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#132 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Peter Reilly · Wrongful Conviction

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Speaker 1: Hi, This is Laura and I writer. Because of COVID nineteen,
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Speaker 1: Steve and I recorded this episode from our homes, not
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Speaker 1: together in the studio. We might sound a little difference,
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Speaker 1: but I think the story we tell is as inspirational
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Speaker 1: as always be well and stay healthy. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction,
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Speaker 1: False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer, and I'm Steve Drisen.
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Speaker 1: Today we're going to tell you our last story of
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Speaker 1: season one. It's about Peter Riley, one of the first
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Speaker 1: modern day false confessors. In nineteen seventy three, police interrogated
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Speaker 1: eighteen year old Peter until he started to believe he
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Speaker 1: was guilty of murdering his own mother, but Peter's friends
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Speaker 1: and neighbors believed in his innocence. Their small town campaign
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Speaker 1: for Peter's freedom was eventually joined by a host of
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Speaker 1: big name celebrities. Peter's story helped launch the movement against
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Speaker 1: wrongful convictions and false confessions.
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Speaker 2: Is buyers.
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Speaker 1: The work that Steve and I do to this day.
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Speaker 2: You know, the Peter Riley case was my baptism in
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Speaker 2: the world of false confessions. When I learned about Peter's case,
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Speaker 2: it was really the first time that I even knew
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Speaker 2: that it was possible for police officers, through their tactics,
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Speaker 2: to get an innocent person to confess to a crime
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Speaker 2: they didn't commit, and I was fascinated by it.
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Speaker 1: I know the feeling. For me. It was thirty years
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Speaker 1: later when I watched those tapes of Brendan Dazzy's false confession.
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Speaker 1: It's so easy to get hooked by these stories these people,
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Speaker 1: and you can't walk away.
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Speaker 2: Peter Riley was about five or six years older than me,
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Speaker 2: but we grew up in the same era in terms
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Speaker 2: of the kind of music that we liked. Peter was
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Speaker 2: very into classic rock, Pink Floyd, Jethrow Toll, and Peter
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Speaker 2: wore his hair long, very much in the same way
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Speaker 2: that I wore my hair, so I felt a connection
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Speaker 2: to Peter. I lived in a community not unlike Peter's,
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Speaker 2: where people knew each other through Little League or the
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Speaker 2: boy Scouts, where mothers watched out for each other's kids.
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Speaker 2: And the more I learned about Peter's story, the more
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Speaker 2: I began to understand that what happened to Peter very
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Speaker 2: easily could have happened to me. In addition to these
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Speaker 2: connections that I found with Peter, This was a case
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Speaker 2: in a part of the country which was the birthplace
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Speaker 2: of false confessions in the United States, the Salem Witch Trials.
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Speaker 2: It sent me on an exploration, a lifelong exploration, to
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Speaker 2: try to figure out why it is that people would
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Speaker 2: confess to crimes they didn't commit.
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Speaker 1: Peter's story begins in Falls Village, Connecticut, a tiny community
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Speaker 1: of five hundred people that's part of a larger town
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Speaker 1: called Canaan. If you've been to New England, Falls Village
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Speaker 1: is pretty classic, complete with rivers, horse farms, and covered bridges.
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Speaker 1: It's the kind of place where no one locks their doors,
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Speaker 1: where everyone looks out for each other. In September nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy three, leaves were turning color across Connecticut. An eighteen
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Speaker 1: year old Peter Riley had just begun his senior year
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Speaker 1: of high school. Peter was a skinny kid, just over
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Speaker 1: one hundred pounds, and an uninspired student whose real love
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Speaker 1: was his rock band. He lived in Falls Village in
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Speaker 1: a small cottage, just him and his mom, Barbara Gibbons. Now,
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Speaker 1: for lack of a better phrase, Barbara was the town eccentric.
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Speaker 1: She was highly educated, well read, and well traveled, but
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Speaker 1: she was also a single mother, which was a big
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Speaker 1: deal in nineteen seventy three, and she was a heavy drinker.
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Speaker 1: She had a reputation as someone who always spoke her mind,
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Speaker 1: even if it rubbed some people the wrong way. But
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Speaker 1: in Peter's eyes, his mother was someone brilliant who loved
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Speaker 1: and protected him, just like he loved and stood up
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Speaker 1: for her. It was the two of them against the world.
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Speaker 1: On the evening of Friday, September twenty eighth, Peter attends
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Speaker 1: a youth group meeting at the local church. He leaves
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Speaker 1: at about nine thirty pm and drives home, but when
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Speaker 1: he walks in the door, his world is turned upside down.
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Speaker 1: His mother is lying mostly unclothed on the bedroom floor.
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Speaker 1: Her throat's been cut so deeply she's nearly decapitated, and
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Speaker 1: she's been stabbed and beaten so badly that both of
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Speaker 1: her thigh bones are broken. Peter freezes, His instinct warns
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Speaker 1: him not to disturb this scene by touching the body. Instead,
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Speaker 1: he grabs the phone and makes a series of calls
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Speaker 1: to paramedics, hospitals, and doctors. A hospital worker calls the police,
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Speaker 1: and the cops show up within minutes. When the police arrive.
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Speaker 1: Peter's in shock he's just discovered his mother dead, but
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Speaker 1: the officers think Peter's being too calm and they begin
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Speaker 1: to suspect him. They take him into a neighbor's home
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Speaker 1: and strip search him. They're looking for scratches, cuts, bruises,
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Speaker 1: any indication that Peter had taken part in a brutal struggle,
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Speaker 1: but they find nothing. Peter's wearing jeans, a brown T shirt,
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Speaker 1: and gold sneakers, and a witness from the church confirms
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Speaker 1: that Peter's been wearing the same clothes all night. The
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Speaker 1: police examination finds no blood anywhere on his body, clothing,
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Speaker 1: or shoes, but the cops are still suspicious. They question
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Speaker 1: Peter in the back seat of a squad car. Then
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Speaker 1: they take him down to the station and hold him overnight.
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Speaker 1: Peter doesn't sleep at all, but the next morning he
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Speaker 1: has the presence of mind to ask for a polygraph.
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Speaker 1: The police give him one, but they tell him that
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Speaker 1: he failed the test, and when Peter's told that he failed,
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Speaker 1: he begins to doubt his own memory because he believes
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Speaker 1: polygraphs are infallible. Before too long, Peter begins to wonder
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Speaker 1: whether he might have killed his mother but somehow doesn't
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Speaker 1: remember it now, believe it or not. Police record the
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Speaker 1: interrogation on an old reel to reel machine, even though
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Speaker 1: they weren't legally required to do so in nineteen seventy three.
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Speaker 1: On tape, they egg Peter on and suggest that he
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Speaker 1: might have amnesia. They tell him sometimes when people commit
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Speaker 1: these crimes, the memories are so traumatic that people repress them,
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Speaker 1: and Peter Riley starts believing that he might be a murderer.
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Speaker 1: I believe I didn't now, he tells the police. But
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Speaker 1: I don't remember.
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Speaker 2: Peter says, over and over again, we got to keep digging, digging,
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Speaker 2: digging to get this information out of me. Because he
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Speaker 2: wants to know what this information is.
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Speaker 1: He asks the police for truth serum, and at another
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Speaker 1: point he even says, can you pound this out of me?
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Speaker 1: The police praise Peter for being willing to admit he
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Speaker 1: might be guilty. They tell him, we're not here to
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Speaker 1: punish you. Maybe you'll go to a mental hospital for
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Speaker 1: three months. Peter begins to feel like he's bonding with
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Speaker 1: his interrogators, like they're all working together to fill in
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Speaker 1: the blanks in his memory, and eventually their teamwork succeeds.
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Speaker 1: Peter had a straight razor at home, a small blade
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Speaker 1: that he used to make model airplanes. After hours of questioning,
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Speaker 1: he eventually says that he could have used that razor
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Speaker 1: to attack his mom. He adds that he could have
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Speaker 1: broken her legs by jumping on them. In other words,
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Speaker 1: he gives what we now call a persuaded false confession.
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Speaker 2: These are a special subspecies of false confessions that are
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Speaker 2: relatively rare, and what happens in these cases is the
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Speaker 2: police interrogation tactics themselves cause a suspect to begin to
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Speaker 2: doubt their own memory, and the suspect is persuaded that
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Speaker 2: he or she must have committed the crime but can't
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Speaker 2: remember it, and the interrogation becomes an exercise in reconstructing
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Speaker 2: the suspect's memories of the crime. But the memories aren't real,
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Speaker 2: they're confabulations.
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Speaker 1: Peter's confabulated story isn't realistic. A small no razor wasn't
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Speaker 1: capable of inflicting deep wounds like those on Barbara's neck,
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Speaker 1: and Peter was one hundred and ten pound weekly there's
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Speaker 1: no way he could have broken his mother's thigh bones
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Speaker 1: just by jumping on them. But police ignore those problems.
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Speaker 1: After all, they've got a confession. By the end of
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Speaker 1: the interrogation, Peter starts realizing that he has no family left.
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Speaker 2: You're talking about someone who has just lost the only
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Speaker 2: family member in his life. Peter never knew his father.
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Speaker 2: His mother has now been murdered. They live alone in
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Speaker 2: this small cottage, and he's thinking that he's gotten nowhere.
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Speaker 1: To go, And so Peter asks his interrogator, is there
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Speaker 1: any chance that you might take me in? I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: want to impose, he adds, I'll do work around the house.
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Speaker 1: I really would love to live with a family.
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Speaker 2: I've never seen that before. Just a a complete dependence
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Speaker 2: on one's interrogator and a complete sort of loss of
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Speaker 2: understanding of the fact that this person is his adversary.
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Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine anything more purely fucked up.
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Speaker 2: It's the most disturbing thing about this interrogation.
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Speaker 1: But Peter doesn't get to go live with the cops,
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Speaker 1: even though he's done everything they asked. Instead, he's arrested
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Speaker 1: and booked into jail. Once Peter is away from his
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Speaker 1: interrogator's influence, he immediately realizes he didn't actually kill anyone.
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Speaker 1: And he recants his confession, but it's too late. On
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Speaker 1: September twenty ninth, nineteen seventy three, Peter Riley is charged
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Speaker 1: with the murder of his own mother. Barbara's murder and
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Speaker 1: Peter's arrest shook False Village to its core. Everyone was
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Speaker 1: following this tragedy, including one residence who would go on
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Speaker 1: to become an important figure in Peter's story.
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Speaker 3: My name is Donald Connery. Well, one thing I can
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Speaker 3: claim for some distinction is that I probably am the
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Speaker 3: only foreign correspondent who ever made a complete career shift
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Speaker 3: overnight from reporting international affairs to investigating the criminal justice system.
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Speaker 2: Don Connery was an esteemed journalist, and the last thing
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Speaker 2: on his mind was the subject of false confessions. But
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Speaker 2: this murder was big news in this small town, and
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Speaker 2: you couldn't help but be drawn into it. He began
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Speaker 2: to start looking into the case himself, and later wrote
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Speaker 2: a book about the case that was an absolutely essential
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Speaker 2: text about what happened to Peter Riley.
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Speaker 1: Don Connery's in his nineties now, but in nineteen seventy
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Speaker 1: three he had just moved to Falls Village with his
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Speaker 1: wife and kids, and I.
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Speaker 3: Thought, this is a terrible event which will play out
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Speaker 3: and will have nothing to do with me, except that
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Speaker 3: the accused eighteen year old was a friend and classmate
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Speaker 3: of my children who went to the regional high school,
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Speaker 3: and Peter was someone they talked about and knew about.
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Speaker 1: Now, something extraordinary happens after Peter's arrest is announced. Remember,
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Speaker 1: people in this tiny town know Peter Riley and they
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Speaker 1: like him.
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Speaker 2: This was in the age before social media, where communities
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Speaker 2: were much more connected in a sense. They met each
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Speaker 2: other through clubs, extracurricular activities at schools, church groups, boy Scouts,
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Speaker 2: and the entire community knew who Peter was. From these
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Speaker 2: various essential parts of the social fabric of Falls village.
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Speaker 1: Peter's arrest leads to a groundswell of support. Everyone starts
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Speaker 1: defending his innocence.
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Speaker 3: After reading the initial stories, my younger children, Carol and
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Speaker 3: Julie kept saying Peter couldn't possibly have done this.
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Speaker 1: The mothers of his high school classmates form a group
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Speaker 1: called Canaan Mothers, and they hold bake sales to raise
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Speaker 1: money so that Peter can get released on bond before
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Speaker 1: his trial. Some families even put their houses up as security.
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Speaker 1: It was incredible. Mothers supporting the accused mother killer.
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Speaker 2: They wanted to do everything in their power to help him.
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Speaker 3: My kids said, and other neighbors said, you know, we
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Speaker 3: don't think this is possible. There's no reason to think
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Speaker 3: that he had any cause to harm his mother. And
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Speaker 3: the word was in the community that yes, Peter. It
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Speaker 3: confessed that nobody could understand why he would admit to
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Speaker 3: something he didn't do, but their protests caught the attention
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Speaker 3: of the media.
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Speaker 1: A reporter named Joan Bartel hears about how the town
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Speaker 1: of Falls Village is rallying behind an accused murderer. She
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Speaker 1: listens to Peter's interrogation tapes and writes an explosive article
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Speaker 1: in a magazine called New Times. The article questions Peter's
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Speaker 1: guilt and includes many excerpts from his interrogation, exposing the
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Speaker 1: CoP's manipulation of Peter. People around the state are horrified
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Speaker 1: to read about a teenage boy made to believe that
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Speaker 1: he killed his own mother. Donations flow in to the
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Speaker 1: Canaan mothers, and soon enough money is raised for Peter
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Speaker 1: to post bond fifty thousand dollars. He's released and moves
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Speaker 1: in with one of his friend's families. Peter Riley is
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Speaker 1: welcomed back into the Falls Village community.
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Speaker 3: This so called killer went straight back to high school
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Speaker 3: to complete his senior year, and it didn't seem to
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Speaker 3: worry parents or teachers of the principal, who in fact
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Speaker 3: supported him.
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Speaker 2: One of the things that attracted reporters to this case,
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Speaker 2: including Don Connery, was the idea that in order for
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Speaker 2: these people to embrace Peter, they had to understand or
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Speaker 2: at least believe, that this confession was false. And here
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Speaker 2: they are taking this suspected, confessed murderer into their own
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Speaker 2: homes or being willing to do so, and to raise
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Speaker 2: money for him, and to advocate for him and to
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Speaker 2: fight for him. That's remarkable.
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Speaker 1: Peter Riley was free on bond, but prosecutors were moving
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Speaker 1: forward with his trial anyway.
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Speaker 3: The community was confident that the trial in nineteen seventy
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Speaker 3: four would quickly lead to adequittal. He would be found innocent.
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Speaker 1: But on April twelfth, eighteen seventy four, Good Friday, Peter
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Speaker 1: Riley was convicted of killing his own mother.
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Speaker 3: It was a bombshell when the jury decided almost entirely
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Speaker 3: in the basis of the confession, so called confession that
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Speaker 3: he was guilty, and he was sentenced to six to
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Speaker 3: sixteen years for manslaughter and driven off at high speed
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Speaker 3: to the high security penitentiary.
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Speaker 1: Even though he'd just been convicted of murder, Peter only
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Speaker 1: spent a few hours in prison. Amazingly, a court ruled
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Speaker 1: that he could stay free during his appeal as long
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Speaker 1: as he posted an additional bond ten thousand more dollars.
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Speaker 1: His village raised the extra money and Peter was freed.
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Speaker 1: But now Peter needed to pay for an appeal, and
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Speaker 1: that would cost more than the Canaan mothers could raise.
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Speaker 1: So that reporter from New Times, Joan Bartel, sent the
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Speaker 1: article she wrote about Peter's case to another Connecticut resident,
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Speaker 1: the famous playwright Arthur Miller.
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Speaker 2: Arthur Miller was my favorite playwright. I remember reading all
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Speaker 2: of his plays in high school in the nineteen seventies
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Speaker 2: Death of a Salesman all my sons. I liked him
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Speaker 2: not only because his plays moved me. I liked him
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Speaker 2: because he was a public figure that cared deeply about justice.
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Speaker 2: He was a playwright with a conscience.
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Speaker 3: The Crucible, probably Miller's greatest play, had been motivated in
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Speaker 3: part by the false accusations that went on in Salem
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Speaker 3: and Massachusetts three hundred years ago, when twenty one people
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Speaker 3: were falsely accused of satanic activities and either hung or
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Speaker 3: in one case of being crushed to death executed. And
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Speaker 3: Miller also personally had faced the House of American Activities
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Speaker 3: Committee accused of being a communist or worse, so he
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Speaker 3: had every reason to feel that this is something that
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Speaker 3: he should put right, and he invested a great deal
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Speaker 3: of his time to do that.
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Speaker 1: Arthur Miller read Jones article. He was appalled by the
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Speaker 1: tragedy of Peter's confession, and he began to take a
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Speaker 1: leading role in Peter's fight for vindication. Miller recruited other
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Speaker 1: a list celebrities to donate money to Peter's defense, Jack Nicholson,
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Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen, William Steren, Mike Nichols,
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Speaker 1: even Elizabeth Taylor. Pretty soon a powerful coalition of voices
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Speaker 1: was gathering steam.
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Speaker 3: Overnight. There was a remarkable amount of energy behind the
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Speaker 3: effort to free Peter as soon as possible from what everyone,
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Speaker 3: at least in Litchfield County saw as a wrongful conviction.
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Speaker 1: The first thing Peter needed was a lawyer to handle
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Speaker 1: his appeal. Arthur Miller recruited Roy Daly, a former federal prosecutor,
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Speaker 1: and his If Roy started preparing Peter's appeal, Miller worked
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Speaker 1: to raise the public profile of the case. The New
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Speaker 1: York Times featured a two part series about Peter on
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Speaker 1: the front page. Not long afterwards, Sixty Minutes covered the
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Speaker 1: story too. Meanwhile, Peter's legal team pressed his case in court.
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Speaker 1: Eventually a hearing was held to determine whether to grant
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Speaker 1: him a new trial. Arthur Miller personally recruited some world
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Speaker 1: renowned experts to testify. At that hearing, a forensic pathologist
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Speaker 1: testified that if Peter had actually killed his mom, it
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Speaker 1: would have been impossible for him to clean all the
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Speaker 1: blood off his body and clothing before the police arrived.
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Speaker 1: The pathologist also testified that there's no way one hundred
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Speaker 1: and ten pound kid could break a woman's thigh bones
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Speaker 1: by jumping on them, and a psychologist testified that Peter
19:52
Speaker 1: was suggestible and easily manipulated by authority figures. In other words,
19:57
Speaker 1: he was highly vulnerable to giving a false ca confession.
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Speaker 1: This hearing took down both the medical evidence against Peter
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Speaker 1: and his confession and.
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Speaker 3: It led to a verdict by George Speziale that a
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Speaker 3: buscarriage of justice had happened in his own courtroom, and
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Speaker 3: he said that Peter deserved a new trial.
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Speaker 1: It was March twenty fifth, nineteen seventy six, a little
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Speaker 1: more than two and a half years after Peter lost
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Speaker 1: his mom. Peter was granted a new trial, but the
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Speaker 1: prosecutor who'd convicted him was up in arms. He believed
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Speaker 1: Peter was guilty and vowed to take him to trial again,
20:45
Speaker 1: but that didn't end up happening.
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Speaker 3: He delayed to a point where he dropped dead on
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Speaker 3: a golf course.
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Speaker 1: The prosecutor passed away of a heart attack at age
20:54
Speaker 1: fifty four. So a new prosecutor, a young man named
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Speaker 1: Dennis Santour over and as he digs into the case files,
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Speaker 1: he finds a piece of evidence that had never been
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Speaker 1: disclosed to Peter's defense team. A police officer and his
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Speaker 1: wife had reported seeing Peter in downtown Canaan the night
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Speaker 1: of the murder as he was driving home from his
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Speaker 1: church youth group. They'd seen him only a few minutes
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Speaker 1: before Peter arrived home, found his mother's body and started
21:25
Speaker 1: calling for help. It was an air tight alibi. Those
21:30
Speaker 1: few minutes didn't give Peter enough time to drive home
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Speaker 1: and kill his mother before making those phone calls.
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Speaker 3: Well, this was a so called exculpatory evidence which should
21:40
Speaker 3: have been turned over to the state and to the courts,
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Speaker 3: and once it was revealed, it took only weeks before
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Speaker 3: Peter Riley was fully exonerated.
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Speaker 1: The state of Connecticut formally dropped all charges on November
21:55
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, nineteen seventy six. Peter Riley's name was officially
21:59
Speaker 1: c after Peter's exoneration. The state police never found Barbara's
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Speaker 1: real killer and continued to insist that Peter was guilty.
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Speaker 3: The case went into the legal annals as a classic
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Speaker 3: false confession tragedy, and it was a prime example of
22:21
Speaker 3: these systems on willingness to admit error in most of
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Speaker 3: these controversial cases.
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Speaker 1: Don Connery eventually wrote a book about the case, Guilty
22:30
Speaker 1: until Proven Innocent, and he continued writing about cases of
22:34
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction.
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Speaker 2: After the Peter Riley case, don Conry became his own
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Speaker 2: one man journalistic innocence project. He began taking cases in
22:45
Speaker 2: Connecticut and investigating them and writing about them, and he
22:51
Speaker 2: also began taking false confession cases from outside of Connecticut
22:56
Speaker 2: as well.
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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, Connecticut police actually stopped
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Speaker 1: recording interrogations after Peter's case. Peter's interrogation tapes had made
23:07
Speaker 1: them look bad, and they didn't want to look bad again.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty thirteen that Connecticut adopted a law
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Speaker 1: requiring interrogations to be recorded, and who testified before the
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Speaker 1: state legislature in support of that bill Peter Riley.
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Speaker 2: Peter said, Look, we shouldn't let law enforcement officers get
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Speaker 2: away with not recording interrogations, because what it does is
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Speaker 2: it makes it impossible for people like me to explain
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Speaker 2: to a jury or to the general public how it
23:44
Speaker 2: is that I was made to confess to killing my
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Speaker 2: own mother. Peter was a powerful advocate for recording and
23:52
Speaker 2: his testimony was critical on getting the bill passed in
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Speaker 2: twenty thirteen.
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Speaker 1: Most importantly, Peter Riley's case woke the world up to
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Speaker 1: the problem of false confessions. This injustice was a rallying
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Speaker 1: cry for so many people, including Steve and me. Peter's
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Speaker 1: story epitomizes the profound humanity in so many wrongful conviction cases.
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Speaker 1: From the tragedy of the crime, to the ugliness of
24:20
Speaker 1: false accusation, to the defendant's struggle and perseverance, to the
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Speaker 1: good people like Arthur Miller and the Canaan mothers who
24:29
Speaker 1: fight for the truth no matter what. In nineteen ninety five,
24:33
Speaker 1: the very first conference about false confessions took place in Hartford, Connecticut.
24:39
Speaker 1: Don Connery organized it, and the people who'd helped exonerate
24:43
Speaker 1: Peter Riley spoke. Since then, hundreds of confessions had been
24:48
Speaker 1: proven false around the country and were just getting started.
24:52
Speaker 3: At the Hartford conference, Arthur Miller said at one point
24:57
Speaker 3: that the record of mankind is full of confessions of
25:00
Speaker 3: events that happened.
25:03
Speaker 4: Or to which the accused had little or no connection.
25:06
Speaker 4: After all, even Galileo confessed that the sun and all
25:10
Speaker 4: the stars revolved around the motionless Earth. Rather than face
25:14
Speaker 4: the wrath of the Church, which for centuries had taught
25:19
Speaker 4: the opposite. Confronted with great power against which one has
25:23
Speaker 4: only a fragile defense, confession can begin to look like
25:28
Speaker 4: the door to freedom. Confession can very readily turn into
25:32
Speaker 4: a kind of coin with which to buy one's way
25:35
Speaker 4: out of a frightening and painful situation. How then, I
25:40
Speaker 4: will eat to indict the criminal. Is there a good
25:43
Speaker 4: substitute for confession as the mainstay of a prosecution case?
25:49
Speaker 4: For starters, I would suggest evidence.
25:54
Speaker 1: Wise words. We're not there yet, mister Miller. We're not
25:58
Speaker 1: there yet, but we're getting closed every day.
26:02
Speaker 5: Hello, Peter Howard and High State. Doing pretty good.
26:07
Speaker 1: It's really great to talk to you.
26:09
Speaker 5: What's your life like these days? While I'm sixty five,
26:13
Speaker 5: so I'm retired at this point, which just means I
26:16
Speaker 5: come up with a whole lot of work for myself
26:18
Speaker 5: that I'll get paid for it. I'm still an avid musician.
26:23
Speaker 5: I play every day. It's been something I've done since
26:26
Speaker 5: I saw the Beatles on that all of them, so
26:28
Speaker 5: it's been a long time. I just play a lot
26:30
Speaker 5: of music. I do what's positive for me these days,
26:33
Speaker 5: and that's pretty much it. What's your favorite song to play?
26:38
Speaker 5: I don't know anything by the Alma Brothers.
26:44
Speaker 1: You know, Steve and I are two lawyers who have
26:47
Speaker 1: the honor of standing up in courts and fighting for
26:51
Speaker 1: people we believe in, but we're also trying to change
26:54
Speaker 1: the world here.
26:55
Speaker 2: From the very beginning of my study of false confessions,
26:59
Speaker 2: I have gone out into the world and tried to
27:04
Speaker 2: inform people about what I've learned.
27:07
Speaker 1: For the first ten years that I did this work,
27:10
Speaker 1: we went around the country trying to convince anybody who
27:13
Speaker 1: would listen that false confessions even existed, that this happened
27:16
Speaker 1: at all. And suddenly there's been this explosion of interest
27:20
Speaker 1: in understanding that false confessions can happen to anyone, that
27:23
Speaker 1: they could happen to you, they could happen to me,
27:25
Speaker 1: and to see the urgency for reform that hearing these
27:29
Speaker 1: stories produces. It's a sea change, and it's a very
27:32
Speaker 1: very welcome sea change.
27:33
Speaker 2: When I got started in this work in nineteen ninety five,
27:37
Speaker 2: there were only two states that required electronic recording of interrogations,
27:43
Speaker 2: and now they're twenty seven. There should be fifty. We
27:47
Speaker 2: are getting to a point where I think that will
27:49
Speaker 2: happen in my lifetime. So in addition to electronic recording,
27:54
Speaker 2: one of the goals that Laura and I have is
27:57
Speaker 2: to actually change the way in which police officers interrogate suspects.
28:04
Speaker 1: I think that when people hear stories of grave injustice,
28:09
Speaker 1: there's a human need to identify the bad guy, and
28:13
Speaker 1: in some cases there are very clear bad guys. Police
28:15
Speaker 1: have physically abused suspects. Police have tortured suspects, but in
28:19
Speaker 1: some cases police officers are following training that they don't
28:23
Speaker 1: know is problematic. That's where I see we can make
28:25
Speaker 1: a lot of change. Many other countries have developed new
28:28
Speaker 1: interrogation techniques that you don't have to use lies, you
28:31
Speaker 1: don't have to use false promises, you certainly don't have
28:34
Speaker 1: to use fact feeding.
28:36
Speaker 2: One of the most exciting developments recently has been the
28:40
Speaker 2: creation of these conviction integrity units in prosecutors' offices, and
28:45
Speaker 2: in both Hugh Burton's case and David McCallum's case, we
28:50
Speaker 2: saw how effective these units can be in writing wrongful convictions.
28:57
Speaker 1: When prosecutors are interested in actually doing real justice instead
29:01
Speaker 1: of just closing cases, everything changes.
29:05
Speaker 2: One of the things that's always excited me about this
29:08
Speaker 2: work is that we get to rewrite history. When we
29:14
Speaker 2: exonerate somebody, we get to change their life narrative. That's
29:20
Speaker 2: part of what we're trying to do with this podcast
29:23
Speaker 2: is not only tell these stories, but change the legacies
29:30
Speaker 2: of the people who falsely confessed.
29:32
Speaker 1: You're taking this false story that they've told about themselves
29:36
Speaker 1: and you have to change it to a true story,
29:38
Speaker 1: a story of innocence.
29:39
Speaker 2: In the wake of making a murderer, which certainly put
29:43
Speaker 2: both Lara and I on the map in a way
29:47
Speaker 2: that no other television show or radio show or victory
29:52
Speaker 2: in court had done. I felt like we had an
29:55
Speaker 2: obligation to speak out on these issues that we care
29:59
Speaker 2: so deeply about. I guess I was channeling Arthur Miller.
30:04
Speaker 2: I mean I could see Donald Connery saying, I knew
30:08
Speaker 2: Arthur Miller. You're no Arthur Miller. But we had the
30:11
Speaker 2: opportunity to tell these stories, and I think we as
30:14
Speaker 2: lawyers have an obligation to do that.
30:19
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have to be a lawyer to
30:21
Speaker 1: see the injustice here. You just have to be someone
30:24
Speaker 1: with a conscience. These are stories of great tragedy. They
30:28
Speaker 1: grip people, these stories unsettle people, and they move people
30:32
Speaker 1: to make change. This is a movement that draws from
30:35
Speaker 1: all walks of life, from ordinary folks who want to
30:39
Speaker 1: channel their outrage into action, to those with a powerful
30:42
Speaker 1: public platform, artists, musicians, writers, actors. We saw this in
30:47
Speaker 1: the Peter Riley Kays with Arthur Miller. We saw it
30:50
Speaker 1: in the West Memphis three case with Peter Jackson, Johnny Depp,
30:54
Speaker 1: Eddie Vetter, Natalie Mains, and we see it today with
30:57
Speaker 1: Brendan Dacy's case and all the people who are rallying
31:00
Speaker 1: around him. These kinds of movements built on real people,
31:04
Speaker 1: They're unstoppable and we're not going to stop until we
31:08
Speaker 1: can bring Brandon Dacy on this podcast as a free man.
31:16
Speaker 2: I want to really thank the people that allowed us
31:20
Speaker 2: to tell their stories and allowed us to enter their lives.
31:25
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's meant the world
31:27
Speaker 1: to bring to you twelve of the people whose cases
31:30
Speaker 1: we've worked on and whose lives have touched ours, their voices,
31:35
Speaker 1: their stories, and our good luck to be the ones
31:38
Speaker 1: working for them. So back to work, Steve, back to work.
31:47
Speaker 1: And that's the first season of Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
31:51
Speaker 1: We'll see you in a few months back on this
31:53
Speaker 1: feed for season two. In the meantime, be well, stay safe,
31:58
Speaker 1: and never stop believing injustice. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is
32:09
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
32:12
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number One. Special thanks to our executive producer
32:16
Speaker 1: Jason Flamm and the team at Signal Company Number One.
32:20
Speaker 1: Executive Producer Kevin wardis Senior producer and Pope, and additional
32:24
Speaker 1: production and editing by Connor Hall. Special thanks to Jogi
32:28
Speaker 1: Hammer for additional script editing and for wrangling and writing
32:31
Speaker 1: like a mad woman. Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
32:36
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nywriter, and.
32:39
Speaker 2: You can follow me on Twitter at s Drisen.
32:43
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
32:47
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
32:49
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
32:54
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction