Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Wicked Wednesday - Wrongful Imprisonment

I was watching one of my true-crime shows yesterday (forget which one), when the subject of the episode turned out to be a couple of men who actually didn't do the crime for which they'd been imprisoned for 13 years.

Now this was a rerun from 2002, so this happened a while back, but it went something like this:

A pretty, young blonde was raped and murdered inside a pizza establishment.  The police searched for her attacker and hit on the idea that maybe it was these two guys.  So they brought the guys in for questioning.  They said they didn't do it.  The one guy's girlfriend gave him a solid alibi.  The other guy?  Well, they grilled him for two days and at the end of the two days, he confessed.  And he named his friend as his accomplice.  They were both convicted and sent to prison.

Flash forward to 2000 when a convicted freak confessed to killing a young, blonde woman inside a pizza establishment years before. 

The Innocence Project got involved.  They had an independent lab re-test all the evidence, and discovered that the DNA didn't match the two men convicted, but it sure did match the convicted freak.  So these two men - one of whom confessed to the police years ago - we set free.

Except the friend - the one who didn't confess?  He'd been attacked while he was in prison and now he's brain damaged to the point where he will need constant care for the rest of his life.

As for the guy who confessed, he'll have to live with that for the rest of his life, but it's still a better deal that his buddy.  Why did he confess?  Well, the police officers involved threatened him with death row if he didn't confess.  They threatened to make sure he got a cell with a man who would rape him if he didn't confess.  And they promised the guy he could get a lighter sentence if he just told them what they wanted to hear.  After two days of constant grilling, he gave in and confessed.

The guy who actually did it was on parole for some other crime.  When he was released for that, he vowed that he would kill the first woman he could.  It turned out to be that poor blonde girl.  In the interview, he seemed pretty pleased with himself.  Oh, and when they caught him, he was already serving time for something else.

The detective who cooked up the idea that he could badger a young man into confessing, and the officers who helped?  They declined to be interviewed, but I hope they paid for what they did.  I know the police have a difficult job getting at the truth, but I think in some cases they forget that the truth is what they're actually after and instead go for a conviction at any cost.

What do you think?  Would you ever confess to a crime you didn't commit?  What would make you forget your innocence and go to jail instead? 

10 comments:

  1. This is such an awful predicament for everyone involved. It's too often these days that we need to question the workings of our justice system.

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    1. Remember, this is something that happened a long time ago. I hope with the advances in technology (specifically DNA evaluation), this particular case wouldn't have happened. But yeah, we should question how things work and whether they're still working.

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  2. This is exactly why the death penalty is such a bad idea. Society can at least do something for the two survivors. An apology to a headstone is meaningless. Plus, this is why we need real civilian oversight of all police activities. Essentially that poor guy was tortured into confessing. It's understood that anyone can be tortured into saying anything, anything at all. Which is why the intelligence services of civilized countries don't do it. Now to roll it out to the police services...

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    1. I disagree. I think the death penalty is necessary - and lord knows they get enough chances at appeal that an innocent man being executed is unlikely. I'd have more sympathy for the guy if he hadn't thrown his friend under the bus. And like I told Julie, we have to remember that this happened a while ago. Not that this can't happen today, but it's way less likely.

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    2. "An innocent man being executed is unlikely." There are several cases in recent Canadian history where innocent people have been incarcerated, and quite possibly would have been put to death had capital punishment not been ended. Google the names of these recent examples in Canadian jurisprudence of the police manufacturing evidence, the prosecution hiding or stonewalling on evidence favourable to the defendant, and the justice system dragging it's feet on recognizing DNA evidence. Steven Truscott, Donald Marshall, Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Thomas Sophonow, Ronald Dalton, Greg Parsons, and Randy Druken.
      I have a long rant on this topic on my blog if you want the full story of why I believe what I do, and what the alternatives to the current criminal system are http://keithsodyssey.blogspot.ca/2011/10/crime-and-punishment.html

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    3. Rather than break my own rule of arguing on the blog, I will simply say that I do not agree with Keith and leave it at that. I cannot speak to the Canadian justice system - having no experience with it - but my opinion remains the same. Any further comments to add to the discussion between Keith and myself will be read by me, but not posted.

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  3. Those guys were sadly let down all round, not just by the police, but lawyers, judges, juries etc. I can see why he felt badgered into confessing - you watch cop shows & they talk & talk around it until you can't see straight and don't know what to believe anymore. Still there is a lot to be said for the death penalty in some cases, and we all know which ones they are. Unfortunately we can't always know with 100% accuracy, so we spend a hideous amount of money incarcerating these individuals. And frankly I wouldn't want to be incarcerated with them so the only reason I would confess to something I didn't do would be to protect my kids - even though they're 21 & 24.

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    1. Oh most certainly, Fran. There wasn't any evidence in this case other than the coerced confession and an iffy DNA match that only covered one tiny aspect of DNA (because the technology back then only allowed for one tiny aspect to be tested - thereby making it mostly useless). Underinformed jurors, an overzealous detective, ignorant officers, a lawyer who didn't do his job... A lot of people fell down on this one. Including the man who wasn't certain enough of his own innocence and his rights and reality that he let himself be brow-beaten into confessing to a crime he didn't commit.

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  4. This is the dark side of police work and thankfully, is far less rampant than it was even ten years ago. The young man should have asked for an attorney. And he should have stopped talking once he asked for an attorney. Police are supposed to stop the interrogation at that point. They don't always do it, but yeah. Cops like these should be fired, denied their pensions, and prosecuted. They're a blight on hard-working investigators everywhere.

    Interrogation is a science--breaking down the suspect to the most elemental emotion: fear. You don't need torture. And...I'm stopping here. I have very strong views about this topic--and sometimes, they are at odds, depending on the evidence and guilt or innocence. Interesting topic today, B.E.!

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    1. Exactly, Silver. I think it has gotten less rampant. And yes, he should've asked for an attorney. I mean, who among us hasn't seen some police show where they mirandize a suspect - and this happened past the days of the Miranda warning, so there isn't even that. I probably knew my rights by heart before I reached the age of ten. Heck, we used to read other kids their rights when we were playing cops and robbers on the playground.

      One of the points they made on the show was that this particular interview wasn't videotaped and that practically all interviews ARE videotaped now - to protect both the police officers and the suspects.

      I suspect we have similar very strong views. Or maybe we'd watch these shows together and rousing discussions like Hubs and I sometimes do. (He needs more evidence sometimes when I'm all like 'they're totally guilty', and vice versa.)

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