Some psychiatrys to tell us. The only question. It is a fact what does the Election Results to date . Tell us about the state of american politics. There was no blue wave. Instead, there was a red ripple instead of calls for reconciliation. There are those looking to punish trump supporters. One step forward 2 steps back bad. You were a police werent going to haul so i think youre talking about a murder case. Youre really into you leave that up. I just sat here watching 5 minutes. Youre not going home tonight. I can guarantee they wont come back to wrongful conviction. With your recent today, were going to be doing a deep dive into an issue that is fascinating exhibits to our founding, which is the phenomenon of false confessions. And i guess today is going to change. Fisher already also was currently working on more cases involving false confessions and each is fascinating its own way. So jane, while some confession and jane is an attorney who is an expert on false confessions. And so jane, how did you get into this work . I was a public defender in manhattan here in new york city for about 3 years. And we saw a lot of police misconduct. You know, we were doing arraignments up until 1 am in the morning and you see people beat up or, you know, people whose cases get dismissed, who get no compensation. So my husband and i left the Legal Aid Society with the hopes of doing civil rights work. My name is old castle. Im a distinguished professor of psychology at John Jay College of criminal justice. Once a false confession is taken, the case is closed, nobody really can tell the difference between a good confession and one that is a problem with all of this. Is that the or tactics that can be used to get innocent people. And i dont just mean vulnerable, innocent people, i mean people who are sitting around in this room to confess to crimes. They didnt commit. Anytime you do an exoneration case where theres been a false confession, its like trying to write a trice. Everybodys already against you. The persons been convicted by a jury. The judge thinks hes guilty. The jury thinks hes guilty. Now you have to convince everybody that theyre wrong. So a case that youre deeply invested in is a case of are in a village who has been in prison for 20 years. Renee lynch was a case we took about 2 and a half now maybe 3 years ago now. And she was accused and convicted of killing her landlord in buffalo, new york in 1900. And its also obviously a false confession case. The police are going crazy. And if they cant solve it, 18 months go by. And renees connection to the victim was that it was her landlord. And so they are start looking into renee, who at the time was heavily addicted to drugs crack cocaine. And because she gets arrested for Something Else and they start interrogating her. And she confesses to killing her landlord with this guy karim. So she says, kareem, and i went to my landlords house, we were going to rob her. The robbery goes bad, and karim stabs her. So if shes a good century, it can make it a felony, murder being present during the commission, a crime, and somebody gets killed. We started sort of doing, you know, just regular google searches on the players names and detectives and everything in this t. V. Show. Women behind bars comes up and theyve done an episode. Bernies case where they got in the, in the prison and interviewed her. And then interviewed this joseph court was the cop on the case the way her body when she decided to go, you just saw it was time to go in truth i believe her confession is kind of nonsense. Theres inconsistency between the physical evidence and what she says. And during the show he says, well, i mean we knew that Corinne Walker was in florida at the time of our crime. Kareen was of the tribe of our i guess they knew karim walker was in florida at the time the crime, then renes confession cant possibly be true because shes confessing to going to rob the landlord with karim and the defense. Been able to put that on her confession would have made no sense, but the defense was never told the whole thing is so full of holes and so bogus. I cant put my finger out and say like, you know, this is the thing. But i think if we dug in it, we could find that thing that could get her out because its all, its just all of it. So its messed up. How do they record this confession . And didnt know, i mean, they make, you know, they typed it up and then read it to her and made her sign it. So there is a type of confession is the only version of the confession. Theres no like original notes they have or something that we have to wonder about. She says details about the crime scene because they showed her photos of it that she, you know how the body was lying and being shown her those photos. You have to find some kind of new evidence didnt exist at the time of the trial or didnt know, didnt exist at the time a tro, but it wasnt known right now wasnt presented during the trial. And then we have to show that if it had been could have been a different outcome. I think we can, but its going to be hard. Our goal is of course to get renee out of prison. But it can take a really long time. Sometimes many years and one of the 1st things we do in cases like this is to comb through the confession and find all the consistencies. To clearly show that the confessions theres a cream walker drove me to 90 longmeadow m. Hearse. The plan was, i was going to go into the front door and karim was going to come up the back door. He was going to tie her up with a piece of white extension cord that he brought with him at babson time, kareem hit louise in the side of the face, and louise fell to the floor and kind of went out. If that happened, he would be standing punching her here right on creams head here in the face. He knocked the wig away, landed on the floor in the kitchen kitchen. He tried to tie louise up with the plastic or he had. Then carry comes from behind. Louise, he stabbed her at least twice. However, we know its 8 times louise fell to the floor again. It was a large amount of blood on the floor next to her body. So the only thing she gets right is that the way gets knocked off. That theres a plastic cord involved in this case. Thats correct. And the phone cord is where the extra d. N. A. Is. Ringback im missin the its gene fisher, byron nelson, rene lynchs attorney. I have a call with her this morning. Oh, good things. How . I why . Quite. How i i oh, i know its hard. I went to trial. She testified very incoherent way. She was high during the trial was she was not a good witness for her. So she recanted right away afterwards. And her confession is that it was a coerced. When i talked to people about this, theyre like, well, i would never say contests when people say ive been talking about this for 30 years, and thats the 1st thing. Everybody says, but it wouldnt happen today. Its not one time the person that has a false confession. We are all under the circumstance of interrogation. We all know there have been some train detectives ive spoken to who say i can get anybody to preston from any of the little boats that they have a 95 percent confession rate and see a lesser of a lesser near perfect and identifying the perpetrator that is every suspect you identify is the perpetrator, right . If youve got a confession rate at that level, youre producing a whole lot of false confessions. When i talk to her about it, she explains to me, i was so shocked that they convicted me. She said, because there was no evidence of a confession so powerful it can stand alone. So heres the jury. On the one hand theyve got the confessions on the one, theyll go to confession struck the d. N. A. Changes everything and sometimes not like in the final product of a confession. Hollywood production is scripted by the Police Theory of the case. It is rehearsed and action camera ready to go and thats what the jury sees. They dont see the whole production, they just see the final. I dont see how the judge or jury can look past a false confession. If they dont see the presence, and we have a number of documented cases in which the person who falsely confessed actually came to believe the lie that they were told about their own behavior. Which is a whole nother level of insanity. And some of them believe it for a long time afterwards. Right there. You see here in the melted thompson case we had he was a danish inturn who came he was a danish, he was a College Student studying to become, a teacher. And he came and interned at i. P. S. , which is really, you know, like a 20000. 00, a year preschool up to the un. And it was a code teacher who accuses me of molesting all the kids in the class. And hes on the cover of the daily news. They take his focus, his facebook profile pictures, him with his niece on his shoulders. So they put that on the cover of the daily news and write sex monster. And they go arrest him in the morning and bring him into the station and they have a female cop interrogate him. She tells him, well, you know, we have video of you molesting these kids, which they had videos, but hes not molesting anybody. So they had this woman who accused him and taken videos of him in the classroom, interacting normally with children. And so either the cops had watched it or they had watched it and were blatantly lying to him, but there was no video of him molesting kids, but he hears that right. And he thinks holy, well, if im on video, i must have done it right. They let him continue to believe this lie that hes cut red handed on tape molesting these kids. And i think that, that, you know, he started, you could tell through the hole when they finally are recording him. Hes doubting himself. You know, hes, hes wondering, did i do this . Join me everything on the alex, im with you and ill be speaking to the world of politics or im sure ill see you. Mr. Thompson, can you tell me why im here because in order for inappropriate behavior, it was and ok. So why dont you tell me privately and how this started . What happened . You know, what you know . Well, you know, what i can remember just had to go down just a few moments about it and then proceed in the present. And i had taken its place and placing it around to insular in my shorts and you know, short of Going Forward in that or question where you were going. And so what, when you say gave him pleasure at one time when that was central, as an individual to have to be i dont know, you know, im a member of this leg of it. And if you read out the statement i did, thats your handwriting. And if i am just waiting over briefly, does it look like its been changed in any way . And thats your signature. Because you write those that are here today, theyre going to show the camera. I dont even think people in the us really get that the police are allowed to lie to you. I think most people would think that if i am speaking to a police officer, hes telling me the truth, but mounds of times, i mean in denmark, its illegal for the police to lie to you. So he really, i think, was really says extra susceptible to Something Like that. It took us filing the civil rights to teach even get access to these tapes. The District Attorney wouldnt give it to us when the criminal case was pending. We asked the court, we moved for a court order to get it. The judge just wouldnt give it to us. But they sat on these tapes for 8 months. He had this case hanging over his head and they knew that there was nothing in the tapes. Right, there was the only evidence, there was yes, luckily, melted never got convicted right. We were able to stop it before that happened. But it took, i mean, it almost killed him. There. Sexual abuse involving very Young Children were brought to the attention of the District Attorneys office. To thoroughly investigate and involved in the children. Particularly in this instance the one time people are willing to dismiss this case. After all, and gather in our investigation. We have to have you know, have you ever seen anybody use like a piece of a foam court to prop up the waves or put it just all the way forward to . I dont know if i have a case where there is a piece of foam cord found inside of why would you have a phone cord in a way to use it later on your head to give them a little for a little weeks if theyre flat because if there is some clue feed in the hair is not like its just like a 3 to 4 inches of phone cord or an ace case. Were trying to get permission to test all the old evidence for d. N. A. But to do that, we have to collect as much information about her innocence as we possibly can. And go back and interview all the witnesses documents, go back to the crime scene. I keep coming back to this thing that the cops knew. He was in florida and kept going with the story that they did together like wife, if they know hes in florida, why dont they like your lives . Youre lying to us because hes in. We know hes in florida. Why dont they are confronted by hearsay . That how can they be permitted to go forward with a serious of a case that they know is not true. Name the trial basically match or as you say. So thats why the trickery and the only way to convict somebody of this was to do it that way. Yes, it just makes me so jaded and really disgusted with the District Attorneys offices. And i feel like, you know, the, you know, theyre supposed to be at the top of the chain right there. Its supposed to be the ones making sure the cops made mistakes or people below the cops made mistakes. Then theyre the ones who are responsible for fixing it. Why not do d. N. A. Testing . Think why not . They were all were not infallible. We can all make mistakes. Why not check . I mean, her name is going to be in prison for the rest of her life. Why not just check . You know, they can never answer that question. So you just end up in court with, you know, them opposing your motions for d. N. A. , testing in and ending ability gaining instead of working together. In renes case, its especially frustrating because, i mean they certainly believe that this was done. Not the stabbing was not done by her. Right. So there is a set of the, i mean theyre basically admitting that they have a cold case and theres a murder out there and they still dont want to do it. You know, its did 2 people either 2 people or somebody other than renee, committed that crime. And that person is out and about, and d. N. A. Contesting could show who they are, but theyre still posing as am you know, the central park jogger case was my 1st interaction with false confessions our firm represented corey wise on his civil rights case way to start i mean, youre diving right into the bed there. You know, the circumstances that play in that case were huge amount of pressure on the police and the authorities to make arrests and make them step forward. 7 years in prison. With one of the most notorious crimes in the history of new york city, it was a crime in which a woman who was a wealthy Upper East Side investment banker was out jogging at dusk and was dragged into the woods in central park and almost beaten to death and there was front page news every day, everywhere. And they are out to get arrests and they got him when you get to the false confessions, in that case it was a classic, you know, mismatch. They were totally overmatched, underrepresented, if represented at all. I dont know what they could do, corey, even have anyone in the room without his consent is 16. So he was considered an adult, sadly. And so his mom was not allowed in there and they, you know, had, given the lawyers, they all waived their, their miranda rights rights. Where you live, christine says that its this is very, very serious in this neighborhood. We dont know. Are there any way to use an example . We do say that youre seeing, there are stages and surely you can see why it is hard for people to understand how this can help the produce a confession, something they didnt to. And there really is a complicated set of stories. There is no one reason you know corey was confessed to get out of this bad situation. He was under pressure from many, many hours. He was likely be told that others were giving stories and that to, to cooperate in order to go home. And it is very telling in the central park 5 case that every one of them, every one of the boys and every one of the parents who were present were surprised. The boys were arrested after their statements. Every one of them was going home, right . Well, you know what, it sounds crazy right here. Thought you were going or confess to a rape and go home. Right. But you know that one false confessors were interviewed afterward and theyve been exonerated. And the 1st question, everybody wants those, i dont understand why dont you confirm the most typical response . Because i want to go back in this and people often say afterwards, you know, i was tired. I was so stressed, i figured let me sign this confession. Itll all work itself out in the end. The, detectives often say, you know, we have d. N. A. , were going to send them to the grocery. These things that claiming they have t. N. A. Bluff is a way to scare the criminal into submission. It may be right, but if the person youre talking to is not the criminal but an innocent person that the law becomes a promise of future exoneration. Makes it easier to confess. Right . Let him say were going to do some tests, going to take blood samples from a lot of different people. I just want to know that if we do that, we will probably get an order to take a sample from you. And then well compare it to tests or this area because youre in position now where you know that theres going to be a match date. Youd be better off to tell us about it now or the stairs instead of saying something thats natural or this is the stage. One of the things i think they made you say was that you cut her on the legs. And where did you, how did you come up with that . I dont know came from no, i dont know. Made it up. I dont know where it came from. I dont know. In germany, babies. And french babies would say, so there was a rhythmic pattern. So you know, sure where did they get that trees out . She looked into it. What was happening was that the babies could actually hear their mothers speech in the room. This is a story of women. And women was troubled histories and complex court cases. You know, some of us did leave out there who were not the person that the cheesiness of the day are considered the most dangerous of criminals. Shes in a still falling off 23 hours of the day. Tell me that its not enough punishment. It will give women on death row, drawls, all upsetting shins against french, german officials in a tit for tat move after those countries paid for the legit poisoning about alexina, folly. Russias foreign minister suggest the activists may have ingested the talks. And while already outside the country, we have every reason to believe that what happened to him in terms of Chemical Warfare agents getting into his body could have happened in germany or on t