Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #193 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - SPECIAL UPDATE

Transcript

#193 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - SPECIAL UPDATE · Wrongful Conviction

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is Laura and I writer. Welcome to
0:06
Speaker 1: a very special breaking news episode of wrongful conviction False Confessions.
0:11
Speaker 1: Here's why I'm dropping in with this episode. Over and over,
0:15
Speaker 1: Steve and I have told you about innocent people who
0:17
Speaker 1: ended up confessing the crimes they didn't commit. These stories
0:21
Speaker 1: usually have a common thread interrogators who lied about the
0:25
Speaker 1: evidence to get those false confessions. Lies like your DNA
0:29
Speaker 1: was found at the scene, or the polygraph proves you guilty.
0:32
Speaker 1: These kinds of lies are known risk factors for false confessions.
0:36
Speaker 1: But here's the breaking news. Someone is finally doing something
0:40
Speaker 1: about it. For the first time in US history, bills
0:43
Speaker 1: have just been introduced in three states to prohibit police
0:47
Speaker 1: from lying during interrogations. It's happening right now in New York, Oregon,
0:52
Speaker 1: and my home state Illinois. I support these bills, and
0:56
Speaker 1: I hope you will too. In fact, we pulled together
0:58
Speaker 1: today's special episode just so I could introduce you to
1:02
Speaker 1: three heroes who were working together to make sure we
1:06
Speaker 1: make change. I'll be joined first today by New York
1:17
Speaker 1: exonerie Marty Tankloff. He falsely confessed to murdering his own
1:21
Speaker 1: parents when he was just seventeen. Then you'll hear from
1:25
Speaker 1: Illinois State Senator Robert Peters. He's the sponsor of Illinois
1:29
Speaker 1: Senate Bill twenty one twenty two, which would ban deception
1:33
Speaker 1: during interrogation. Finally, you'll hear from an old friend of mine,
1:37
Speaker 1: Dave Thompson. He's an experienced interrogator and police trainer who's
1:42
Speaker 1: with us all the way in our fight to end
1:44
Speaker 1: false confessions. I'm going to start with our guest, Marty Tankliff.
1:49
Speaker 1: Marty woke up one fall morning and found his dad
1:52
Speaker 1: in another room, severely beaten and barely alive. Unbeknownst to
1:57
Speaker 1: Marty at the time, his mom had all been attacked
2:01
Speaker 1: in a different part of the house. In fact, she
2:03
Speaker 1: had already died because of her injuries. Like anyone would do,
2:07
Speaker 1: Marty called the police. But that's when an already terrible
2:11
Speaker 1: situation got even worse. So thank you so much for
2:17
Speaker 1: joining us, all three of you today. This is such
2:19
Speaker 1: an important topic and I'm so glad we're here to
2:21
Speaker 1: talk about this. I want to start things off by
2:24
Speaker 1: hearing from my friend Marty Tankliff. Right, Marty, you've got
2:28
Speaker 1: one of the most incredible stories of wrongful conviction and
2:31
Speaker 1: false confession that I've ever heard and lies about the
2:34
Speaker 1: evidence are at the heart of it. So let's bring
2:37
Speaker 1: our listeners back. You're seventeen years old, You're living with
2:41
Speaker 1: mom and dad in Long Island, New York, and what
2:43
Speaker 1: happens from there.
2:44
Speaker 2: September seventh, nineteen eighty eight, was supposed to be my
2:47
Speaker 2: first day of my senior year of high school, and
2:50
Speaker 2: the night before, my father held a high stakes poker
2:53
Speaker 2: game with his business partner, Jerry Struman and others. And
2:58
Speaker 2: on September seventh, I woke up up, found that my
3:01
Speaker 2: house was unlocked, lights were on, and I walked through
3:06
Speaker 2: the house and discovered my father bleeding in his office chair,
3:10
Speaker 2: which is where the poker game happened the night before.
3:13
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to you and your mom was in another room
3:16
Speaker 1: and had actually been bludgeoned to death herself.
3:18
Speaker 2: I discovered my mom after that, but I knew my
3:21
Speaker 2: father was alive because I performed first aid.
3:23
Speaker 3: I could hear him breathing. I called my one one.
3:27
Speaker 2: And shortly thereafter the police showed up, and I wanted
3:31
Speaker 2: to go to the hospital, but law enforcement wanted information
3:34
Speaker 2: who they thought was responsible, and you know, we all said,
3:37
Speaker 2: my family, my friends, everybody said, Jerry Struman.
3:40
Speaker 3: Jerry Stuerman, and he happened to be there the night before.
3:43
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what happened the night before.
3:45
Speaker 1: You've mentioned this.
3:46
Speaker 2: So the night before there was a high six poker
3:49
Speaker 2: game that included Jerry Stuerman. And Jerry Stuman was my
3:52
Speaker 2: father's business partner, who, unbeknownst to me at that time,
3:56
Speaker 2: had threatened to cut my father's throat out, his tongue
4:00
Speaker 2: out weeks before my father started demanding money back from
4:05
Speaker 2: Jerry Stuerman, and it was so bad that my father
4:09
Speaker 2: had told the family attorney, Jerry's not going to fuck
4:13
Speaker 2: with me because I know where the bones are buried.
4:15
Speaker 2: I didn't know any of that back then. The only
4:17
Speaker 2: thing I knew was that there were some problems with
4:20
Speaker 2: Jerry Steuerman. And I knew there were no problems with
4:23
Speaker 2: me or my parents. I mean, we had a loving relationship.
4:26
Speaker 3: I grew up in a.
4:27
Speaker 2: Great neighborhood, great family, traveled everything with my parents, so
4:31
Speaker 2: I knew there was no problems with us.
4:33
Speaker 1: But the police, I guess, weren't so sure. They broughady
4:36
Speaker 1: done to police headquarters. And what happens.
4:39
Speaker 2: I really wasn't clothed, I was barefoot, was wearing shorts
4:43
Speaker 2: in a sweatshirt, and I was separated from family. I
4:46
Speaker 2: wasn't brought to the hospital. I was driven forty five
4:49
Speaker 2: minutes away by Detective James McCready. I was brought up
4:55
Speaker 2: to police headquarters in a windowless room that had a
4:59
Speaker 2: desk and empty file cabinet, two metal chairs, no phone,
5:03
Speaker 2: no windows, and you know, the questioning started, you know,
5:07
Speaker 2: where were you the night before?
5:09
Speaker 3: Who do you think was responsible?
5:11
Speaker 2: And that seemed to go on forever until there was
5:14
Speaker 2: a point where McCready left the room and he left
5:19
Speaker 2: the door open and you could hear him saying, really, great, really,
5:23
Speaker 2: that's amazing, that's great news. Wait till I tell Marty.
5:26
Speaker 2: And he came back in and he said, Marty, I
5:30
Speaker 2: got great news and bad news. So the great news
5:32
Speaker 2: is they pumped your father full of adrenaline. He woke
5:36
Speaker 2: up and he said, you committed the murders. You attacked
5:40
Speaker 2: your mother, and your father just tell us you did that.
5:43
Speaker 2: Because your father just said you did that. I mean,
5:46
Speaker 2: they contained by saying, listen, Marty, we have your hair
5:50
Speaker 2: in your mother's hands, just tell us what we want
5:53
Speaker 2: to hear. Your father would want that.
5:55
Speaker 1: Wow, that's incredible. How did you react to those lies, Marty?
6:01
Speaker 2: My initial gut response was like, I'll take a lot
6:03
Speaker 2: of detector, like I didn't do anything. But it also
6:07
Speaker 2: came to the point where it was kind of I
6:10
Speaker 2: guess you could say, like the floor under me just
6:12
Speaker 2: fell out, and kind of was like, well, if my
6:15
Speaker 2: father said I did it, maybe I did. Because my
6:17
Speaker 2: father's never lied to me, and police are not supposed
6:19
Speaker 2: to lie to you, So I know I didn't do anything,
6:22
Speaker 2: but my father's saying that it was me, and the
6:25
Speaker 2: Copps are saying was me.
6:26
Speaker 3: But I was brought up.
6:27
Speaker 2: To trust the police, believe in them, and brought up
6:31
Speaker 2: to that they're not going to lie to you. They're
6:33
Speaker 2: your friends, they're going to help you.
6:35
Speaker 1: Exactly. In fact, your dad was police commissioner, wasn't he.
6:37
Speaker 2: He was the police commissioner for the incorporated village of
6:39
Speaker 2: Beltare where we live.
6:41
Speaker 1: And you start to doubt your own memory because you
6:44
Speaker 1: so trust the word of these authority figures, right, these
6:46
Speaker 1: police officers who were telling you what another authority figure
6:49
Speaker 1: your dad supposedly.
6:51
Speaker 2: Said without a doubt, without a doubt. You kind of
6:54
Speaker 2: start going back and forth in your head. You kind
6:56
Speaker 2: of say, wait a minute, I know I didn't do anything,
6:59
Speaker 2: but they're saying I did. Screaming in your face, yelling
7:02
Speaker 2: at you, saying you know, Marty, we know you did this,
7:05
Speaker 2: and your father is saying you did this.
7:08
Speaker 1: Some people, Marty, some people that I've talked to, say,
7:10
Speaker 1: you know what, if I was being interrogated, right, if
7:12
Speaker 1: I was inside the interrogation room and I was innocent
7:15
Speaker 1: and police lied to me, it would be so easy
7:18
Speaker 1: to see through those lies, right, to not be influenced
7:21
Speaker 1: by those lies? Is it so easy when it's you
7:25
Speaker 1: in the moment?
7:26
Speaker 2: No farthest thing from that. I mean, you know, I
7:30
Speaker 2: wasn't somebody who was thirty who had lived a life.
7:34
Speaker 3: I was a kid.
7:36
Speaker 2: I was a kid who was raised to trust your
7:39
Speaker 2: family and cops, and in this situation, one of.
7:43
Speaker 3: Them failed me.
7:45
Speaker 1: And it's so eventually you confessed.
7:49
Speaker 2: Eventually, they said I confessed. What the reality was is
7:53
Speaker 2: that they didn't record anything, they didn't audio tape anything,
7:57
Speaker 2: and everything they said I said proved forensically to be wrong.
8:01
Speaker 1: Right, But you gave the series of statements that eventually
8:04
Speaker 1: the officer said amounted to a confession, right, and that
8:08
Speaker 1: was a huge part of the evidence that was used
8:10
Speaker 1: against you to secure your conviction in the murder of
8:13
Speaker 1: your own parents, which you ended up serving seventeen years
8:16
Speaker 1: in prison for before being exonerated. I mean, it's an
8:20
Speaker 1: incredible story, and it's one in which lies about the
8:24
Speaker 1: evidence are at the absolute bottom. I just want to know, Marty,
8:27
Speaker 1: when afterwards did you begin to realize that you had
8:31
Speaker 1: been lied to?
8:33
Speaker 2: There were two points for me. One was when I
8:35
Speaker 2: had an opportunity to make a phone call to a
8:37
Speaker 2: family member and the family member said, did you tell
8:40
Speaker 2: them that you did it? And I was like, they
8:42
Speaker 2: made me. That was the only thing I could say
8:45
Speaker 2: on there during that phone call. But hours later, when
8:47
Speaker 2: I met with a family member and an attorney, I
8:51
Speaker 2: went into much more detail. And back then somebody, you know,
8:56
Speaker 2: one of them said, we were afraid of this because
8:59
Speaker 2: they knew what Suffolk County's history was, and they knew
9:03
Speaker 2: that once I was isolated, that this was bound to happen.
9:07
Speaker 1: Wow, And and what was it like to understand that
9:10
Speaker 1: you've been lied to by these authority figures right by
9:12
Speaker 1: these police officers. When you grew up trusting, I.
9:16
Speaker 2: Mean back then, it was still this disbelief. I mean
9:19
Speaker 2: it was almost like I was on Twilight Zone. There
9:21
Speaker 2: was no way that I could be waking up that
9:23
Speaker 2: should have been one of the best days of my
9:24
Speaker 2: life to literally turning into a living hell. That destroyed
9:30
Speaker 2: my life, my family's life, the community for you know,
9:34
Speaker 2: for years, and nobody should ever go through this. I mean,
9:39
Speaker 2: this is I mean, just because they lied to me.
9:44
Speaker 2: You know, if you didn't lie, if you did your job,
9:46
Speaker 2: if you told the truth, if you would have just
9:49
Speaker 2: electronically recorded we went out in that room, I may
9:52
Speaker 2: not have spent almost eighteen years in prison.
10:04
Speaker 1: Senator I want to bring you in now, as is
10:06
Speaker 1: Senator Robert Peters from Illinois.
10:09
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:09
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess the best way to react to
10:11
Speaker 5: this is what happened to Marty's damn shame and I'm
10:14
Speaker 5: sorry that you had to go through that, Marty. And
10:17
Speaker 5: what is so painful is that it's not surprising. We
10:20
Speaker 5: see this all the time. They look at you and
10:22
Speaker 5: they say, you're young, you don't really know any better,
10:25
Speaker 5: You're in a state of crisis, and they, instead of
10:30
Speaker 5: caring about figuring out what happened in this moment of
10:34
Speaker 5: pain and trauma. They became assured of their own answer.
10:38
Speaker 5: And so you know, the bill that you know I'm
10:42
Speaker 5: carrying in the Senate is built off of the fact
10:46
Speaker 5: that countless people roughly the same age as Marty or younger. Now,
10:52
Speaker 5: this happens to older folks, but the reason why young
10:55
Speaker 5: folks are targeted is because there's a power dynamic at
11:00
Speaker 5: play and limitation and how many rights you actually have
11:03
Speaker 5: or understand to have. And it's not about people's safety,
11:08
Speaker 5: and it's not about trying to solve or figure out
11:11
Speaker 5: the trauma that's happened. And at some point it becomes
11:14
Speaker 5: purely about winning the game in which you've solved something supposedly.
11:19
Speaker 1: You know, Senator I think you're exactly right, Marty. You
11:22
Speaker 1: spoke about Suffolk County, New York, right where this happened
11:24
Speaker 1: to you. But of course we know of hundreds and
11:27
Speaker 1: hundreds of cases of false confession around the country, one
11:31
Speaker 1: hundred alone in Illinois, one hundred and fifty when you
11:34
Speaker 1: combine Illinois and New York, and those numbers are all
11:37
Speaker 1: in all probability, just the tip of the iceberg. Because
11:40
Speaker 1: these cases are just now starting to come to light. Marty,
11:43
Speaker 1: you heard the senator talk about the need to ban
11:47
Speaker 1: live about the evidence in the interrogation room. Does what
11:49
Speaker 1: he said resonate with you?
11:51
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you Senator for trying to push
11:54
Speaker 2: this legislation through, because more, Marie time does have to
11:58
Speaker 2: be protected. You know, I think about how challenging it
12:03
Speaker 2: was for me, and I think about all the young
12:06
Speaker 2: men and women in minority communities, the abuse that I
12:10
Speaker 2: went through. I can't even fathom what someone else goes
12:13
Speaker 2: through in a regular basis.
12:16
Speaker 3: It's me.
12:17
Speaker 2: This legislation has to be passed. I mean universally, it
12:21
Speaker 2: has to be passed.
12:23
Speaker 1: So at this point I want to bring in my
12:24
Speaker 1: good friend Dave Thompson, who's here with us as well.
12:28
Speaker 1: Dave is the president of Wick Landers Zulawski. You train
12:31
Speaker 1: police across the country and across the globe, and you've
12:34
Speaker 1: also conducted a few interrogations yourself. Dave, how many would
12:37
Speaker 1: you say you've done?
12:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, quite a few hundred interrogations, I'd say, Laura, kind
12:41
Speaker 4: of across multiple sectors and across multiple jurisdictions.
12:44
Speaker 1: Wow, So there really is no one better for me?
12:47
Speaker 1: To ask, then do cops really need to lie during interrogations?
12:53
Speaker 4: No, there's other methods that they can be trained in
12:56
Speaker 4: which we can discuss the law needs to change, and
13:00
Speaker 4: we also know it increases the fear of innocent people
13:03
Speaker 4: like Marty just describe, and for detectives who are investigating
13:08
Speaker 4: somebody who is a guilty subject who does confess to
13:11
Speaker 4: a crime, but they used a tactic like this, all
13:14
Speaker 4: that does is potentially contaminate that confession and maybe jeopardize
13:18
Speaker 4: the reliability of a true confession as well. So it's
13:20
Speaker 4: really a very high risk, low reward strategy.
13:24
Speaker 1: Okay, So if police officers don't need to lie, then
13:29
Speaker 1: why do they do it?
13:31
Speaker 4: I think the simple answer is that's how they've been
13:35
Speaker 4: trained and that's what they're allowed to do. It's not investigators,
13:40
Speaker 4: for the most part, doing something that they feel is
13:43
Speaker 4: unethical or unwarranted. If they're doing something that they've used
13:46
Speaker 4: for decades, they've been trained in that technique and maybe
13:49
Speaker 4: unaware of the negative implications this technique has on both
13:54
Speaker 4: innocent subjects and to the reliability of a true confession.
13:58
Speaker 4: So if we look at what's the REOs cause, what's
14:00
Speaker 4: the reason that we lie about evidence in the first place,
14:03
Speaker 4: and it's because if that evidence doesn't exist, we have
14:06
Speaker 4: this bias or this belief that the person sitting in
14:10
Speaker 4: front of us is the guilty party, but the evidence
14:12
Speaker 4: isn't there, which means we don't have enough to actually
14:14
Speaker 4: prove they're the guilty party. So we rely on this
14:17
Speaker 4: fictitious piece of information to persuade the suspect to tell
14:20
Speaker 4: us they're guilty and versus let the investigation stand on
14:23
Speaker 4: its own. And even furthermore, you know, innocent people they
14:27
Speaker 4: hear that there's this perspective of evidence. Right if I said,
14:30
Speaker 4: and an arson case, you know, we have video footage
14:33
Speaker 4: of you starting the fire, and that doesn't exist, an
14:36
Speaker 4: innocent person might think, well, I hope they have video
14:38
Speaker 4: footage because it'll clear my name. So almost that fictitious
14:41
Speaker 4: presentation of evidence incentivizes an innocent person to just say, fine,
14:45
Speaker 4: yeah I did it, because they hope that evidence will
14:47
Speaker 4: prove that they didn't, just to kind of find out
14:49
Speaker 4: that evidence doesn't exist in the first place. So I
14:52
Speaker 4: think Marty brought up one fact that investigators said, hair right,
14:56
Speaker 4: his hair in his mother's hand. And so let's say
14:59
Speaker 4: in a confession, somebody like Marty says, well, yeah, I
15:02
Speaker 4: guess you know, she must have grabbed my hair during
15:04
Speaker 4: whatever whatever happened. Now, the subject giving that information and
15:08
Speaker 4: a confession, did they say that because they were actually
15:11
Speaker 4: part of the crime they remember that happening, Or did
15:13
Speaker 4: they say that because that's what the investigators fact fed
15:16
Speaker 4: to them during the interview. So they're just agreeing to it.
15:18
Speaker 4: When you have somebody of a youthful age, they're looking
15:21
Speaker 4: at how do I escape this immediate situation and get
15:23
Speaker 4: back to safety. And that's what results in the false
15:25
Speaker 4: confession is I have faith that this evidence is going
15:29
Speaker 4: to prove my innocence to be true. Let me say
15:31
Speaker 4: whatever I need to get the hell out of the
15:32
Speaker 4: room and get back to safety, and let let the
15:35
Speaker 4: lawyers figure it out afterwards. Unfortunately, we see what that
15:38
Speaker 4: has turned into.
15:39
Speaker 1: I would imagine that when people sign up to be
15:42
Speaker 1: police officers, right when they joined police forces, they want
15:46
Speaker 1: to be the good guys. And then at a certain point,
15:49
Speaker 1: police officers who become interrogators learn that as a part
15:54
Speaker 1: of their job they're expected to lie. Are there some
15:58
Speaker 1: cops out there who maybe aren't come struggle with that.
16:01
Speaker 4: First of all, the goal and most investigators are well
16:07
Speaker 4: intended to try to represent a victim or a victim's family,
16:11
Speaker 4: or whoever might have been harmed in one of these cases.
16:14
Speaker 4: And so when you go into an investigation or an
16:17
Speaker 4: interrogation and you have this predisposed belief of who the
16:21
Speaker 4: guilty suspect is, and you've been trained that lying about
16:25
Speaker 4: evidence is a strategical way to get to a confession,
16:30
Speaker 4: then yeah, that's what a lot of officers are focused on. However,
16:33
Speaker 4: I think there's an overwhelming discomfort, especially with new detectives,
16:37
Speaker 4: to be put into a position where their own integrity
16:40
Speaker 4: is and jeopardy where they know, if I lie to
16:43
Speaker 4: somebody about the evidence today, what does that do for
16:46
Speaker 4: my credibility tomorrow. I think there's a overwhelming support of
16:50
Speaker 4: law enforcement for more clear direction and distinction about what
16:55
Speaker 4: should be done so we can still solve cases, but
16:59
Speaker 4: do it in the most ethical and scientifically based way.
17:03
Speaker 1: Tell me, Dave, what does an interrogation look like if
17:06
Speaker 1: you take away lies about the evidence.
17:09
Speaker 4: It looks like asking open ended questions, a conversation where
17:12
Speaker 4: the investigator doesn't have a goal of a confession, but
17:15
Speaker 4: has a goal of obtaining actionable, reliable information less of
17:18
Speaker 4: having confirmation bias and tunnel vision non coersive evidence based
17:24
Speaker 4: interview methods that are progressively gaining traction across the United States.
17:28
Speaker 1: Senator, I want to go back to you for just
17:30
Speaker 1: one minute. You've introduced this bill, of course, in your
17:33
Speaker 1: home state of Illinois, and you're in great company because
17:36
Speaker 1: there are similar bills that have been introduced in New York,
17:39
Speaker 1: where Marty is from, and in Oregon as well, other
17:42
Speaker 1: bills that would ban lying about the evidence in the
17:45
Speaker 1: interrogation room. What does it mean to you to be
17:48
Speaker 1: part of this national ground swell for change?
17:53
Speaker 5: Wow? So I think that I always think like when
17:56
Speaker 5: you try to make changes to something systemic, you can't
17:59
Speaker 5: just go it alone. And so to me, it's not
18:02
Speaker 5: just having it be Illinois, New York, or organ but
18:05
Speaker 5: to see it across the country.
18:07
Speaker 4: Right.
18:07
Speaker 5: But I also think it's just important that if we
18:09
Speaker 5: can do this in Illinois, a complex state, same with Oregon,
18:13
Speaker 5: same with New York, other states should try to follow
18:16
Speaker 5: and do the same thing.
18:18
Speaker 1: I think that's well said. And Dave in how many
18:21
Speaker 1: states is deception used during interrogations?
18:24
Speaker 4: I mean the Supreme court law is allowing it to
18:26
Speaker 4: be used across the United States. We've seen a lot
18:30
Speaker 4: of jurisdictions starting to move forward away from that proactively. Right,
18:34
Speaker 4: we can start training officers now, and we have been
18:36
Speaker 4: on methods that you don't need to use those tactics,
18:39
Speaker 4: and we start to look outside the United States.
18:41
Speaker 3: You know, the UK has.
18:42
Speaker 4: Banned deception for decades in their interview models. Canada has
18:45
Speaker 4: been moving away from it. So this is not a
18:48
Speaker 4: new problem by any means. It's just finally a solution
18:51
Speaker 4: to that problem.
18:51
Speaker 3: I think it is.
18:52
Speaker 1: It's a free, groundbreaking solution to this problem. Senator, you
18:57
Speaker 1: have introduced Illinois Senate Bill twenty one, which would ban
19:01
Speaker 1: deception in the interrogation room. Where do we go from here?
19:04
Speaker 1: How can people get involved in supporting your effort to
19:08
Speaker 1: ban deception.
19:09
Speaker 5: Let's put pressure on legislators. Let's shine a light on
19:13
Speaker 5: Illinois as a model for rarely, whether that's Montana or Florida,
19:17
Speaker 5: take this bill as piece of model legislation and say
19:22
Speaker 5: that this is something that needs to happen in New states.
19:24
Speaker 5: So let me repeat that Montana or Florida should have
19:28
Speaker 5: their own version of this bill.
19:30
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, People can follow you on social media. Senator
19:33
Speaker 1: Robert Peters is your name. They can follow me at
19:36
Speaker 1: Laura and I Writer on Twitter or Instagram for tips
19:38
Speaker 1: on how to get involved in supporting the Illinois effort,
19:40
Speaker 1: as well as the crucial New York and Oregon efforts
19:43
Speaker 1: as well. Marty, I want to let you close this out.
19:46
Speaker 1: You've been extraordinarily successful despite all of these odds stacked
19:50
Speaker 1: against you in your life. Since your exoneration, You've become
19:54
Speaker 1: a practicing attorney, you have become an adjunct professor. I
19:58
Speaker 1: You've become an inspiration for change. And I think that's
20:01
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today on this podcast. What does
20:03
Speaker 1: it mean to you that your story can and has
20:06
Speaker 1: inspired people like Dave, people like Senator Peters to fight
20:11
Speaker 1: for real change.
20:12
Speaker 2: I just want to say two things very quickly. One
20:14
Speaker 2: is that when you entirely get an innocent person, you
20:17
Speaker 2: get a false confession and you arrest them, you've allowed
20:20
Speaker 2: the criminal party to remain free to commit additional crimes
20:25
Speaker 2: on our community. And you know, this bill should be
20:28
Speaker 2: highlighted that it's not just about the coercion, it's really
20:32
Speaker 2: about the safety of everyone involved. And you know, if
20:36
Speaker 2: my voice can help make change somewhere, then you know,
20:41
Speaker 2: maybe my suffering was meant to be somewhere.
20:43
Speaker 3: As weird as it sounds.
20:46
Speaker 2: But there really shouldn't be any more Marti tank lifts
20:48
Speaker 2: there are. You know, very few people get to suffer
20:53
Speaker 2: the way I have and be able to achieve what
20:55
Speaker 2: I've been able to achieve, you know, And for me,
20:58
Speaker 2: it's about education. It's about retraining and refocusing everyone's perspectives
21:05
Speaker 2: on the system. In thak you to Senator Peters and
21:08
Speaker 2: Dave Thompson. We're making a difference. And you know, if
21:11
Speaker 2: we can make a change in Illinois, we can do
21:14
Speaker 2: it universally and we can protect our kids. And just
21:19
Speaker 2: to make the record clear, I'm an adjunct professor Georgetown
21:22
Speaker 2: not Law School, and I teach the class that Georgetown
21:26
Speaker 2: is nicknamed making an exonery where we use undergraduate students
21:30
Speaker 2: to reinvestigate cases. And what's amazing is some of those
21:33
Speaker 2: students have been through tragedies that we've spoken about today,
21:38
Speaker 2: either directly or indirectly. And to me, that's the next
21:42
Speaker 2: generation of freedom fighters for us.
21:45
Speaker 1: Well. Inspired by you, Marty very much, and by you
21:48
Speaker 1: Senator Peters, and by you Dave Thank you all so
21:51
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. It has been a fascinating conversation.
21:54
Speaker 1: Best of luck with everything that each one of you
21:57
Speaker 1: is doing to change the world, make a difference, like
21:59
Speaker 1: Marty says, and most importantly, make sure that we're advancing
22:03
Speaker 1: this fight against wrongful convictions.
22:05
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you, Lura.
22:06
Speaker 1: All right, take care, guys. That's all the time we have,
22:12
Speaker 1: but I hope you get just how important it is
22:14
Speaker 1: to support Illinois State Senate Bill twenty one to twenty two.
22:18
Speaker 1: There will be a vote on the bill Friday, April sixteenth,
22:21
Speaker 1: so we need you to weigh in now. Sign up
22:25
Speaker 1: to get involved at Innocenceproject dot org, slash pledge, or
22:29
Speaker 1: tweet your support to the Illinois Senate Democrats at ill
22:33
Speaker 1: send deems that's il s E n d e MS
22:39
Speaker 1: to learn how to support similar efforts in New York,
22:42
Speaker 1: Oregon and other states. You can also follow me at
22:45
Speaker 1: Laura and I Wrider on Instagram or Twitter. Be well everyone,
22:50
Speaker 1: and thanks again to our guests. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions
22:56
Speaker 1: is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association
22:59
Speaker 1: with Signal Company Number one. Special thanks to our executive
23:03
Speaker 1: producers Jason Flamm and Kevin Wardis. This episode was produced
23:07
Speaker 1: by Riva Goldberg and Connor Hall. Followed the show on
23:11
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Twitter at wrong Conviction