspiration for keeping going? What's your
Speaker 3: motivating driver to keep taking these cases? That the odds
Speaker 3: are often stacked so heavily against your clients, but your
Speaker 3: record and your success speaks for itself. But why do
Speaker 3: you keep doing this and what are you hoping is
Speaker 3: the long term effect of your work and the legacy
Speaker 3: of your work.
Speaker 5: Well, the cases I take them for variety. In one
Speaker 5: of them, they are intellectually challenging to determine what the
Speaker 5: truth actually is, particularly when the deck is stacked against you.
Speaker 5: I having somewhat combative nature stuff it serves me well
Speaker 5: in dealing with some of the policemen that I have to.
Speaker 5: My clients throughout most of my career have been indigen
Speaker 5: or without funds, very often without education or resources of
Speaker 5: any sort, and it's desperately important, but somebody give voice
Speaker 5: for them because it's not They have no chance of
Speaker 5: achieving justice in the system that it's designed today. And
Speaker 5: I have a competitive nature, so the challenge is really
Speaker 5: quite important to me.
Speaker 3: Patrick McGinnis, thank you so much for your time and
Speaker 3: for sharing your expertise on the s sue with us today.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you for having me and I hope with
Speaker 5: some assistance and enlightening folks on the bottom of Paul's confession.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much here So Mardin having spoken to
Speaker 1: Pat McGinnis, did it change anything or your mind? I'll
Speaker 1: give you a new perspective on Kevin's case, particularly his confession.
Speaker 2: Well, I think, if anything, it's sort of reinfalled the
Speaker 2: concerns I've always had about Kevin's confession and the way
Speaker 2: it took place. We heard Pat talk about the lack
Speaker 2: of a lawyer being present that occurred for Kevin. We
Speaker 2: heard him talk about the techniques used. They might not
Speaker 2: be formalized in Australia like they are in America, but
Speaker 2: we certainly know anyone who's dealt in the justice system
Speaker 2: or even been arrested themselves, that these things occur. So
Speaker 2: there's certainly a lot there about his concerns about the
Speaker 2: way false confessions are extracted that I think took place
Speaker 2: in Kevin's case.
Speaker 1: Could you pull that maybe an example that Pat might
Speaker 1: have alluded to from his own experience that might have
Speaker 1: happened in Kevin's case.
Speaker 2: Well, we can see that there's aspects of the confession
Speaker 2: that Kevin gives that are just not accurate. He talks
Speaker 2: about things that can't possibly have happened based on the
Speaker 2: forensic evidence, the witness testimony, and their issues that Kevin
Speaker 2: has later recanted and maintained his innocence about. And so
Speaker 2: Pats talked about how often false information is given or
Speaker 2: used by police who are themselves unsure of the facts
Speaker 2: because they haven't worked out what was going on. And
Speaker 2: we see that glaringly in Kevin's case, where he's talking
Speaker 2: about Linda supposedly being close down to the river, when
Speaker 2: in fact we know the whole time that he's referring
Speaker 2: is actually up near to Uber House.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that was really interesting was
Speaker 1: talking about what leads to police doing these sort of confessions,
Speaker 1: because I think Australians tend to believe police are you
Speaker 1: upstanding people, They're not going to lie or anything like
Speaker 1: that unless you have a bad history with them. But
Speaker 1: just the idea of what sort of police actually going
Speaker 1: enforce these sort of confessions, I thought was very interesting.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we can definitely understand that in any
Speaker 2: police department anywhere in the world, you're going to have
Speaker 2: a large percentage of officers who are very good and
Speaker 2: do their job as anyone else would, and you're also
Speaker 2: going to have those who develop a behavior and a
Speaker 2: pattern of operating in a certain way that starts unethically
Speaker 2: and ends with false confessions and the wrong people being
Speaker 2: locked up. And a lot of that is based around
Speaker 2: their relationship to the particular individuals. In this case, we
Speaker 2: can look at the policing work done against Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: and the over policing in the United States, we see
Speaker 2: it against African American people, and it further continues down
Speaker 2: to where there's a level of arrogance, there's a level
Speaker 2: of they're going to get the one they want no
Speaker 2: matter what, and there's also becomes a willingness to lie
Speaker 2: to the witness and to do whatever's required to extract
Speaker 2: a confession or a statement that will prove their version
Speaker 2: of events or the things they want to prove to
Speaker 2: be true. And that culture is clearly toxic once it
Speaker 2: infects any police department, and we know that to be
Speaker 2: true right around the world, and we've heard Pat today
Speaker 2: talk about that in his own state of Florida, and
Speaker 2: I think we'd be kidding ourselves to think it doesn't
Speaker 2: happen here in Australia.
Speaker 1: The idea that when they're entering the room was a
Speaker 1: suspect that there's already a presumption of guilt, So they're
Speaker 1: actually operating from a presumption of innocence but of guilt.
Speaker 1: So they're trying to obviously get a certain outcome, aren't they.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if they seem to be following almost
Speaker 1: a script in how they're trying to for a certain
Speaker 1: information out of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And I mean if you look at
Speaker 2: Pat McGinnis and his colleague and Fanew who worked on
Speaker 2: Brandon Butler's case together, they have over seventy years of
Speaker 2: experience in false confessions. And we've already heard from last
Speaker 2: week from other experts on false confessions, and we know
Speaker 2: that that's what happens. That in the courtroom, you might
Speaker 2: be innocent until proven guilty, but in the interrogation room,
Speaker 2: you're guilty until you admit your guilt. And so there
Speaker 2: is a constant push by the police officers doing these
Speaker 2: questioning to get that individual to confess, and they're willing
Speaker 2: to get a confession clearly that doesn't even match the
Speaker 2: forensic evidence. And when you start by questioning a person
Speaker 2: focused only on guilt and establishing their guilt, you miss
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of the truth. In miss all the
Speaker 2: inaccurate information, you push a person who is possibly innocent
Speaker 2: into being guilty, and you miss the person that could
Speaker 2: in fact be the guilty party.
Speaker 1: We started this podcast episode with you doing an experiment
Speaker 1: on me, and obviously it worked on me. And I'm
Speaker 1: a journalist being I write a lot, so I have
Speaker 1: a high level of literacy. But for someone and you
Speaker 1: mentioned it to Pat, for someone who is illiterate and
Speaker 1: in that sort of environment, it's very easy for me
Speaker 1: to see how they're more susceptible to these sort of tactics.
Speaker 1: And Pat even talked about the read interrogation technique as well,
Speaker 1: So it's almost as if anyone could be vulnerable to
Speaker 1: these sort of tactics if they were in the side
Speaker 1: of the law. They are in the side of the
Speaker 1: law for a crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a misconception. We need to clear
Speaker 2: up that. A lot of people say I just would
Speaker 2: never confess to something I didn't do well. It's not
Speaker 2: as simple as that. You can be tricked, as I
Speaker 2: tricked you into making those errors or leading down the
Speaker 2: path I want you to. You're under a huge amount
Speaker 2: of duress and stress because you're being talked to about
Speaker 2: a murder and a horrific assault. We also know that
Speaker 2: if someone has illiteracy issues or lower IQ or a
Speaker 2: whole other issues, but in Kevin's case, someone who left
Speaker 2: school early, that when he's being asked when the tape
Speaker 2: is off to read his own statement and sign it.
Speaker 2: He's got no idea what he's actually reading or putting
Speaker 2: his name to. It also means that the police can
Speaker 2: write things down and present them to him as if
Speaker 2: they're factual documents, and he has no way of checking them.
Speaker 2: And they could be other witness statements, they could be
Speaker 2: pieces of information that have already been established about facts
Speaker 2: in the case, and they may or may not be accurate,
Speaker 2: and Kevin has no way of establishing that. So it
Speaker 2: becomes incredibly difficult for a person in Kevin's situation to
Speaker 2: do anything but to go along with what's happening and
Speaker 2: just try and get out of there.
Speaker 1: And I guess we talked. When you talk to Pat,
Speaker 1: you were talking more broadly, and he was using his
Speaker 1: own experience that I guess a lot of our listeners
Speaker 1: might be thinking, how can you even bring this back
Speaker 1: to Kevin? What's been established so far? Has it even
Speaker 1: been established that there are questions to be raised about
Speaker 1: how the police acted in this specific case?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the fact that Kevin has maintained his
Speaker 2: innocence for twenty five years would suggest that the confession
Speaker 2: he allegedly makes is not one he's ever stood by
Speaker 2: other than at the moment he gave it under duress
Speaker 2: in that interview room. We also know he said things
Speaker 2: in that alleged confession that just don't match up with
Speaker 2: the facts, and Pat talked about that as being a
Speaker 2: key indicator of a false confession. The other issue is
Speaker 2: that he never actually confesses to the crime of murder
Speaker 2: that he's convicted of. Even in the efforts to extract
Speaker 2: this confession or take this statement, whichever way you want
Speaker 2: to look at it, Kevin never gets to the part
Speaker 2: that supposedly makes it a confession. So there's a great
Speaker 2: deal of concern immediately about the statement he's made based
Speaker 2: on everything else we know from the trial, from other witnesses,
Speaker 2: and particularly from the forensic evidence.
Speaker 1: But where was that established? Where are we taking that from?
Speaker 1: How can we be certain?
Speaker 2: Well, we can be certain because that information and that
Speaker 2: evidence was presented in court. So we'll hear from forensic experts,
Speaker 2: we'll hear from eye witnesses, and we'll hear from the
Speaker 2: investigating police officers themselves, and that's all in the t
Speaker 2: but Kevin Henry.
Speaker 1: Next week we head from the interrogation room to the
Speaker 1: courtroom as Kevin goes to trial. That was episode four
Speaker 1: of Curtain for Now. You can catch up on iTunes
Speaker 1: by typing in Curtain the Podcast or go to our
Speaker 1: website www dot Curtin Thepodcast dot com.
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Speaker 2: Podcast