PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects (especially young suspects) are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including inducement. deception (read ‘outright lies’) physical violence, and even physical and mental torture.
EXCERPTS: From "The case for Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse," filed by Innocence Canada lawyers James Lockyer, Jerome Kennedy, and Pamela Zbarsky in Manitoba's Court of King's Bench.
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FROM THE INTRODUCTION: "Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse were both victims of individual and systemic racism. From the beginning, they proclaimed their innocence, but no one believed them. They went to trial for murder before an all-white male jury. The prosecution’s case was entirely dependent on their confessions. No eyewitness, circumstantial evidence or forensic evidence linked them to the crime. Mr. Anderson, Mr. Woodhouse and their two co-accused testified that they did not commit the crime and their confessions were false but were disbelieved by the jury in the face of their confessions."
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FROM SECTION HEADED: BRIAN ANDERSON'S FALSE CONFESSION: "Mr. Anderson testified on the voir dire into the voluntariness of his confession. The two officers, he said, “just didn’t believe me” when he said he was at home that night. They told him he was “just going to get it” if he insisted on saying he was not at the scene. They said they had witnesses and showed him the confessions of the other three. When he told them that he had been at Adam Woodhouse’s home on Thursday, not Monday, D/S King slapped him in the face and accused him of lying. Mr. Anderson testified that D/S King continued hitting him. He said: I just got beaten up there again [...] Well, first of all [Detective King] slapped my face and he punched me in the belly. [...] I was standing up at that time. [...] I fell back in the chair. [...] and he asked me if I wanted to make a statement now or else he’ll give me some more. This went on for half an hour. D/S Murdoch was writing something down. Mr. Anderson was adamant that even under these pressures, he said nothing that could amount to a confession but continued to say that he was home that night. He signed blank pieces of paper at the request of the two officers but never knowingly signed a confession.
JUSTICE WILSON'S RULING ON BRIAN ANDERSON'S FALSE 'CONFESSION': Wilson J. ruled Mr. Anderson’s statement was voluntary. He said of Mr. Anderson’s testimony: And it is, of course, for me to decide whether or not [Mr. Anderson’s] story is true. I reject it. I think it is made out of whole cloth. I do not accept the story told by Brian Anderson of the reception he was given and the treatment which followed in the Public Safety Building. There are reasons why I reject his account. The story is incredible unless one accepts the fact that these things do go on in police headquarters at the Public Safety Building but there is no evidence of that beyond what this young man says. There were many officers around at the time this was supposed to be going on. We heard much about the location of the interview room in the Public Safety Building, about the detectives who were carrying out other duties in the general office, and about the presence of senior officers. I reject as a complete fabrication this evidence that police officers, certainly in the circumstances which were detailed to me here, would lay themselves open to the difficulties which they could face if statements were obtained in this fashion. In his evidence before the jury, Mr. Anderson testified that he was asleep at home on the night of Mr. Chan’s murder and was not at Adam Woodhouse’s home on Bannantyne Street. He told the jury that he was assaulted by D/S King and had said nothing of what was written in his purported confession. He had only signed blank pieces of paper and had not signed any confessions.
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FROM SECTION HEADED: ALLAN WOODHOUSE'S FALSE CONFESSION: "It can be fairly said that he was the most articulate of the four men charged. He said that he told the police his whereabouts on Monday night. The police were loud and disbelieving. After they returned from the search for his jacket, D/S Varey accused him of lying. He told them he had been at Adam Woodhouse’s home on Thursday, not Monday. He was pushed against the wall by D/S Varey and slapped by D/S Scott, causing his nose to bleed. D/S Varey punched him hard in the solar plexus. The officers then constructed a confession, much of it from what Mr. Woodhouse told them of his visit to 518 Bannantyne on Thursday evening, and told him to sign it, which he did.
JUSTICE WILSON'S RULING ON ALLAN WOODHOUSE'S FALSE CONFESSION: "In his ruling on the voir dire, Wilson J. rejected Mr. Woodhouse’s evidence. He said: If all this beating was going on that night - - and I can group the four statements together, and the evidence of the four accused - - then there must have been a conspiracy by a goodly proportion of the Winnipeg Police Force on duty at that particular time. We have no less than three teams of detectives. We have no less than two duty sergeants, and there were others. I needn’t run through them all, but we have something pushing ten people, all of whom must have been involved, or at least aware of the fact that something very, very improper was going on in the Public Safety Building that night. But, gentlemen, I find it hard to believe that all of these police officers suddenly would make themselves party to conduct of this kind. Mr. Woodhouse had also testified on the voir dire at his preliminary hearing. Mr. Woodhouse testified again before the jury. He reiterated his previous testimony that his confession was false, and he signed it because he was “scared” and afraid the officers would “hit him again”.
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FROM SECTION HEADED: THE FALSE CONFESSIONS OF CLARENCE AND RUSSELL WOODHOUSE:
(Clarence): "It quickly became apparent during Clarence Woodhouse’s testimony that he needed the assistance of a Saulteaux interpreter, and one was provided. He testified that he had nothing to do with Mr. Chan’s murder. The two police officers told him he had to give a statement. They assaulted him and punched him in the stomach. When asked by Crown prosecutor, Mr. Dangerfield, why he signed the false confessions, he replied, “Because they fought me to say what’s on the paper.”
(Russell): "Russell Woodhouse called two defence experts on the voir dire, a psychiatrist and psychologist. They testified that Russell was “border-line mentally retarded”, and incapable o giving the narrative statement that constituted his confession. Russell’s testimony on the voir dire and before the jury was indicative of this. He barely responded to questions but his counsel suggested that he did not need an interpreter. Russell managed to testify in “yes” “no” answers to leading questions from his counsel (a process suggested by the trial judge) that he had been assaulted by D/S King into signing a false confession."
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FROM JUSTICE WILSON'S RULING ON VOIR DIRE - A HEARING HELD TO DETERMINE IF A STATEMENT IS VOLUNTARY - REJECTING THE TESTIMONY OF CLARENCE AND RUSSELL: "In his ruling on the voir dire, Wilson J. rejected the testimony of Clarence and Russell Woodhouse in the same manner as he rejected that of Brian Anderson and Allan Woodhouse.
CLARENCE: For Clarence, he said: "Without reciting again the remarks in (sic) voiced earlier about police brutality, I can only say that I reject [Clarence Woodhouse’s testimony] out of hand. I equally reject out of hand the notion that a statement would be taken from somebody who was so drunk that he didn’t know what was going on. Any police officer, the most simple member of the force, would know that a statement taken under those conditions wouldn’t last five seconds in court. These are experienced police officers, and without more evidence, more convincing evidence than what I’ve been given in this case, I cannot accept the suggestion that they would lay their reputation and their employment on the line by resorting to these tactics. And so, the statements are admissible."
RUSSELL: For Russell, Wilson J. concluded that “although Russell is in the low grade category, he is not retarded.” He rejected what he called “a sort of campaign of terror” related by Russell, and rejected the evidence of the two experts that Russell was incapable of giving the statements that the detectives alleged he gave. Wilson J. made no comment on Clarence and Russell Woodhouse’s lack of command of the English language and their inability to narrate the events in English as claimed by the officers. Clarence and Russell Woodhouse both gave evidence before the jury and denied involvement in Mr. Chan’s murder.
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JUSTICE WILSON'S CHARGE TO THE JURY AS IT RELATES TO THE CONFESSIONS. "In his charge to the jury, Wilson J. referred to Mr. Chan as “the Chinaman”. In speaking of the confessions of the four accused, he told the jury: Each of them say, “The only way I gave a statement was because the police beat me up”. One of them said that it went beyond that, they got him to sign his name on two pieces of paper, or maybe it wasn’t his name when he looked at it again, and then they filled in, made up a story and filled it in. Now you can believe that if you want to, it is your privilege to believe it. This, of course, is an indictment of the police force. It practically amounts to accusing the police of a conspiracy. For these things to have happened, we would have had to have Detectives King, Murdoch, Varey and Scott involved, we have the other two detectives, Wallis and Jensen, we have Sergeant Steven. We had one accused taken to see his brother and at that time the brother was still suffering the effects of the beating. You have to consider all of these things, gentlemen. If you are persuaded that the statements were forced from these people, then of course you must reject them. If you have any reasonable doubt as to the voluntariness of the statements, then as I say, I think you should reject them. You consider the statements in that light. Were they given freely? If they weren’t given freely then as I say, you should reject them. (emphasis added).
Comment from their lawyers: "This part of the jury charge is reminiscent of the jury charge in R. v. Bentley (2001) 1 Cr. App. R. 307, a case of a man wrongly convicted and hanged in England in 1952 for the murder of a police officer. In 1998, the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, in part because of similar statements about the evidence of police officers that the trial judge made in his summing up."
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FROM THE SHAMEFUL UNANIMOUS MANITOBA COURT OF APPEAL DECISION: "So we have here a situation in which the confessions have been twice accredited - once by the learned trial Judge on the voir dire, and the second time by the jury with their verdict. Strong grounds would have to be shown to warrant a reversal by an appellate court of these findings. No such grounds exist here. Indeed upon a review of the evidence in its entirety we are in agreement with the decision of the learned trial Judge to admit the confessions and with the conclusion of the jury that the confessions were truthful. The verdict of guilty accordingly must stand. (Brian Anderson brought an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. It was dismissed in September, 1975. HL;)
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
