COMMENTARY: 'Making a Murderer;: Justice weeps," by Marsha Levick, published by the Huffington Post on January 21, 2016. (Marsha Levick
Deputy Director and Chief Counsel Juvenile Law Center; Adjunct Faculty,
University of Pennsylvania and Temple Law Schools, Juvenile Law Center.)
GIST: "Like thousands of others transfixed by the Netflix Documentary Making a
Murderer, I was alternately struck by feelings of rage, shock, sadness,
and dismay as I streamed through the ten episodes. But watching the
series as a lawyer who has spent most of her career fighting for the
constitutional and legal rights of children, I was particularly
incensed. The injustices exposed in Making a Murderer are not limited to
Manitowoc, Wisconsin, but mirror systemic failures in jurisdictions
across the country. And as one of the lawyers who litigated the
Pennsylvania "Kids for Cash" scandal, the scent of official corruption
was all too familiar..........The interrogations of Brendan by law enforcement and his own legal
team were excruciating to observe. The scenes vividly illustrate the
reality of false confessions and how easily children and youth can be
manipulated without legal protections. Brendan appears truly without
guile throughout, a young man intellectually compromised in his ability
to understand what is happening, yet fervently attempting to tell his
truth. Whether it is his own lawyer's private investigator literally
putting words and images in his head, or the creepy closeness with which
the police investigators lean into him as they press him to "confess"
his conduct to his mother before they do, the "questioning" left me
staring at the screen in disbelief. At Brendan's trial, the prosecutor, in his closing argument, tells
the jury "innocent people don't confess." He cleverly plays to an
opinion shared by many: Why in the world would an innocent person
confess to a crime he didn't commit, especially murder? But false
confessions have become a staple of our criminal justice system; the
prosecutor's statement itself is false and indeed legally objectionable.
Today, saying innocent people don't confess is like saying apples don't
grow on trees - a patent lie exposed by our own human experience. And children are no exception. In fact, they are more likely to
confess falsely than adults. They're more vulnerable to the promise or
suggestion of a positive outcome if they just tell the interrogator what
"really" happened. This can have devastating consequences. As Dr.
Laurence Steinberg noted in the recent Huffington Post article
What 'Making A Murderer' Can Teach Us About Teens And False Confessions,
"A confession is one of the most damning things in a trial, and one of
the things that juries are likely to believe." But Brendan Dassey wasn't
thinking about the longer term consequences of saying he participated
in the murder with his uncle - he just wanted to know if he could get
back to his school project if he told his questioners what they wanted
to hear. Of course, Brendan's susceptibility to falsely confessing is
compounded by his cognitive impairments. He repeatedly - and
heartbreakingly - refers to himself as "stupid." He doesn't understand
what the word "inconsistent" means. Under these circumstances, he can't
sort out why his interrogators would feed him false information or say
things that are simply designed to manipulate him into agreeing with
them. He genuinely believes that the more he acknowledges involvement in
Teresa Halbach's murder, the better off he will be. And given his age
and intellectual challenges, he is that much more likely to trust these
"authority figures" and give them the answers they seek, as many
children do. This well-known and controversial style of interrogation, called the
Reid technique, was recently discussed in another Huffington Post
article by Matt Ferner. This technique has led to numerous situations
where an innocent person ended up confessing to a crime they never
committed. "In a nutshell, the primal fatal flaw of the Reid technique,
on display in the interrogation of Brendan Dassey, is that it is a
guilt-presumptive process inflicted on suspects who have already been
judged deceptive and guilty," stated Saul Kassin, a psychology professor
at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Huffington Post
article
7 Terrifying Things 'Making A Murderer' Illustrates About American Justice. The law has been slow to ensure that children are not abused by our
justice system. Much damage was done to Brendan's case before his first
lawyer was finally removed from his case. Across the country, children
are routinely exposed to shocking interrogation practices. Brendan was
questioned without the assistance of either a lawyer or his deeply
concerned mother. In California, a 10-year-old boy was considered mature
and knowledgeable enough to understand and waive his Miranda rights,
ultimately confessing to the killing of his abusive stepfather. His
confession was upheld by the California appellate court; the United
States Supreme has been asked to review the case. 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in
Miranda, and it also marks the fifth anniversary of the Court's ruling in
J.D.B. v North Carolina,
a case in which the Court required law enforcement to take a child's
age into account in determining when to administer the Miranda warnings.
But the Court has yet to address whether children should ever be
subjected to questioning by the police without the assistance of
counsel, despite their acknowledgement 50 years ago that police
interrogations are inherently coercive. How many more children will be
convicted and sentenced based upon a false confession before proper
protections are put in place?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marsha-levick/making-a-murderer-justice_b_9033276.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I
have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses
several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of
the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this
powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and
myself get more out of the site.
The
Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible
years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr.
Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of
Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"
section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It
can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
Harold Levy: Publisher;
