Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #116 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Robert Davis

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#116 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Robert Davis · Wrongful Conviction

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I writer.
0:05
Speaker 2: And I'm Steve Drison.
0:08
Speaker 1: In our previous episode, we talked about how the interrogation
0:11
Speaker 1: room works.
0:12
Speaker 3: Today we're going to show you.
0:14
Speaker 1: Steve and I are going to tell you about a
0:16
Speaker 1: young man named Robert Davis. This is a frightening story
0:19
Speaker 1: of a murder investigation that went horribly wrong. Roberts was
0:23
Speaker 1: one of the first false confession cases I worked on,
0:26
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget it because it taught me how
0:29
Speaker 1: easily an ordinary person can get caught up in a
0:33
Speaker 1: web of injustice. We first learned about Robert Davis back
0:45
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. The story came from a local newspaper
0:49
Speaker 1: out of Charlottesville, Virginia.
0:51
Speaker 2: I was in a space at the time where I
0:54
Speaker 2: was looking for false confessions wherever I could find them,
0:58
Speaker 2: and one day an article about Robert's case turned up
1:03
Speaker 2: in my newsfeed. And when I read the article, I
1:07
Speaker 2: was attracted to it for a number of reasons. One
1:11
Speaker 2: was that there was a recording of the entire interrogation process,
1:16
Speaker 2: and that's sort of the gold that everybody was looking for.
1:21
Speaker 2: Can you see how police manipulate an innocent suspect into
1:27
Speaker 2: confessing to a crime they didn't commit.
1:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so many people think that's only for
1:31
Speaker 1: extremely young children, that's only for intellectually limited people. But
1:35
Speaker 1: Robert Davis is every man's us. He's a normal, normal
1:38
Speaker 1: guy in every sense, you know, to the extent there
1:41
Speaker 1: is a normal person. Robert Davis could be your neighbor,
1:46
Speaker 1: he could be your kid's friend. And there's no better
1:50
Speaker 1: illustration of the power of the interrogation room, the way
1:53
Speaker 1: these techniques work, the way they can transform the innocent
1:55
Speaker 1: into the guilty in a matter of hours than this case.
2:00
Speaker 2: After receiving the interrogation video, I knew I had to
2:05
Speaker 2: get involved in this case, and I knew I had
2:07
Speaker 2: to work on it with Laura.
2:09
Speaker 1: Robert Davis's case was my first case where I became
2:11
Speaker 1: involved as an expert. The interrogation video it's one of
2:15
Speaker 1: the most coercive videos I've ever seen. It speaks for itself.
2:18
Speaker 1: It's horrible to watch, and it calls out for action.
2:22
Speaker 2: In many ways. Robert's case was an early incarnation of
2:27
Speaker 2: the kind of clemency campaign that Laura and I recently
2:31
Speaker 2: mounted in the case of Brendan Dacy. Using clips from
2:35
Speaker 2: the interrogation to tell what had happened him, bringing in
2:39
Speaker 2: experts from different fields, including law enforcement, to weigh in
2:44
Speaker 2: on what was wrong with that interrogation, and helping to
2:48
Speaker 2: personalize Robert through the media.
2:55
Speaker 1: Robert Davis's story begins in Crozy, Virginia, a middle class
2:58
Speaker 1: suburb of Charlottesville. Robert lived in a small house with
3:02
Speaker 1: his mom, and they were really close. In the winter
3:05
Speaker 1: of two thousand and three, he was a senior in
3:07
Speaker 1: high school and with graduation just a few months away,
3:10
Speaker 1: Robert was looking forward to the next phase of his life.
3:14
Speaker 1: But on the night of February nineteenth, a terrible tragedy
3:17
Speaker 1: happened on Robert's block. Fire broke out in a neighboring house,
3:21
Speaker 1: the home of a young mother and her three children.
3:26
Speaker 1: The fire department is called. They arrive at the scene.
3:29
Speaker 1: It's a snowy night right snowflakes are coming down fast
3:31
Speaker 1: and furious firefighters get there. They battle through the snow.
3:34
Speaker 1: They put out the fire, and once the fire is subdued,
3:37
Speaker 1: they go upstairs to one of the bedrooms, which is
3:40
Speaker 1: where they find the body of the homeowner, a forty
3:43
Speaker 1: one year old woman named Nola Charles, and when they
3:46
Speaker 1: turned Nola's body over, they saw a knife in her back,
3:50
Speaker 1: and suddenly it became very clear that this fire had
3:53
Speaker 1: been set to cover up a murder.
3:55
Speaker 2: Then the firefighters walked down a hallway to look in
3:59
Speaker 2: some of the other bedrooms. This is a very small house,
4:03
Speaker 2: so it was just a short walk and under some
4:08
Speaker 2: debris they found the body of Nola's young son, Thomas Charles,
4:13
Speaker 2: and he had died of smoke in elation. You know,
4:16
Speaker 2: this was a horrific crime anyway you slice it. You know,
4:22
Speaker 2: the murder of a mother, the death of a small child, stabbings,
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Speaker 2: an arson to try to cover up the crime. This
4:31
Speaker 2: is something that would have been unheard of in Crose
4:35
Speaker 2: and just would have been a complete and total shock
4:40
Speaker 2: to the entire community.
4:42
Speaker 1: An investigation starts and pretty soon the police identify some
4:45
Speaker 1: likely suspects. It's actually two other teenagers. Their names are
4:48
Speaker 1: Rocky and Jessica Fugit. Rocky was nineteen. He was also
4:52
Speaker 1: a senior in high school, like Robert Davis, but he
4:55
Speaker 1: was somebody who had a really troubled past. He'd struggled
4:58
Speaker 1: with drug addiction, with alcoholic and he'd gotten in trouble
5:02
Speaker 1: with the police for doing things like leaving dead birds
5:05
Speaker 1: in church sanctuaries. His sister, Jessica was fifteen, and she
5:10
Speaker 1: had struggled her whole life with mental illness, delusions, hallucinations.
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Speaker 1: She was somebody who really grappled with her own demons,
5:19
Speaker 1: and she was friends with Nola Charles's teenage daughter, Wendy,
5:23
Speaker 1: but Jessica didn't like Wendy's mom. Jessica was known to
5:26
Speaker 1: have a grudge against Nola Charles, and so based on
5:28
Speaker 1: all this information, the police picked up Rocky and Jessica
5:31
Speaker 1: within only a few days of this fire, and they
5:34
Speaker 1: bring them down to the police station for questioning, and
5:37
Speaker 1: soon enough, the two of them confess that they were
5:39
Speaker 1: involved in the killing of Nola Charles and the setting
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Speaker 1: of the house on fire. After they confessed, Jessica led
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Speaker 1: the police to a snowy field behind Nola charles home
5:48
Speaker 1: where she and Rocky had buried an iron bar that
5:52
Speaker 1: had been used to bludgeon Nola Charles before she was stabbed,
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Speaker 1: and that iron bar still had Nola's DNA all over it,
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Speaker 1: So Jessica was able to lead the police to this
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Speaker 1: new evidence that they didn't know about that corroborated her confession.
6:05
Speaker 1: The confession's true. Rocky and Jessica are guilty. They've never
6:08
Speaker 1: said otherwise. Case closed. And if this was the end
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Speaker 1: of the story, right, we wouldn't be telling it to you.
6:13
Speaker 1: But it's not the end of the story. Because the
6:17
Speaker 1: police were convinced that Rocky and Jessica had not acted alone,
6:22
Speaker 1: and they each started rattling off a list of names
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Speaker 1: other kids in their high school. The police determined that
6:29
Speaker 1: each one of these other high schoolers had an ironclad
6:31
Speaker 1: alibi until the last name on the list, which is
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Speaker 1: Robert Davis. Robert had been at home alone asleep, not
6:43
Speaker 1: a very good alibi, so the police decided to bring
6:47
Speaker 1: him in for questioning.
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Speaker 2: Two Now, from the get go, Robert Davis and Jessica
6:54
Speaker 2: and Rocky being together in the same space committing a
6:58
Speaker 2: horrific cry maiden no sense at all. These two kids
7:03
Speaker 2: picked on Robert, especially Rocky. The idea that Robert would
7:08
Speaker 2: be with them and would commit a murder was absurd
7:12
Speaker 2: and it didn't take a lot of smarts to see that.
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Speaker 1: But nonetheless, right the police go and pick up Robert Davis.
7:19
Speaker 1: They bring him in for questioning. In the middle of
7:21
Speaker 1: the night. Now, before we hear what happens next, I
7:28
Speaker 1: want to stop for a minute and talk to you
7:30
Speaker 1: about how interrogations work. Obviously, the goal is to get
7:34
Speaker 1: the suspect to confess to the crime, but how does
7:37
Speaker 1: that happen exactly? In the last episode, Steve and I
7:40
Speaker 1: shared some of what we've learned from watching many hours
7:43
Speaker 1: of interrogation tapes. But as shocking as what we described is,
7:48
Speaker 1: you should know that interrogations used to be even worse.
7:51
Speaker 1: One hundred years ago, it was common for police to
7:54
Speaker 1: use physical violence. Innocent and guilty suspects alike were beaten,
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Speaker 1: hung from window, and otherwise tortured until they confessed just
8:03
Speaker 1: to escape the suffering. Then, starting in the nineteen forties
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Speaker 1: and fifties, reform was in the air. Physically abusive practices
8:11
Speaker 1: were thrown out. Police were trained to use words instead
8:15
Speaker 1: of fists, and this change seemed like a progressive one
8:17
Speaker 1: at the time. But now we know that psychological interrogation
8:21
Speaker 1: techniques can also be highly problematic. They're very good at
8:25
Speaker 1: persuading actual criminals to admit guilt, but they can also
8:28
Speaker 1: produce false confessions. The manipulation begins with the interrogation room itself.
8:35
Speaker 1: Like Steve said, these rooms are designed to make the
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Speaker 1: suspect feel isolated, cut off from all sources of support
8:42
Speaker 1: or help. This is the type of room where police
8:45
Speaker 1: brought Robert Davis on February twenty second, two thousand and three,
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Speaker 1: at about one o'clock in the morning. He's by himself.
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Speaker 1: He's eighteen years old, and he's sitting in there alone,
8:57
Speaker 1: not knowing what's happening now terrifying circuit stances. And then
9:02
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, with the video camera rolling, the
9:05
Speaker 1: police come into the interrogation room, two officers, big burly guys,
9:10
Speaker 1: and they say to him.
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Speaker 4: Robert, which murder Thoma Charles, of Thomas Charles, you're when
9:21
Speaker 4: we talked with the attempted murder of the two Charals daughters,
9:25
Speaker 4: Katie and Wenney. Now it's really gotten serious.
9:28
Speaker 5: This has exactly right.
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Speaker 1: And literally, you know, when you watch Robert react to
9:33
Speaker 1: being accused of murder, you can feel the fear and
9:39
Speaker 1: the panic and the anxiety just radiating off this video
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Speaker 1: and you could just watch his mind spin.
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Speaker 3: What can I do?
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Speaker 1: What can I do to convince these guys they've got
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Speaker 1: the wrong person? And so Robert says to them, what
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Speaker 1: any of us I think in that situation would say,
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Speaker 1: I swear.
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Speaker 5: To out all my life right now that I did
9:58
Speaker 5: not do nothing oh this matter, I have nothing to
10:02
Speaker 5: do with this. I will take a polygraph test right
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Speaker 5: now to prove to you that I did not have
10:07
Speaker 5: nothing to do with this.
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Speaker 2: Interrogation trainers teach law enforcement officers that if a suspect
10:14
Speaker 2: affirmatively asks for a polygraph exam, that that's one indicator
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Speaker 2: of innocence. It's not rock solid proof that somebody is innocent,
10:27
Speaker 2: but it's a powerful statement that they have nothing to
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Speaker 2: fear and that they're willing to put their innocence to
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Speaker 2: the test.
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Speaker 1: And the officers shut them down. They tell them, no,
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Speaker 1: we don't have a polygraph, even though they actually have
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Speaker 1: one in the room next door. Now, why are they
10:42
Speaker 1: refusing to listen to Robert as he's asserting dozens of
10:44
Speaker 1: times his innocence. Well, that's how officers are trained to interrogate.
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Speaker 1: Interrogation is basically a two staged process. The goal of
10:57
Speaker 1: the first stage, which we've just heard a little bit of,
11:00
Speaker 1: is to bring the suspect down to hopelessness. This officer
11:03
Speaker 1: is telling Robert that it's pointless to say he's innocent
11:07
Speaker 1: because they already know he's guilty. An interrogator's job is
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Speaker 1: to make the suspect feel trapped, using every tool available,
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Speaker 1: and as many people don't realize, these tools can include lying.
11:19
Speaker 6: Underskin.
11:20
Speaker 4: It is the worst saying.
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Speaker 2: The world was for the dust.
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Speaker 7: Can you see it?
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Speaker 1: They say to him, we found your DNA in the
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Speaker 1: house from your skin cells that just shed naturally off you.
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Speaker 1: And of course this is false, right. The house have
11:33
Speaker 1: gone up in flames, there was no forensic evidence whatsoever
11:35
Speaker 1: recovered from the scene.
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Speaker 3: It's a complete lie.
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Speaker 1: But in the United States, police are allowed to lie
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Speaker 1: during interrogations. And again you can see radiating off this
11:48
Speaker 1: videotape the terror in Robert's face. Right, how can this be?
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Speaker 1: I've never been in that home.
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Speaker 2: And then the officer says something I have never seen
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Speaker 2: in any other interrogation, and I've seen that thousands of
12:00
Speaker 2: hours of interrogations.
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Speaker 5: I can't lie about the evidence.
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Speaker 2: I can't lie about the evidence, Robert. I mean, talk
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Speaker 2: about a whopper. Not only can he lie during the interrogations,
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Speaker 2: but he can lie about the evidence. And he's lying about.
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Speaker 3: A lie exactly, talk about a mind fux.
12:18
Speaker 2: We'll just drop the F word, drop the F bomb.
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Speaker 1: It's appropriate in this case, right, I mean, this is
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Speaker 1: the psychological game that twists the world for people in.
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Speaker 3: The box, and it works.
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Speaker 1: Now, let's take a moment to remember that Robert is
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Speaker 1: going through this ordeal completely alone. At eighteen years old,
12:39
Speaker 1: he's legally an adult, but even if he were younger,
12:42
Speaker 1: in most states, it's perfectly legal to question a child
12:45
Speaker 1: without notifying their parent or guardian. This is a desperate situation,
12:50
Speaker 1: and like anyone would, Robert asks for the best protector
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Speaker 1: he has. He asks for his mom, but that request
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Speaker 1: is turned around and used to break him down even further.
13:01
Speaker 7: I will talk to mom, please, I'd do that, but
13:07
Speaker 7: ALI will cooperations.
13:12
Speaker 2: Then they do something especially insidious. The lead investigator says
13:19
Speaker 2: that he had just had a phone call with Robert's
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Speaker 2: mother and his mother was crying hysterically on the phone.
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Speaker 2: You know, And this investigator tells Robert, your mom wants
13:30
Speaker 2: you to cooperate. Your mom is saying, Robert, you know,
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Speaker 2: tell the truth so that I can help you to
13:38
Speaker 2: go on with your life, right.
13:40
Speaker 1: To save your life exactly, And of course, that's all
13:42
Speaker 1: made up, right. He didn't actually have this conversation with
13:45
Speaker 1: the mother at all. It's horrible to watch the police
13:48
Speaker 1: twist a mother child relationship into a bludgeon to be
13:51
Speaker 1: used in the interrogation room. It's a disgusting ploy, deeply manipulative,
13:56
Speaker 1: and it's it's.
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Speaker 3: Very hard to watch.
13:59
Speaker 2: There are other moments that are just you know, classic
14:03
Speaker 2: threats of punishment and promises of leniency and the calculated
14:09
Speaker 2: choice of words on the part of this officer have
14:13
Speaker 2: always intrigued me.
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Speaker 4: And I'm trying to keep you from that must ultimate
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Speaker 4: the punishments you can get and you're not in.
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Speaker 7: Healthyly help you.
14:19
Speaker 2: He refuses to say death penalty. He uses the words
14:24
Speaker 2: ultimate punishment as if that's somehow less direct a threat.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's an effort to dance around something that
14:35
Speaker 2: everybody knows is true, which is Robert is fighting for
14:39
Speaker 2: his life in this interrogation room.
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Speaker 1: This is the moment when all of these psychological techniques,
14:45
Speaker 1: all of this mind fuck, finally takes hold, and Robert
14:48
Speaker 1: looks up at these officers from the corner of the
14:51
Speaker 1: interrogation room.
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Speaker 3: And he says, I did to get out of.
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Speaker 1: This that's the climax of the entire interrogation. What can
15:00
Speaker 1: I say I did to get me out of this?
15:11
Speaker 1: Once the suspect has been brought down a hopelessness, once
15:14
Speaker 1: their will has been broken, that's when the second stage
15:17
Speaker 1: of interrogation begins. This is the moment when the suspect
15:20
Speaker 1: is offered a choice. What's going to happen if they
15:23
Speaker 1: don't confess, and what will happen if they do. For Robert,
15:28
Speaker 1: option number one looks pretty terrible. The ultimate punishment or
15:32
Speaker 1: best case scenario, ninety years in prison. But on the
15:36
Speaker 1: other hand, the police tell Robert that if he confesses
15:39
Speaker 1: his involvement in the crime, if he cooperates, the judge
15:42
Speaker 1: will go easy on him. He might get as few
15:45
Speaker 1: as five to ten years in prison, and at the
15:47
Speaker 1: very least, they tell him he'll save his own life.
15:51
Speaker 1: The interrogators have finally achieved their goal to make confessing
15:55
Speaker 1: look like the best choice Robert has.
16:03
Speaker 2: So you can see Robert breaking down. But he has
16:06
Speaker 2: a problem. He's never been in that house, he's never
16:09
Speaker 2: been with these people. He doesn't know who the people
16:12
Speaker 2: are that are accusing him of these crimes. Even if
16:15
Speaker 2: he wants to confess to this crime. He has no
16:18
Speaker 2: idea of what happened.
16:20
Speaker 1: So now the game becomes not convincing Robert that he
16:24
Speaker 1: has to confess, but rather simply telling him what to say.
16:27
Speaker 1: And so that's how the final few hours of this
16:28
Speaker 1: interrogation are spent. Robert starts out not even knowing who
16:33
Speaker 1: his accomplices are, and they have to give him the
16:36
Speaker 1: names Rocky and Jessica. Okay, so Robert adopts those. Yes,
16:40
Speaker 1: I was there with Rocky and Jessica, and we went
16:42
Speaker 1: in the back door of the home.
16:44
Speaker 4: No.
16:45
Speaker 1: In fact, the evidence of the scene was that the
16:47
Speaker 1: entry had occurred through the front door, so the officers
16:50
Speaker 1: have to correct that. No, Robert, the three of you
16:52
Speaker 1: went through the front door. Then he's telling a story
16:54
Speaker 1: in which he and Rocky and Jessica are down on
16:56
Speaker 1: the first floor of the home and he Robert stays
16:58
Speaker 1: down there during the attack. But of course Nolah Charles's
17:01
Speaker 1: body was found in an upstairs bedroom. He's getting it
17:04
Speaker 1: wrong again. So again, no, no, Robert, you were upstairs.
17:07
Speaker 1: We know you were upstairs. You have to say you
17:08
Speaker 1: were upstairs.
17:09
Speaker 3: And this goes on and on and on.
17:15
Speaker 4: I got somebody else Cluverner, you did another act.
17:18
Speaker 5: You know what that act is?
17:19
Speaker 2: You stabbed that one.
17:20
Speaker 1: And the amazing thing is that while the officers are
17:23
Speaker 1: feeding Robert all of this information correcting his mistakes, while
17:27
Speaker 1: they're doing it, there's a level of self awareness because
17:29
Speaker 1: they say to him, Robert, you realize that if I
17:32
Speaker 1: have to tell you what you did, that defeats the purpose,
17:36
Speaker 1: and then they do it anyway. After Robert creates this
17:40
Speaker 1: confession and seals his own fate, he looks up at
17:44
Speaker 1: these officers and he says, do you think by me
17:46
Speaker 1: telling you all this, it's going to get me home?
17:50
Speaker 1: And the officer looks at him and says, no, you're
17:52
Speaker 1: not going to go home. You'll see a judge on Monday.
17:55
Speaker 1: And Robert looks at him.
17:56
Speaker 5: And says, this to just.
17:59
Speaker 1: Sun, I'm lying to you about all of this. It
18:08
Speaker 1: is the clearest recantation I have ever seen.
18:12
Speaker 2: And the most immediate. I mean, he hasn't left the
18:15
Speaker 2: interrogation room yet.
18:16
Speaker 1: He thought he's going to go home, back to his mom,
18:18
Speaker 1: back to his high school life, and instead he is
18:21
Speaker 1: handcuffed and led out of that room to a jail
18:24
Speaker 1: cell where he's booked for double murder and arson, and
18:28
Speaker 1: where in fact he's staring at decades in prison. Robert
18:37
Speaker 1: Davis couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, so the court
18:40
Speaker 1: appointed one for him. And when that happens, some people
18:43
Speaker 1: get a lawyer like Lynn Kachinsky, the guy who botched
18:46
Speaker 1: Brendon Dazzy's case in Wisconsin.
18:49
Speaker 3: But for Robert this was a.
18:50
Speaker 1: Moment when he finally got some amazing luck because the
18:53
Speaker 1: lawyer appointed to defend him was a man who's dedicated
18:56
Speaker 1: his life to fighting for people without a voice.
19:02
Speaker 6: My name's Stephen Rosenfield, been practicing law for forty three years.
19:07
Speaker 6: I'm a civil rights lawyer.
19:09
Speaker 3: Steve Rosenfield is one of my heroes.
19:11
Speaker 2: Mine too. And when Steve looks at the tape, he
19:14
Speaker 2: sees everything that we've just talked about. He sees that
19:19
Speaker 2: police officers browbeat a teenager into confessing to a crime
19:25
Speaker 2: that he didn't even know how to describe, and that
19:28
Speaker 2: they were the ones who scripted this confession.
19:32
Speaker 1: Steve threw himself into this case with the passion of
19:35
Speaker 1: a father who saw how worthless this confession was, but
19:39
Speaker 1: who also saw the stakes. The real stakes here were
19:42
Speaker 1: the rest of this eighteen year old's life.
19:44
Speaker 2: So the job of a good lawyer, when faced with
19:48
Speaker 2: a confession is to try to do everything in their
19:50
Speaker 2: power to keep that evidence out of the trial and
19:55
Speaker 2: to argue that that confession was involuntary and unreliable. And
20:00
Speaker 2: that's exactly what Steve did.
20:03
Speaker 6: Our goal was to keep the confession out because it
20:07
Speaker 6: was coerced and did not reflect what really happened on
20:11
Speaker 6: the night of the murders.
20:13
Speaker 2: Steve litigated this case, fought hard for Robert hired a
20:18
Speaker 2: psychological expert to talk about the tactics that were used
20:22
Speaker 2: by police officers, and he pointed out all of the
20:25
Speaker 2: highlights that we've been talking about.
20:28
Speaker 6: I was able to call our expert witness, and he
20:30
Speaker 6: went through the kinds of factors that lend themselves toward
20:34
Speaker 6: false confessions. Why a young man, having been threatened with
20:39
Speaker 6: a death sentence might say that he had done something
20:43
Speaker 6: when in fact he had not.
20:45
Speaker 1: And if you want to understand the problem of false confessions,
20:47
Speaker 1: why this happens so much, Why people are convicted on
20:49
Speaker 1: the basis of confessions like this one, it's because too
20:53
Speaker 1: many judges believe that the law does not clearly prohibit
20:56
Speaker 1: even threats that someone will face death if they don't
21:00
Speaker 1: confess right, even cases where they have to be told
21:03
Speaker 1: exactly what to say by their interrogators. This judge didn't
21:07
Speaker 1: think the law prohibited that and allow this confession to evidence.
21:11
Speaker 1: And when that happened, of course, then Robert Davis had
21:14
Speaker 1: a horrible choice to make.
21:16
Speaker 2: Knowing Steve, he was very clear and honest with Robert
21:20
Speaker 2: about what the options were and what the chances are
21:23
Speaker 2: of his being convicted.
21:25
Speaker 6: Confessions are powerful. There was a more than likely chance
21:29
Speaker 6: of him being convicted, and with a conviction surely would
21:32
Speaker 6: have come a very hefty sentence. We were guessing that
21:36
Speaker 6: it would have been a huge number of years or
21:39
Speaker 6: life sentences for the killing of the child and the mother.
21:43
Speaker 2: Do I go to trial and risk being sent to
21:46
Speaker 2: prison for the rest of my life for something I
21:49
Speaker 2: didn't do? Or do I accept an offer that the
21:53
Speaker 2: prosecution has made to me if I plead guilty to
21:57
Speaker 2: one count of murder, I will be said to twenty
22:01
Speaker 2: three years. Robert was eighteen years old when he was arrested,
22:07
Speaker 2: so that would mean that he could get out at
22:09
Speaker 2: the age of forty one. He would still have a
22:13
Speaker 2: life half a life half a life. He could have
22:15
Speaker 2: a family, he could have some future.
22:20
Speaker 6: Right.
22:21
Speaker 1: It's a horrible choice, but it's the kind of choice
22:23
Speaker 1: that defendants face in courtrooms around the country every single day.
22:27
Speaker 1: Robert chose the deal. He entered a plea of guilty
22:31
Speaker 1: in exchange for those twenty three years, a horribly difficult,
22:36
Speaker 1: deeply unjust decision that he was forced to make, but
22:40
Speaker 1: also one that I can't fault inform the slightest. I
22:42
Speaker 1: think any of us in that position would probably do
22:45
Speaker 1: the same thing.
22:46
Speaker 2: But what Steve said to Robert is I will not
22:50
Speaker 2: give up on you. I will continue to investigate this case.
22:54
Speaker 1: Steve Rosenfield promised Robert Davis that he would walk with him,
22:57
Speaker 1: that he would stay with him, he would visit him
22:59
Speaker 1: in prison. You wouldn't forget him.
23:01
Speaker 2: And Steve also said to him, look, I know you
23:04
Speaker 2: didn't commit this crime, and I know you don't want
23:07
Speaker 2: to say an open court that you did. There is
23:12
Speaker 2: something called an Alford plea that will enable you to
23:15
Speaker 2: save face.
23:17
Speaker 1: You've got someone proclaiming their innocence, but who doesn't have
23:20
Speaker 1: the power of resources, ability, legal standing to fight the
23:23
Speaker 1: evidence against them. So they cry, uncle, I'm innocent, but
23:26
Speaker 1: I can't fight this. That's what an Alfred plea is.
23:29
Speaker 1: We've seen it in many other wrongful conviction cases, most
23:32
Speaker 1: prominently in the West Memphis three case.
23:35
Speaker 2: One of the consequences is that you can't sue the
23:38
Speaker 2: state for violating your civil rights. The Alfred plea disqualifies
23:43
Speaker 2: you from recovering any compensation for the years, sometimes decades,
23:48
Speaker 2: you've spent in prison.
23:50
Speaker 3: It's a tool of injustice.
23:51
Speaker 1: Should not exist, but it does, and that's the tool
23:54
Speaker 1: that was used to secure Robert Davis's twenty three year
23:57
Speaker 1: prison sends. Steve Rosenfield kept his promise even while Robert
24:09
Speaker 1: served his time. Steve continued pounding the pavement looking for
24:12
Speaker 1: new evidence of Robert's innocence. He even reached out to
24:15
Speaker 1: family members of Rocky and Jessica Fugit, who were both
24:18
Speaker 1: serving life.
24:18
Speaker 3: Sentences in prison.
24:20
Speaker 1: Steve never gave up hope that one day Rocky and
24:23
Speaker 1: Jessica might come forward and tell the truth. And then
24:27
Speaker 1: one day that hope arrived in the mail.
24:31
Speaker 6: After about eight years, I received a letter from the
24:34
Speaker 6: boy who said that his conscience was bothering him and
24:38
Speaker 6: would I come down and visit him and he told
24:42
Speaker 6: us the truth. He told us that he and his
24:44
Speaker 6: sister were the only two present. He came up with
24:47
Speaker 6: the idea of framing Robert because he thought it could
24:51
Speaker 6: help at his sentencing if the prosecutor was pleased with
24:56
Speaker 6: his cooperation.
24:58
Speaker 2: It was like manna from heaven. Right, the accuser of
25:02
Speaker 2: Robert Davis recants and says, I was wrong. I feel
25:07
Speaker 2: terrible about it. Help me make this right.
25:11
Speaker 1: The only hope that Robert had was if the governor
25:13
Speaker 1: of Virginia would step in and issue a pardon. And
25:16
Speaker 1: so that's Steve Rosenfield's plan. Let's go to the governor,
25:19
Speaker 1: Let's tell him about Rocky's recantation, and let's highlight all
25:23
Speaker 1: the problems with this interrogation. Now, a local Charlottesville newspaper
25:27
Speaker 1: called The Hook wrote an article about steve clemency campaign
25:31
Speaker 1: for Robert. And that's the article that showed up in
25:33
Speaker 1: your newsfeed.
25:34
Speaker 2: Right, Steve, exactly. I read that story and I reached
25:37
Speaker 2: out to Steve and I said, what can we do
25:39
Speaker 2: to help? And as we talked, I noticed that Steve
25:42
Speaker 2: had hired a psychological expert for Robert's case, but he
25:47
Speaker 2: didn't have an expert who could really look at the
25:50
Speaker 2: interrogation and say, these are the kinds of tactics that
25:55
Speaker 2: lead to coerced and unreliable confessions. I volunteered our assistance
26:00
Speaker 2: in doing that. I had done some expert work, and
26:05
Speaker 2: I wanted Lara to start doing some expert work. So
26:08
Speaker 2: I assigned Lara the lead role in analyzing this interrogation.
26:14
Speaker 2: But we also offered Steve other ways in which to
26:19
Speaker 2: publicize and highlight Roberts's plight. I had worked with a
26:23
Speaker 2: number of producers on NBC's Dateline Show, and I reached
26:28
Speaker 2: out to them and I said, this is gold. We
26:31
Speaker 2: have a videotaped interrogation from start to finish. You can
26:36
Speaker 2: actually see on this tape how someone confesses to a
26:41
Speaker 2: crime they didn't commit. And we also reached out to
26:45
Speaker 2: other experts in the law enforcement field to look at
26:49
Speaker 2: Robert's interrogation and to weigh in on all the things
26:52
Speaker 2: that police officers did wrong.
26:54
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the thing, right.
26:55
Speaker 1: We knew that we needed to elevate Robert's story and
26:58
Speaker 1: bring a community of different people to get to push
27:01
Speaker 1: all in their different ways against a system that's designed
27:04
Speaker 1: to keep people in prison.
27:06
Speaker 3: We knew that.
27:07
Speaker 1: Public opinion would rally around Robert Davis. Once people saw
27:11
Speaker 1: this story, we knew that people inside Virginia would care
27:14
Speaker 1: about the way interrogations were being conducted in their state
27:17
Speaker 1: and would hopefully press the governor to do the right
27:19
Speaker 1: thing in Robert's case. And then one more.
27:22
Speaker 2: Thing happened, more manna from heaven.
27:24
Speaker 3: It was Jessica Fujet.
27:26
Speaker 6: I received a letter from her saying that she knew
27:30
Speaker 6: that she had done wrong by framing Robert and that
27:34
Speaker 6: she wanted to make amends for that.
27:37
Speaker 1: That's when we started to really believe there was a
27:39
Speaker 1: chance of getting Robert Davis out of prison.
27:41
Speaker 6: I met with Governor mccaulliffe. We talked for about forty minutes.
27:45
Speaker 6: I suggested to him that he grant at least a
27:49
Speaker 6: conditional pardon and then revisit the case in a year,
27:53
Speaker 6: and that was the grounds under which Governor mccaulliff agreed
27:57
Speaker 6: to release Robert, deciding that with the statements of the
28:01
Speaker 6: two kids, there was a much better likelihood that he
28:06
Speaker 6: would have been found not guilty.
28:08
Speaker 1: It's been twelve years of incarceration for Robert, and suddenly,
28:15
Speaker 1: a few days before Christmas, he's allowed to go home.
28:18
Speaker 1: It's an incredible moment where you can you can hear
28:21
Speaker 1: the joy in his voice and in his mother's voice
28:23
Speaker 1: as they embrace for the first time after Robert is freed.
28:27
Speaker 1: It was beautiful, just beautiful.
28:31
Speaker 8: Right.
28:38
Speaker 5: I'm home, man like I can reach out and not
28:42
Speaker 5: touch nothing. I don't see no gates now, I don't
28:44
Speaker 5: see no fences.
28:45
Speaker 1: As a part of dayline documenting Robert's release, they go
28:48
Speaker 1: and speak to the chief of the Albemarle County Police
28:51
Speaker 1: Department and they ask him how he feels about Robert
28:54
Speaker 1: Davis's release.
28:56
Speaker 8: I will say this, I believe that the confession is
28:59
Speaker 8: an unreally viable confession. Using terms like the ultimate punishment,
29:04
Speaker 8: length of the interview, those kinds of things would be
29:09
Speaker 8: clearly not done today.
29:11
Speaker 2: He was embarrassed by what he saw, and this was
29:14
Speaker 2: somebody from the same police department in the same community,
29:20
Speaker 2: reflecting back on what he saw when he looked at
29:23
Speaker 2: the tape.
29:24
Speaker 1: And with that admission of a mistake, the Governor of
29:27
Speaker 1: Virginia a year later granted Robert that full pardon based
29:31
Speaker 1: on actual innocence. He exonerated him.
29:36
Speaker 6: Robert and I have maintained a close relationship all these years,
29:40
Speaker 6: he's just such a great kid at go the kid
29:43
Speaker 6: in mid thirties. Now he has an extended family, wonderful friends.
29:49
Speaker 6: He has highly thought of in the community. He's a
29:52
Speaker 6: sweet guy with a big heart. He's very optimistic about
29:55
Speaker 6: the future. And this has been in spite of having
29:59
Speaker 6: spent his form of years in prison. So by and large,
30:03
Speaker 6: he uses every day to enjoy and put behind him
30:07
Speaker 6: some of that ugly past.
30:09
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
30:10
Speaker 1: I mean, we'd watched on that interrogation video Robert be
30:13
Speaker 1: transformed from just an innocent member of the community into
30:18
Speaker 1: a confessed murderer, and now, thirteen years later, we could
30:24
Speaker 1: watch him be transformed back and it was a beautiful
30:27
Speaker 1: thing to watch, the retelling of the story the right way. Hello, Hey, Robert,
30:34
Speaker 1: it's Flora. How are you doing.
30:36
Speaker 8: I'm doing well. How are you?
30:38
Speaker 3: I'm good.
30:38
Speaker 2: I'm good.
30:38
Speaker 1: You just got off work today?
30:39
Speaker 3: Hunh.
30:40
Speaker 1: What are you doing for a job?
30:41
Speaker 2: He days?
30:41
Speaker 5: I'm doing electrically working for the five days.
30:45
Speaker 7: Amazing, fantastic.
30:47
Speaker 1: I heard you got engaged recently to congratulations.
30:50
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
30:51
Speaker 1: And she's got a daughter here, so you're a stepdad.
30:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot of responsibility.
30:55
Speaker 5: It is a lot of responsibility, but I definitely enjoy it.
31:00
Speaker 3: It's great.
31:03
Speaker 1: The one question we're always asked in our work is
31:05
Speaker 1: why would anyone confess to a crime that they didn't commit?
31:09
Speaker 1: And when you watch the video of Robert Davis, it's
31:11
Speaker 1: the perfect answer to the question, why would anyone confess
31:14
Speaker 1: to a crime they didn't commit? The answer is because
31:17
Speaker 1: they're interrogated like this. When you're fighting a wrongful conviction,
31:23
Speaker 1: what you are doing, at the end of the day
31:25
Speaker 1: is trying to rewrite the story that's been told about
31:27
Speaker 1: your client.
31:28
Speaker 2: You're rewriting history, right, You're.
31:30
Speaker 3: Changing the legacy of what happened.
31:32
Speaker 1: And the story that led to the conviction is a
31:34
Speaker 1: story of guilt, a story of harm, of damage, of pain,
31:37
Speaker 1: and of someone who, at the end of the day,
31:39
Speaker 1: deserves to be locked up in a cage for the
31:41
Speaker 1: rest of their life. That's the story that when you
31:44
Speaker 1: fight a wrongful conviction.
31:45
Speaker 3: That you have to change.
31:50
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us. I hope you'll come
31:52
Speaker 1: back next week when we'll be telling the story of
31:54
Speaker 1: Chicago's own Central Park jogger case, known as the Dixmore Five.
32:00
Speaker 1: The Dixmore five were a group of teenage boys who
32:02
Speaker 1: confessed to the rape and murder of their own classmate
32:05
Speaker 1: and were convicted despite some of the strongest evidence of
32:08
Speaker 1: innocence imaginable. Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions is a production of
32:17
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
32:21
Speaker 1: Special thanks to our executive producer Jason Flamm and the
32:25
Speaker 1: team at Signal Company Number one. Executive producer Kevin wardis
32:29
Speaker 1: Senior producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by
32:32
Speaker 1: Connor Hall.
32:33
Speaker 3: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph.
32:36
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nyrider,
32:40
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on Twitter at s Drizsen.
32:44
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrongfulconvictionpodcast dot com
32:48
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow the show on Instagram at
32:51
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on
32:55
Speaker 1: Twitter at wrong Conviction