POST: "2016: Making A Murderer Dominates The Year in False Confession News," by Steve Drizin, Clinical law professor at the
GIST: "On December 18, 2015, NETFLIX released Making a Murderer
(“MAM”), a 10-part docuseries written and directed by first-time
filmmakers Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi. The series, which
chronicled the cases of two convicted murderers — Steven Avery and his
16 year-old learning disabled nephew Brendan Dassey — became an
Emmy-award winning, international phenomenon. Within the first 35 days
of its release, over 19 million people had watched the series in the United States alone. MAM jumpstarted a national conversation on police interrogation
tactics and their relationship to false and coerced confessions and
whether the tactics police used to pressure Brendan to confess should
ever be permitted when police interrogate young and disabled suspects.
Although, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, there were
far more exonerations based on false confessions in 2015 (27), than
2016 (10), far more attention was paid to the subject of false
confessions in 2016, largely due to what has been dubbed “The Making a Murderer Effect.”
Although MAM
generated most of the interest in false confessions, there was plenty
of other false confession news in 2016, the highlights of which are
covered below.
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January: January’s MAM
news contained two of my favorite exchanges of the year. First, Dr. Phil
schooled Nancy Grace, who saw nothing wrong with the way the police
interrogated Dassey. Dr. Phil’s “I could have gotten Brendan Dassey to
confess to the Irish Potato famine“
temporarily silenced Ms. Grace. Second, Harvey Levin of TMZ cut
former Dassey lawyer Len Kachinsky to the quick when he asked Kachinsky
why he allowed the police to “grill Brendan Dassey like a cheeseburger.” For more than
two decades, Tyra Patterson has insisted that she was coerced into
falsely confessing to participating in a murder. Her story was featured
in a stunning three-part series by The Guardian. Tyra’s attorney, David Singleton, also launched the “I am Tyra Patterson“ campaign to bring attention to her plight. MAM inspires a TN. legislator to propose a bill requiring that juveniles be interrogated in presence of lawyer, guardian or parent. Newsweek
recountsthe bittersweet story of the Fairbanks Four (“FB4”), four Native
young men who were released in December 2015 after having served more
than 20 years for a murder they insist they did not commit. Freedom for
the FB4 came at a price
- they were required to give up their right to sue authorities. Like
Brendan Dassey’s case, an unreliable confession from a teenager —
17-year old Eugene Vent — was at the center of the FB4 case. David Thompson, an interviewer at the training firm of Wicklander & Zulawski
- one of the chief competitors of Chicago’s John E. Reid &
Associates - questions many of the techniques used by police during
Brendan’s interrogation. MAM was the reference point for another possible false confession from a teenager — Bradley Albon of Brantford, Canada;
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February: Journalism prof Douglas Starr references MAM in calling for changes in interrogation techniques to prevent false confessions.
Dateline NBC’s “The Interrogation” tells the story of Robert Davis’s false confession and the work which led to his release and conditional pardon. Here’s footage of Robert coming home to his mother.
Inspired by MAM, NY state senator proposes legislation requiring simplified Miranda warnings for juveniles.
Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson and his Conviction Review Unit agree to vacate Vanessa Gathers‘ manslaughter conviction. Gathers, who falsely confessed and spent a decade in prison, is exonerated.
Scientists find that sleep deprivation significantly increases the risk of false confessions.
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Scientists find that sleep deprivation significantly increases the risk of false confessions.
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March: The power of
confession evidence often blinds prosecutors to the truth, even when DNA
points them to the true perpetrator. Just ask Philadelphia prosecutors
who insisted on retrying Anthony Wright even though DNA evidence almost
certainly identified a neighborhood crack addict as the man who
murdered and raped Louis Talley in 1991.
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April: Max Soffar
who claimed that his confession to killing several people during a
robbery in Houston in 1981 was false, dies of cancer after 35 years on
death row before he could be exonerated or executed.
The wrongfully convicted deserve closure too. Tom Sawyer
lived for 30 years under a cloud of suspicion because he had falsely
confessed to the 1986 murder of Janet Staschak. Sawyer raised his fist
in the air in a Florida courtroom in quiet celebration when Stephen
Lamont —linked to Staschak’s murder by DNA, — entered a plea of guilty.
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law hosts a two-hour standing room only program “Brendan Dassey: A True Story of a False Confession.” which is filmed and later released on YOUTUBE.
Illinois proposes a new law requiring counsel for children under the age of 15 charged with homicides and sex crimes. In August, Gov. Bruce Rauner signs the bill into law.
DNA evidence excluded Billy Wayne Cope
and linked James Sanders to the rape and murder of Cope’s 12-year old
daughter in 2001. Sanders, a total stranger to Cope, was also a
crack-addicted, serial sexual predator who during a six week period was
broke-into occupied homes and robbed, beat, and sexually assaulted
numerous women in Rock Hill, S.C. The jury never heard this evidence
and convicted Cope as a co-conspirator of Sanders. In 2016, Cope is
still fighting for his freedom, filing a motion for a new trial.
Innocence Project releases PSA featuring three of the Central Park Five in effort to get NY legislators to require recording of interrogations. Spoil alert! It doesn’t work.
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May: Jim Trainum,
former DC homicide cop, releases the book of the year when it comes to
false confessions, explaining how tunnelvision, coercion, and
fact-feeding cause police to “generate“ false confessions. It receives a rave review in the Washington Post.
Bob Kolker’s article in Wired goes inside the LAPD and charts a new course for interrogations in America pioneered by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The new program emphasizes rapport-building and rejects the Reid-Technique and other more confrontational approaches.
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June: A Texas prosecutor tells how a bogus murder confession changed his views on family violence cases.
The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, the Michigan Innocence Clinic and others succeed in efforts to vacate Davontae Sanford‘s
conviction. Sanford, who was only 14 when he falsely confessed to and
later pled guilty to a quadruple murder that was actually committed by
serial contract hit man named Vincent Smothers, is freed after serving
more than 9 years in prison.
Melissa Calusinski, represented by Steven Avery’s new lawyer Kathleen Zellner, wins a new evidentiary hearing after new medical evidence suggests that the child who died at the day care center where she worked did not fracture her skull.
Melissa Calusinski, represented by Steven Avery’s new lawyer Kathleen Zellner, wins a new evidentiary hearing after new medical evidence suggests that the child who died at the day care center where she worked did not fracture her skull.
On the 50th anniversary of Miranda v. Arizona, Colorado enacts a new law requiring that interrogations of suspects be electronically recorded.
Teina Pora, New
Zealand’s most famous juvenile false confessor, is awarded more than
2.5 million dollars for the more than two decades he served in prison.
But he gets something worth even more to him — an Apology.
Tracy Tullis writes “The Proven Way to Keep More Innocent Teens from Confessing to Murder (And Why the Police Wont Adopt It )”
Gabriel Solache
and Arturo DeLeon Reyes are granted a new hearing to determine if their
confessions were coerced by retired and now-disgraced Chicago detective
Reynaldo Guevara.
Worcester, MA. agrees to pay former teenager Nga Truong $2.1 million after coercive tactics by police led Truong to confess to smothering her infant son.
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July: Was fourteen-year old Lorenzo Montoya
convicted of a murder he did not commit? Once again, brutal police
interrogation tactics - captured on a recording — raise questions about
the reliability of Montoya’s confession.
Did threats of
the death penalty lead James Edward Long, Michael Dewayne Shelton and
James Wayne Pitts Jr. to confess falsely and testify that they and
Richard Bryan Kissmaul raped 17 year-old Leslie Murphy before Kissmaul
killed her and her 14 year-old friend? DNA evidence now proves that
none of the men - dubbed the Waco Four — raped Murphy.
Exceptions sometimes swallow the rule in states which require police to record interrogations.
Beatrice Six defendants win $28.1 million dollars in settlement in case involving five proven false confessions.
After serving 20 years in prison for a double-murder, Chicagoans Charles Johnson
and Larod Styles are given a new trial when fingerprint evidence links
another man to the crime and undermines the reliability of their
confessions.
Joel Alcox, whose conviction was reversed by a panel of federal appellate judges in May, reflects on his fight to reclaim his freedom.
False confessors Carl Dukes and Lavell Jones are freed after 20 years after Jeffrey Conrad’s true confession clears them of a 1997 murder.
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August: Robert Perske,
long-time advocate for Richard Lapointe and others with developmental
disabilities who had falsely confessed, dies at the age of 88.
California passes SB 1052
requiring counsel for kids before they are given Miranda warnings
during police interrogations. Governor Jerry Brown later vetoes the
law.
A couple who falsely confessed to murdering daughters in arson are acquitted by Japanese court and freed after two decades.
A federal magistrate
overturns Brendan Dassey’s confession, finding that Dassey’s confession
was the product of coercive police tactics and extensive fact-feeding.
It took a Philadelphia jury only 90 minutes to acquit Anthony Wright of a 1991 rape and murder. The jury forewoman issued a stern rebuke to the prosecutors for re-trying Wright even though DNA evidence linked another to the crime.
Five years after DNA evidence had exonerated the “Dixmoor Five”
of the 1991 murder and rape of Cateresa Matthews, a new investigation results in the arrest Willie Randolph who had been linked to the crime in 2011.
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of the 1991 murder and rape of Cateresa Matthews, a new investigation results in the arrest Willie Randolph who had been linked to the crime in 2011.
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September: Terry Olson,
of Minnesota, is released from prison after the man who implicated him
admits that he gave a false confession to the police. Olson’s freedom
come at a price; the State agrees to let him out with time-served — ten
years — if he drops his legal challenges but does not agree to vacate
his conviction.
“No sane human being could find then guilty.”
That’s what federal judge John Gibney, Jr. wrote when vacating the
convictions of two of the Norfolk Four false confessors, Danial Williams
and Joseph Dick.
Mark Maxson
is released after new DNA evidence proves that his confession was false
and exonerates him of the 1992 brutal murder of a young boy.
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October:
A federal judge vacates the conviction of John Floyd, a New Orleans man who falsely confessed to stabbing and killing two gay men in New Orleans in 1980.
Joseph Buffey,
a West Virginia man who falsely confessed to raping an 83-year-old West
Virginia woman in 2001, is freed after he enters an Alford guilty plea
to robbery and burglary charges.
John Horton, of Rockford, IL, who at age 17 in 1993, falsely confessed to a murder, is granted a new trial by an Illinois appellate court.
Kenneth Thompson,
the visionary King’s County District Attorney whose Conviction Review
Unit exonerated numerous false confessors, dies of cancer. Thompson’s
CRU exonerated Willie Stuckey and David McCallum, two teens who falsely confessed and McCallum delivered a eulogy at his funeral.
A new trial is
granted to Jose Maysonet, another man who claims that he falsely
confessed to a double murder after being interrogated by former Chicago
detective Reynaldo Guevara.
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November: Scandal rocks the the Springfield, MA police department after a video is released of a detective threatening a teenage suspect.
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December: Holly Lai, the sister of murder victim Michelle Lai, publicly supports Tyra Patterson’s clemency and provides powerful new evidence of Patterson’s innocence.
Forensic Developmental Psychologist Lindsay Malloy explains why juvenile suspects falsely confess in this TedXTalk.
David McCallum
and Jeff Deskovic, two teenagers who spent decades in prison for murders
they did not commit, explain why they falsely confessed, in this podcast.
Who better than Amanda Knox to opine about why women may be more likely to falsely confess when pressured by police.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe grants an absolute pardon to Robert Davis based on actual innocence.
Lamarr Monson,
who claims to have falsely confessed to a 1996 murder and now has
fingerprint evidence and other evidence to prove it, fights for a new
trial.
Even though new
DNA testing excluded Christopher Tapp as the source of DNA found on
Angie Dodge’s body and clothing and even though his own expert
raised serious questions about the reliability of Tapp’s confession to
Dodge’s 1996 murder, Bonneville County, Idaho Prosecutor Danny Clark refuses
to grant a new trial to Tapp. All is not lost, however, as Tapp is
granted an evidentiary hearing in 2017 to explore the significance of withheld evidence.
New arson science calls into question the reliability of William Amor’s confession to setting a fire that killed his mother-in-law."
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The MAM Effect
shows no sign of subsiding. With new MAM episodes coming out in 2017
and a bevy of new shows on false confessions and wrongful convictions,
2017 promises to be yet another year in which the general public will
get a free master class on the subject of false confessions. But will a
more educated and informed public lead to justice for Brendan Dassey?
Will it give new life to the claims of innocents who falsely confessed
but who remain locked up? Will it lead police officers to change their
interrogation tactics, prosecutors to be less reflexive in charging
defendants who confess, juries to be more skeptical of confession
evidence, and judges to more carefully scrutinize confession evidence?
Only time will tell, but I plan on doing everything in my power to make
sure that the answer to these questions is a resounding “Yes.”"
The entire post can be found at:
The entire post can be found at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-drizin/2016-making-a-murderer-do_b_13805462.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/
