1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:04,160 Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,679 Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer, 3 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:12,839 and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my 4 00:00:12,919 --> 00:00:15,800 experience as the brother of a murder victim to help 5 00:00:15,839 --> 00:00:18,600 other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book 6 00:00:18,679 --> 00:00:21,440 on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders, and I'm the co 7 00:00:21,519 --> 00:00:24,760 administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with 8 00:00:24,839 --> 00:00:25,519 Kristin Dilly. 9 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:27,359 Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. 10 00:00:27,519 --> 00:00:31,199 Speaker 4: I'm a writer, a researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, 11 00:00:31,359 --> 00:00:34,719 as well as the social media manager and co administrator 12 00:00:34,799 --> 00:00:37,799 for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner 13 00:00:37,799 --> 00:00:39,079 in crime, Bill Thomas. 14 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:43,560 Speaker 3: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly. 15 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:44,359 Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas. 16 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,479 Speaker 5: We're joined today by Chris Fabricant, the director of strategical 17 00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:51,840 Litigation for the Innocence Project and author of Junk Science 18 00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:54,479 and the American Criminal Justice System. 19 00:00:54,799 --> 00:00:56,320 Speaker 3: Chris, thank you for joining us today. 20 00:00:56,799 --> 00:00:57,880 Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me. 21 00:00:58,359 --> 00:00:59,520 Speaker 3: First of all, start. 22 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:01,280 Speaker 5: Us off by Tom talking to us about the work 23 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:03,799 that you do with the Innocence Project. There may be 24 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,840 some people out there who aren't familiar with the Innocence Project, 25 00:01:07,239 --> 00:01:09,519 So give us an overview of what it is, where 26 00:01:09,519 --> 00:01:10,879 did it start, and what do you all do. 27 00:01:11,799 --> 00:01:16,040 Speaker 7: So fundamentally, the Innocence Project works to free the many 28 00:01:16,159 --> 00:01:18,840 thousands and tens of thousands of people that we believe 29 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:21,879 have been wrongfully convicted and are serving time in our 30 00:01:21,959 --> 00:01:27,079 naissance prisons. The Innocence Project was founded thirty three years 31 00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,760 ago by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who were very 32 00:01:30,799 --> 00:01:33,359 well known defense attorneys at the time and one of 33 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:37,120 the very few scientifically literate defense attorneys, and they were 34 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:40,319 some of the first to understand the truth seeking power 35 00:01:40,359 --> 00:01:44,079 of DNA evidence. And what they understood about DNA was 36 00:01:44,159 --> 00:01:47,439 not just that it would be useful to convict the guilty, 37 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:50,480 but it could also prove innocence and free people who've 38 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:54,519 been wrongfully convicted. So they established the Innocence Project as 39 00:01:54,519 --> 00:01:57,719 a clinic at Cardo's, a law school initially, and they 40 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,319 opened the doors, as I say, thirty three years ago, 41 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:04,040 thousands of people immediately applied and have never stopped applying 42 00:02:04,159 --> 00:02:07,599 to the Innocence Project for our help. And one of 43 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,800 the really important things to know, or that really the 44 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:13,759 decisions that were made right at the beginning was the 45 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:17,840 intake criteria for getting help from the Innocence Project for 46 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:21,560 us to take on the case. What was unusual and 47 00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:26,599 really prescient ultimately was that they decided that they were 48 00:02:26,599 --> 00:02:29,759 going to make no subjective judgment about the guilt or 49 00:02:29,759 --> 00:02:33,719 innocent of anybody that applied for help. The only criteria 50 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:35,319 that they were going to look at is whether or 51 00:02:35,319 --> 00:02:39,599 not they could find biological evidence DNA evidence and test 52 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:43,120 that evidence if it came back as an exclusion, would 53 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:45,800 that prove innocence? Would we be able to identify the 54 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:47,680 actual perpetrator in a particular case. 55 00:02:47,719 --> 00:02:48,080 Speaker 2: And as a. 56 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,960 Speaker 7: Result, we took cases there whether there are five eyewitnesses 57 00:02:52,039 --> 00:02:54,520 that were all pointing to our clients saying that's the man, 58 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:57,800 I'll never forget that face. We took cases where detailed 59 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:03,000 confessions by our clients that include apologies to their alleged victims. 60 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,280 We took cases with all kinds of forensic evidence pointing 61 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:08,879 out our client's guilt. And what we established what was 62 00:03:08,879 --> 00:03:13,120 really revolutionary beyond the simple fact that innocent people are 63 00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:18,360 convicted every day by our criminal justice system, but the pillars, 64 00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:22,199 the me pieces of evidence that we have relied on 65 00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:27,319 for centuries in this country and others to convict eyewitness identification, 66 00:03:27,719 --> 00:03:32,080 confession evidence. Forensic sciences were not just unreliable, but they 67 00:03:32,120 --> 00:03:35,000 were the leading contributing factors to wrongful conviction. 68 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:36,639 Speaker 6: What we were really. 69 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:40,960 Speaker 7: Relying on was unreliable, and DNA was the first opportunity 70 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,120 that we had that we would know ground truth. We 71 00:03:44,159 --> 00:03:47,879 could tell with the scientific certainty that our clients were innocent. 72 00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,840 That put the lie to a lot of this evidence. 73 00:03:50,879 --> 00:03:53,639 And so my work at the Innocence Project depart from 74 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:58,000 freeing the innocent that have been convicted primarily on junk science, 75 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:02,159 but also my department that the Innocence Project Strategic Litigation 76 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:07,639 works on all of these cases that involve misidentification on 77 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:11,080 false confession evidence. And there are three lawyers just in 78 00:04:11,120 --> 00:04:14,080 my department that are only working on forensic sciences. So 79 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:17,680 we work to prevent future wrongful convictions by urging courts 80 00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:23,639 to properly exercise their gatekeeping function and exclude unreliable eyewitness testimony, 81 00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:27,199 unreliable confessions, and especially junk science. 82 00:04:27,839 --> 00:04:31,279 Speaker 2: Is it fair to say, Chris, then, that DNA is 83 00:04:31,319 --> 00:04:35,680 the first scientific evidence available that's truly reliable? 84 00:04:36,319 --> 00:04:37,160 Speaker 6: I get asked this a lot. 85 00:04:37,639 --> 00:04:39,360 Speaker 7: Is it all junk science or is it can we 86 00:04:39,399 --> 00:04:42,040 only rely on DNA evidence? Yes? 87 00:04:42,079 --> 00:04:42,360 Speaker 2: And no. 88 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:45,000 Speaker 7: I mean is that you can take a something like 89 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:48,360 fingerprint evidence. You know, fingerprint evidence is fairly reliable, but 90 00:04:48,879 --> 00:04:51,879 it can be made very unreliable depending on the quality 91 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:54,120 of the evidence, right, And so you can take what 92 00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:58,360 is an otherwise unreliable technique and turn it into junk 93 00:04:58,399 --> 00:05:02,000 science because of its u particular case. So, an example 94 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:04,800 that I write about in my book is the famously 95 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:06,399 the Brandon Mayfield case. 96 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:08,920 Speaker 6: And so Brandon Mayfield. 97 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:14,319 Speaker 7: Was identified as the perpetrator of the bombing of the 98 00:05:14,399 --> 00:05:17,720 Madrid commuter train in two thousand and four, and seventy 99 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:20,360 people died or so and many thousands were injured in 100 00:05:20,399 --> 00:05:23,439 this case. And they found a latent fingerprint on the 101 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,240 blast caps that had been used to blow up this train, 102 00:05:27,439 --> 00:05:31,000 and they were traced back and matched to Brandon Mayfield. 103 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:35,120 Brandon Mayfield is this mild manner lawyer in Portland, Oregon, 104 00:05:35,439 --> 00:05:39,000 had never been convicted of a crime, had never even 105 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:42,560 left the country, and didn't own a passport. And the 106 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:46,839 only reason that his fingerprints were in the database was 107 00:05:46,879 --> 00:05:49,199 because he had once been in the military. But when 108 00:05:49,199 --> 00:05:53,040 the FBI looked at the biographical details of the person 109 00:05:53,079 --> 00:05:54,800 that they had met to this, they saw that he 110 00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:59,079 had recently converted to Islam, he had married an Egyptian national. 111 00:05:59,519 --> 00:06:02,720 He had once represented a man that had been convicted 112 00:06:02,759 --> 00:06:07,240 of providing material aid to a terrorist organization. So did 113 00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:09,879 the FBI the thing, this is the profile the guy 114 00:06:09,920 --> 00:06:13,439 that we're looking for. So that piece of information they 115 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:17,600 arrested and charged him with mass murder and held in 116 00:06:17,639 --> 00:06:21,079 communicato four weeks, and he came into court with his 117 00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:23,800 lawyer finally and was insisting so that they could not 118 00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:28,319 be my fingerprint could not be I had left the country. 119 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,680 Speaker 2: And so he has never never been to Spain, never 120 00:06:31,759 --> 00:06:36,560 traveled internationally. It's never been on this train. You shall 121 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,720 yourself Wait a minute. I get why they would take 122 00:06:39,759 --> 00:06:42,800 a look at him because of his background, But where's 123 00:06:42,879 --> 00:06:44,439 the screw up with the fingerprint. 124 00:06:45,199 --> 00:06:47,800 Speaker 7: One was a failure to investigate those facts before they're 125 00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:49,959 making the arrest, and the other was that when they 126 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,839 came to court and mister Mayfield was insisting that it 127 00:06:53,879 --> 00:06:56,360 was in his print, the court did something very unusual 128 00:06:56,480 --> 00:07:01,199 and it appointed an independent expert to reac analyze the evidence. 129 00:07:01,439 --> 00:07:05,759 So the independent expert came back with the same conclusion 130 00:07:05,759 --> 00:07:09,000 as the FBI, saying that yeah, this is Brandon Mayfield's print. 131 00:07:09,199 --> 00:07:12,560 And so then the defense team hired yet another latent 132 00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:13,439 fingerprint expert. 133 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:15,160 Speaker 6: All of these folks. 134 00:07:14,879 --> 00:07:18,920 Speaker 7: Had lots of certification years and years of experience, highly qualified, 135 00:07:19,639 --> 00:07:23,120 and mister Mayfield's own expert came back and concluded that 136 00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:26,600 it was his print. So only when the Spanish authorities 137 00:07:26,639 --> 00:07:30,399 identified another suspect and known terrorists who had been on 138 00:07:30,439 --> 00:07:34,040 the run for many years as the much more likely 139 00:07:34,319 --> 00:07:36,680 culprit did the FBI finally admit that they made a 140 00:07:36,720 --> 00:07:39,720 mistake and released Brandon Mayfield. So what we took is 141 00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:43,759 fingerprint evidence. Good evidence if you have high quality prints 142 00:07:43,839 --> 00:07:47,800 and it's not influenced by biasing information that has nothing 143 00:07:47,839 --> 00:07:52,240 to do with the actual evidence at issue. And with 144 00:07:52,279 --> 00:07:55,839 a lot of these subjective techniques like fingerprints, like bite marks, 145 00:07:56,079 --> 00:08:00,600 tire tread evidence like bud spatter, evidence like hairmic see 146 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:05,560 some DNA evidence, all these subjective techniques, they're influenced by 147 00:08:05,639 --> 00:08:08,839 the examiners or influenced by totally irrelevant information. If you 148 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:11,519 let me tell you, like about a really compelling scientific 149 00:08:11,519 --> 00:08:15,240 study on this is that after this happened, a cognum 150 00:08:15,279 --> 00:08:19,279 neuroscientist named doctor et L. George conducted a study and 151 00:08:19,519 --> 00:08:22,920 to see whether or not examiners were to be empirically 152 00:08:22,959 --> 00:08:27,600 demonstrated besides this anecdotal evidence that examiners would be influenced 153 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:29,160 like this. And what he did is he took a 154 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:33,679 group of very experienced, highly qualified latent fingerprint examiners and 155 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:36,440 he gave them casework and asked them to do evaluations 156 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:39,559 on these cases. What was clever was that he didn't 157 00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:44,840 tell these experts that they were examining their own prior casework. 158 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:46,440 Speaker 6: In other words, they had already come. 159 00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:50,480 Speaker 7: To conclusions yeah, and reported them out. And the only 160 00:08:50,519 --> 00:08:54,480 thing that he changed, though, was totally irrelevant information included 161 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:58,080 in the case files. So something like the suspect confessed, 162 00:08:58,159 --> 00:09:00,600 or that there was another evidence, there is an witness, 163 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:05,679 or whatever. Three fifths, three fifths of the experts in 164 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:09,519 this change their opinion from identification to exclusion, and the 165 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:13,200 other two fifths changed it to an inconclusive So they 166 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:16,360 all changed their minds. So I'm totally irrelevant information. And 167 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,759 so when I'm asked is it all Jock, I was 168 00:09:18,799 --> 00:09:21,639 like you can make junkie DNA evidence if it's contaminated 169 00:09:21,799 --> 00:09:24,320 or there's too much subjectivity, or there's not enough, or 170 00:09:24,639 --> 00:09:27,399 that's not properly calibrated, you know. I mean, forensic science 171 00:09:27,519 --> 00:09:30,080 is so powerful in court. We have to be so 172 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:34,480 careful with the way that it's used that even reliable 173 00:09:34,759 --> 00:09:36,879 methods have the ability to convict the innocent. 174 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:42,399 Speaker 5: I was absolutely astounded reading your book at every piece 175 00:09:42,759 --> 00:09:45,879 of evidence, every study, everything that you put forward to 176 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:48,600 show me, Oh my gosh, the stuff that we have 177 00:09:48,679 --> 00:09:51,279 been relying on for years in the true crime space, 178 00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:55,600 that we thought was infallible is really not. I eventually, 179 00:09:55,639 --> 00:09:59,320 as I started reading your book and I finally old 180 00:09:59,320 --> 00:10:02,480 habit style I'm a teacher during the day, I finally 181 00:10:02,519 --> 00:10:05,159 just started picking up a highlighter and started highlighting whole 182 00:10:05,279 --> 00:10:09,080 entire paragraphs because there's so much good information there, and 183 00:10:09,159 --> 00:10:12,600 so much of it is just groundbreaking. How can the 184 00:10:12,720 --> 00:10:16,240 average person, say, someone who gets called onto jury duty, 185 00:10:16,279 --> 00:10:21,240 for example, the spot when forensic science is being used 186 00:10:21,279 --> 00:10:23,960 inappropriately or abused I guess would probably even be the 187 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,840 better term. How are we supposed to be able to 188 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:29,960 know that if we are just called to a jury. 189 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:32,440 Speaker 7: That's a great question. That's it's a tough question. What 190 00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:34,080 do I want to talk about the true crime space 191 00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:37,759 before I answer that question, please, is that I have 192 00:10:37,879 --> 00:10:42,480 three clients whose cases were featured in forensic files as 193 00:10:42,519 --> 00:10:45,799 to like, how wonderful the forensics were that busted this 194 00:10:45,879 --> 00:10:49,600 bad guy in all three one one, this guy's conviction overturn, 195 00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:52,480 and Alfred Twin in Connecticut, whose case is also featured 196 00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:55,720 all innocent and you could still watch these forensic files 197 00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:58,320 that show the claiming that they're guilty. I'm asked a 198 00:10:58,320 --> 00:11:01,799 lot about how a joy or a lager. Like most 199 00:11:01,799 --> 00:11:04,279 of us, I don't have a heart science background. I 200 00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:05,879 have a degree in political science. You know what I 201 00:11:05,919 --> 00:11:08,559 mean is that, and I had to learn science as 202 00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:11,759 part of my job, and so I'm living proof that 203 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:15,799 we're all capable of learning. But as a juror, it's 204 00:11:15,799 --> 00:11:17,960 not really your job to go and learn a new field, 205 00:11:18,159 --> 00:11:19,480 you know what I mean. And our answer this in 206 00:11:19,519 --> 00:11:22,120 two as one is that the Innocence Project advocates for 207 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:24,919 upstream fixes on forensic sciences. 208 00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:25,919 Speaker 6: You know what I mean. 209 00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:30,159 Speaker 7: We need something like the FDA that approves everything from 210 00:11:30,159 --> 00:11:34,720 toilet paper to aspirin before it's used by American consumers 211 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:37,759 to demonstrate it's safe and that it's reliable. Right, we 212 00:11:37,799 --> 00:11:41,279 don't have anything like that for forensic sciences at all. Right, 213 00:11:41,399 --> 00:11:44,200 we care in this country more about the safety of 214 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:46,960 toilet paper than we do about forensic sciences that can 215 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,720 be used to take away somebody's life or liberty. So 216 00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:53,480 that is really a systemic fix. But should you find 217 00:11:53,519 --> 00:11:59,080 yourself in a jury box and listening to an expert witness, 218 00:11:59,159 --> 00:12:01,679 a lot of the evidence demonstrates that jerors tend to 219 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:04,480 we all tend to turn off our critical thinking skills 220 00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:08,720 when somebody is designated as an expert, Why on scientific 221 00:12:08,799 --> 00:12:11,600 jargon and somebody's credentials. 222 00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:12,639 Speaker 6: To defer to the expertise. 223 00:12:12,919 --> 00:12:15,759 Speaker 7: But there's a few things you can ask yourself, and 224 00:12:15,799 --> 00:12:17,759 this is true in the jury box or just in 225 00:12:17,799 --> 00:12:21,000 life when somebody's making claims about what science says, and 226 00:12:21,039 --> 00:12:23,399 really fundamentally is like what's. 227 00:12:23,159 --> 00:12:23,799 Speaker 6: The air rate? 228 00:12:24,039 --> 00:12:26,639 Speaker 7: How often do you get this right? How often do 229 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:28,799 you get it wrong? How often do you get it 230 00:12:28,879 --> 00:12:31,440 right and get it wrong under the circumstances of this 231 00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:35,200 case right with like a poor quality latent fingerprints or 232 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:38,240 something like that, And how often does your field get 233 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,159 it right and get it wrong? And are there standards 234 00:12:41,159 --> 00:12:44,759 in this field? In other words, there are usually best practices? 235 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:48,159 Are there rules that you're required to follow to come 236 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:51,000 up with a conclusion in a particular case? 237 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:52,600 Speaker 6: Were those rules followed? 238 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:52,840 Speaker 2: You know? 239 00:12:52,879 --> 00:12:53,159 Speaker 6: I mean? 240 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:56,200 Speaker 7: And you can also think, is there any way that 241 00:12:56,559 --> 00:12:59,840 this opinion could be disproved? So in other words, I 242 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:03,399 come in, I said, that's a bitemark on that body? 243 00:13:03,759 --> 00:13:06,399 It was just like, so, how am I supposed to 244 00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:09,360 critically think about that? You tell me it's a bitemark? 245 00:13:09,399 --> 00:13:11,840 I guess it's a bitemark, But how does anybody know 246 00:13:11,919 --> 00:13:12,559 it was bike mark? 247 00:13:12,639 --> 00:13:13,440 Speaker 6: Nobody was there? 248 00:13:13,879 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 7: I can't falsify that there's no I just have to 249 00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:19,519 take your word for it, or that the dog scented 250 00:13:19,759 --> 00:13:21,919 a dead body in this building, so the dog order. 251 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:23,759 But we can't really falsify. 252 00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:24,240 Speaker 2: That we don't know. 253 00:13:24,279 --> 00:13:27,399 Speaker 7: I mean, in science, that's called it'sy DIXI you know 254 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,279 what I mean, And what that means is essentially roughly 255 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:33,039 translated from the Latin as it is because I say so. 256 00:13:33,519 --> 00:13:35,720 And if you're getting an opinion like that and there's 257 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:37,960 no air rate and they know how many standards? You know, 258 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:41,039 I mean, it's like pretty strong indications, And what I'm 259 00:13:41,080 --> 00:13:44,960 channeling here is like the most important Supreme Court decision 260 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:49,000 on scientific evidence that exists, the Dabert decision, And it 261 00:13:49,039 --> 00:13:51,480 looks like it should be called Dobert, but I know 262 00:13:51,519 --> 00:13:52,600 people know the Daberts. 263 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:53,840 Speaker 6: That's the way they pronounce their name. 264 00:13:54,440 --> 00:13:58,320 Speaker 7: And it laid out some factors to consider about when 265 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:00,759 you're trying to decide whether to go a piece of 266 00:14:00,799 --> 00:14:02,279 scientific evidence is reliable. 267 00:14:02,919 --> 00:14:04,919 Speaker 3: Yeah, I just turned to that part in your book. 268 00:14:04,919 --> 00:14:07,960 Speaker 5: I was reading over this, and again I told you 269 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,000 off air, I'm getting such an education from this. Like, 270 00:14:11,039 --> 00:14:14,039 for example, I did not know about I did not 271 00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:15,919 know about the decision that your referenced. I did not 272 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:18,440 even know that we had a National Academy of Sciences 273 00:14:18,639 --> 00:14:21,159 or that they had that there was a study done 274 00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:24,759 in two thousand and six that basically said, hey, let's 275 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:27,639 talk about the state of forensic science. I'm so glad 276 00:14:27,679 --> 00:14:30,799 that it happened, because as I went on and continued reading, 277 00:14:30,879 --> 00:14:35,759 I was really alarmed about the lack of real scientific 278 00:14:35,799 --> 00:14:38,679 grounding in most of these junk sciences that you were 279 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:39,200 talking about. 280 00:14:39,279 --> 00:14:42,720 Speaker 3: It's really unreal. So let me ask you this, then. 281 00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:46,960 Speaker 5: Who or what ultimately determines when a former forensics has 282 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:51,000 become unreliable unless falls into that category of junk science. 283 00:14:52,039 --> 00:14:54,159 Speaker 7: That's a huge part of my job, you know, I mean, 284 00:14:54,279 --> 00:14:57,799 is that because overwhelmingly the cases that I work on 285 00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:02,120 in post conviction are people believe are innocent that do 286 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:06,440 not have DNA evidence, but have been convicted on junk science. 287 00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:09,840 And so you have to persuade a court that this 288 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:13,120 particular piece of evidence has been discredited by the mainstream 289 00:15:13,159 --> 00:15:17,159 scientific community. Fundamentally, there are really there are two ways 290 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:20,840 that this happens, and they're of course not mutually exclusive. 291 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:23,480 Is one, and this is the terrible way for it 292 00:15:23,519 --> 00:15:25,679 to be established as wrongful convictions, you know, I means 293 00:15:25,759 --> 00:15:28,120 that they use as and they were wrong. The other, 294 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,840 of course, is scientific research. And you pointed out that 295 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:35,960 you were alarmed about the way that these methods have 296 00:15:36,039 --> 00:15:39,080 been developed. And the reason that is is that because 297 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:44,080 mainstream science is done in a laboratory and scientists come 298 00:15:44,159 --> 00:15:47,480 up with a hypothesis and then they test that hypothesis 299 00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:49,919 using the scientific method you know, I mean, And so 300 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:53,240 that means you develop hypothesis, you develop an experiment that 301 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:56,679 isolates some of these variables. Then you'd conduct the experiments, 302 00:15:56,799 --> 00:15:59,600 then you interpret your results, and you publish your results 303 00:15:59,639 --> 00:16:02,360 in review journal, and then other people criticize it and 304 00:16:02,399 --> 00:16:04,679 try to fallse by it and try to replicate your results. 305 00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:07,480 Speaker 6: That's how real science is done in forensics. 306 00:16:07,559 --> 00:16:11,519 Speaker 7: That doesn't happen often in that the forensics these fields 307 00:16:11,559 --> 00:16:15,360 are often developed by law enforcement for law enforcement purposes. 308 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:18,759 They aren't subject to the same rigor that some of 309 00:16:18,799 --> 00:16:21,360 these other fields are done. And because a lot of 310 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:25,080 it is because they're very useful tools for prosecution. Most 311 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:31,080 people who are convicted of crimes are guilty. People always 312 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:32,879 shocked when I actually say that, You know, I mean, 313 00:16:32,919 --> 00:16:35,000 but if you imagine that we lived in a society 314 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:39,200 where that wasn't true. A lot of these forensics practitioners 315 00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:43,399 became very confident in the ability, and so did courts, 316 00:16:43,519 --> 00:16:47,039 and so did mainstream media. Became very confident in these 317 00:16:47,039 --> 00:16:50,120 forensic techniques because they seem to be convicting guilty people. 318 00:16:50,120 --> 00:16:53,039 So what's the problem. The problem, of course, is it's 319 00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:55,120 also convicting a lot of innocent people. And you think 320 00:16:55,159 --> 00:16:58,519 about the scale of our criminal justice system in this country, 321 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,960 right we have two point two million people in various 322 00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:04,920 forms of incarceration in this country by far the highest 323 00:17:05,079 --> 00:17:08,359 incarceration rate in the world, and yet we're still not 324 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:11,079 a very safe society. So somehow locking up all these 325 00:17:11,119 --> 00:17:14,079 people has not worked. Nonetheless, two point three. So if 326 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,000 you think that one percent of people have been wrongfully convicted, 327 00:17:18,039 --> 00:17:20,440 which I think is a conservative number, we're talking about 328 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:23,119 tens of thousands of innocent people. Just to be clear 329 00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:25,440 that when I say most people are guilty that are 330 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:30,000 convicted true, also true tens of thousands of people are 331 00:17:30,119 --> 00:17:32,960 likely innocent and serving time in prison right now as 332 00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:37,000 we're sitting here that a field is that it has 333 00:17:37,039 --> 00:17:41,200 been discredited. We really have to rely on scientific research 334 00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:43,880 and it has to be tested due to scientific method. 335 00:17:44,319 --> 00:17:48,920 Otherwise we're relying on biases and irrelevant information and whistling 336 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:51,000 past the graveyard hoping that we get it right, you 337 00:17:51,039 --> 00:17:52,039 know what I mean, And. 338 00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:53,400 Speaker 6: As I hope that the stories. 339 00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:55,000 Speaker 7: I try to do a lot of storytelling in my 340 00:17:55,039 --> 00:17:57,599 book talking about like the hardcore science, because I wrote 341 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:00,640 the book to try to create essentially a new of 342 00:18:00,799 --> 00:18:03,279 untrue crime, you know what I mean, And that it's 343 00:18:03,359 --> 00:18:06,279 like that we have to be careful. These are also 344 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:08,000 very compelling stories, but they just. 345 00:18:07,960 --> 00:18:11,119 Speaker 2: End differently, Chris, forher the person who hasn't read the 346 00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:13,160 book but is now going to buy the book because 347 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,640 of this interview. What are some of the big categories 348 00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:20,960 of science that may have been accepted at one point 349 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:24,039 as proving guilt or innocence in a court of law 350 00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:28,599 and are now looked upon as junk science. What are 351 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:32,880 some examples of categories You mentioned bite marks, but there 352 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:34,839 are a number of others that you cover in the book. 353 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,359 Can you just give us a couple of key areas 354 00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:40,039 where you think these have fallen off the table in 355 00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:42,000 terms of being regarded as reliable. 356 00:18:43,079 --> 00:18:48,039 Speaker 7: Yeah, so, dog scent evidence is often unreliable, blood spatter evidence, 357 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:52,759 hair micros besee shaking, baby syndrome, voice spectrometry compared to 358 00:18:52,839 --> 00:19:00,519 bullet lead analysis, polygraph analysis, handwriting analysis, footwear impression evidence. 359 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:02,640 Speaker 6: The list goes on and on. 360 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:06,960 Speaker 7: Really, there many unreliable plus these other fields that can 361 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:11,200 be reliable but are often applied unreliably. You mentioned the 362 00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,519 National Academy of Sciences study. One of the real kind 363 00:19:15,519 --> 00:19:18,880 of fundamental takeaways from that study, which was published in 364 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:23,079 two thousand and nine, was that there's no forensic technique, 365 00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:28,440 zero that are capable of identifying the source of crime 366 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:32,680 scene evidence, and we have accepted in criminal courts for 367 00:19:32,799 --> 00:19:36,400 more than a century all these fields claim the ability 368 00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:42,039 to identify the gun, the tool, the person. Right that 369 00:19:42,039 --> 00:19:45,880 can't be done. The statistical foundation for that does not exist. 370 00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:48,119 So we don't know how rare or how common it 371 00:19:48,200 --> 00:19:51,319 is when we say these two things matched. And so 372 00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:54,759 that is you mean that that cuts across basically all 373 00:19:54,799 --> 00:19:56,400 forensic sciences. 374 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,960 Speaker 2: So something like when they talk about tool marks, and again, 375 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:03,319 all three of us are lay people here. I was 376 00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:07,880 wincing as you were going through that quick list. In 377 00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:11,640 the Colonial Parkway murders, my sister is unsolved murder case, 378 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:16,839 a number of those categories have already been mentioned as 379 00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:22,440 part of the investigative process. They've identified one deceased suspect 380 00:20:22,519 --> 00:20:26,480 who has been linked to one of the couples that 381 00:20:26,559 --> 00:20:29,759 was murdered in the Colonial Parkway murders. When I'm listening 382 00:20:29,799 --> 00:20:35,240 to you talk about these kind of discredited categories in 383 00:20:35,319 --> 00:20:38,640 our case, which stretches back thirty eight years, I've heard 384 00:20:39,079 --> 00:20:44,640 any number of references from our FBI agents talking about 385 00:20:44,799 --> 00:20:48,559 evidence that they're looking at in those categories. So are 386 00:20:48,599 --> 00:20:51,960 all those things to be scrapped or do they have 387 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,039 any utility, any usefulness. 388 00:20:54,559 --> 00:20:59,240 Speaker 7: Some often forensic practitioners and law enforcement often make this 389 00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:02,680 arguments about that this is good for an investigative lead, 390 00:21:02,799 --> 00:21:05,279 even in an unreliable fields. And the bristle at that 391 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:09,839 because if it's the search for the truth is never 392 00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:12,240 advanced through the use of junct science, which is not 393 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,920 that's why it's chuck science. But many of these techniques 394 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:19,880 can be used to exclude. If there's footwear impression evidence 395 00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:24,599 and the suspect as Adidas and it appears to be 396 00:21:24,759 --> 00:21:27,599 an Ike shoe at the scene, we can exclude that, right, 397 00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:30,960 Same with hair comparison, right, same with fiber testimony, same 398 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,319 with many of these other fields, right, same with firearms 399 00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,279 and tool marks right tool where it's very difficult to 400 00:21:37,279 --> 00:21:39,640 get exclusions in either of those fields, so they just 401 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:42,279 call them inconclusive when maybe the suspect should have. 402 00:21:42,279 --> 00:21:44,279 Speaker 6: Been released rather than an inconclusive. 403 00:21:44,759 --> 00:21:47,920 Speaker 7: So I'm not saying that they're worthless as far as exclusions, 404 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,000 but they should certainly not be relied on for a conviction. 405 00:21:51,279 --> 00:21:54,400 And it's a very iffy proposition to be using any 406 00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,759 of these unreliable fields as an investigative lead when they're not, 407 00:21:57,880 --> 00:21:59,440 you know, I mean, and a lot of it goes 408 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,839 back to I imagine, fiber comparison and footprints and hair 409 00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,119 comparison and that kind of those types of leads. 410 00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:11,880 Speaker 2: Were all the actually everything you just mentioned and more. 411 00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:12,440 Speaker 6: Like the traditional fields. 412 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 7: One is that they're very subject to the biases that 413 00:22:15,039 --> 00:22:20,240 we talked about there, capable of providing some information, you know, 414 00:22:20,279 --> 00:22:23,480 I mean, is that the perpetrator was wearing shoes, that 415 00:22:23,519 --> 00:22:25,920 they had a waffle pattern, you know, I mean, it's okay, 416 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:31,160 that's something. But all these fields, basically the nominator is missing. Right. 417 00:22:31,279 --> 00:22:33,839 We don't know how rare are our common and association 418 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:36,440 or a match is you know what you do with that? 419 00:22:36,839 --> 00:22:37,640 It's not a lot. 420 00:22:38,279 --> 00:22:42,279 Speaker 5: Do you think that the prevalence of shows like CSI 421 00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:46,319 and Forensic Files contribute to the idea that these sciences 422 00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:47,359 are sound and. 423 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:50,319 Speaker 3: Useful and are good to be used in court? 424 00:22:51,079 --> 00:22:52,079 Speaker 6: Yes? Absolutely. 425 00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:53,920 Speaker 7: I wrote the book to try to counter this pop 426 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:56,960 culture narrative around the infallibility. 427 00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,880 Speaker 6: Of forensic sciences, and this is true today. 428 00:22:59,599 --> 00:23:02,079 Speaker 7: I just worked on a case in New Jersey where 429 00:23:02,519 --> 00:23:08,359 the defense attorney was precluded from asking the potential jurors 430 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,480 what their previously conceived ideas of the reliability of forensic 431 00:23:12,519 --> 00:23:16,519 sciences were. And I was shocked that a judge would 432 00:23:16,519 --> 00:23:19,400 not allow that that line of questioning for because it's 433 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,400 so important to understand what people have taken in from 434 00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:26,000 pop culture and from the paper of record, the Times. 435 00:23:26,039 --> 00:23:27,680 You read the Times all the time, and they'll talk 436 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:33,319 about ballistics match to this gun without totally without any 437 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:36,559 skepticism or without any like that's the gun, right. All 438 00:23:36,599 --> 00:23:40,319 those individualization conclusions that I was talking about previously are 439 00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,319 reported in mainstream media and the rest. And then I 440 00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,279 was just talking about Alfred Swinton's case in Forensic Files, right. 441 00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,039 Speaker 6: I reached out to Bill Curtis. 442 00:23:48,839 --> 00:23:52,039 Speaker 7: The host, after he was exonerated, and was like, you know, hey, Bill, 443 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,640 how about we take this episode down and maybe printer 444 00:23:55,759 --> 00:23:58,720 retraction or broadcast retraction, you know, I mean, it would 445 00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,559 do a lot to undo the arm that this show 446 00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:05,160 caused by believing that not only was it fantastic evidence, 447 00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:06,640 but it helped catch a serial killer. 448 00:24:06,799 --> 00:24:07,440 Speaker 6: Totally wrong. 449 00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:11,720 Speaker 2: You're listening to mindover Murder. We'll be right back after 450 00:24:11,759 --> 00:24:18,759 this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. 451 00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:21,359 Speaker 6: Idia is hugely complicit. 452 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,279 Speaker 7: And that's why I wrote about the Ted Bundy case 453 00:24:23,319 --> 00:24:26,599 in my book is It sent bititemarks into the stratosphere. 454 00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:28,759 Speaker 6: It turned celebrities out of junk scientists. 455 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:34,440 Speaker 2: What did Forensic Files say when you said, actually, I think, 456 00:24:34,519 --> 00:24:36,880 from my perspective, is the brother of a murder victim. 457 00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,160 I think that would be a fascinating episode to do 458 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,960 a follow up and say, we've had a significant development 459 00:24:44,039 --> 00:24:47,119 here in the Wintland case in Connecticut and he's been 460 00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:51,599 found innocent as a result of significant strides that were taken. 461 00:24:52,039 --> 00:24:54,839 They weren't interested, So Bill never got back to me 462 00:24:55,599 --> 00:24:56,319 our communication. 463 00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,680 Speaker 7: Folks had an email, and so I pitched it to 464 00:24:59,799 --> 00:25:03,000 the Washington Post, and the Washington Post wrote a story 465 00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:05,200 and then they took it down. They took the episode down, 466 00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:07,240 they stopped showing it. But that's as far as as 467 00:25:07,279 --> 00:25:10,240 far as it went. Yeah, no, so too. His family 468 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:13,640 was also very interested in being taken down. The Jimmy 469 00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:17,519 Genritt case in Colorado, which was just reversed a few 470 00:25:17,559 --> 00:25:21,799 weeks ago. It's also on Forensic Files and the pop 471 00:25:21,839 --> 00:25:25,200 culture plays and think about this, It's like, when was 472 00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,160 the last time that you watched a criminal procedural show 473 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,200 of any kind while on order friends would name anything 474 00:25:31,279 --> 00:25:33,759 c yes, I Miami, any of it right, where the 475 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:39,079 forensics were anything other than absolutely infallible, object to reliable, precise, 476 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,599 wrap up, catch the bad guy in an hour? 477 00:25:41,799 --> 00:25:45,319 Speaker 6: Done, yeah, forty. 478 00:25:44,039 --> 00:25:50,640 Speaker 2: Eight minutes later by extremely fashionably dressed examiners. 479 00:25:49,839 --> 00:25:51,799 Speaker 7: Hot too, right, Yeah. 480 00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,519 Speaker 2: Yeah. The women are all beautiful, the men are all handsome, 481 00:25:54,599 --> 00:25:57,880 and apparently they never get blood, guts or anything else 482 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,200 that's unpleasant on their design and out. 483 00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:02,240 Speaker 7: It's a great gig if you can get it. 484 00:26:03,039 --> 00:26:04,880 Speaker 5: So, Chris, you had said that one of the things 485 00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,200 you wanted to try to do was counteract the CSI 486 00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,039 effect if you well in writing the book, Do you 487 00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:14,079 have other reasons why you decided now was a very 488 00:26:14,079 --> 00:26:16,519 good time to write a book, or had it been 489 00:26:16,559 --> 00:26:18,119 something that was on your mind for a while. 490 00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,359 Speaker 7: In the paperback update, I actually wrote a little bit 491 00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,319 about my motivation for it is that was one of 492 00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,759 the essential characters and stories of the book with Stephen 493 00:26:27,839 --> 00:26:31,680 Cheney was my first Innocence Project client, and as I wrote, 494 00:26:31,799 --> 00:26:33,720 I had been a public defender for a long time, 495 00:26:33,839 --> 00:26:36,079 and I was a law professor right before I came 496 00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:37,680 to the Innocence Project. 497 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,359 Speaker 6: But so I had represented literally thousands. 498 00:26:40,039 --> 00:26:43,599 Speaker 7: Of people, and in that work a few things is 499 00:26:43,599 --> 00:26:47,079 that you're not doing exonerations, You're not. The way that 500 00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:50,480 you represent your clients is entirely different, and it's a 501 00:26:50,519 --> 00:26:52,400 lot of triage work and a lot of clients you 502 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,039 will never meet again after meeting them, maybe want in arrangements, 503 00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:56,960 or sometimes you work on a case for a couple 504 00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,440 of years, but then never again. And I had lots 505 00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,279 of clients to prison and I just never saw them again, 506 00:27:02,319 --> 00:27:04,599 you know, I mean sometimes for life. And when I 507 00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,279 started at the Innocence Project, I had a lot of 508 00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,640 client contact. Of course, my father was a public defender. 509 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:12,680 Speaker 6: It was like in the. 510 00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,519 Speaker 7: Family right when I I didn't I don't know why 511 00:27:15,559 --> 00:27:17,599 I didn't think about it more when I was flying 512 00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:22,759 to Texas. But when I had my meeting with Stephen 513 00:27:22,839 --> 00:27:26,160 Cheney for the first time, I realized what I represented 514 00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:29,480 to him was he thought that I could wave a 515 00:27:29,559 --> 00:27:32,279 magic wands on open prison doors, and he had won 516 00:27:32,519 --> 00:27:35,200 like the lawyer lottery, and in ways that he did. 517 00:27:35,279 --> 00:27:38,440 Considering how many people or a small shop compared to 518 00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:41,640 the scale of the justice system. I was very moved 519 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,960 by and overwhelmed by that experience and felt this awesome responsibility. 520 00:27:48,519 --> 00:27:49,839 Speaker 6: I've always written. 521 00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,400 Speaker 7: I wrote another book in five so that's kind of 522 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:53,759 part of what I've done. I do a lot of 523 00:27:53,799 --> 00:27:56,319 scholarship at the IP too, but the it's a and 524 00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,400 so I just started taking notes on it, and the 525 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,720 more that I got and they became in the backbone 526 00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,799 of the stories, and I was like, people are going 527 00:28:02,839 --> 00:28:04,799 to be interested in this. This is like as a 528 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,000 maunter of interest, and then the way that people are 529 00:28:07,039 --> 00:28:08,119 interested in good stories. 530 00:28:08,839 --> 00:28:10,599 Speaker 6: But then as I worked in. 531 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,880 Speaker 7: More and more in junk science and I learned more 532 00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:15,480 and more, it was just. 533 00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:16,920 Speaker 6: Like people need to be shocked. 534 00:28:17,039 --> 00:28:20,359 Speaker 7: People really need to understand not just how bad the 535 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,319 situation is, but the effect that it has on people's lives. 536 00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,240 Speaker 2: As a quick aside, Chris, one of the things that 537 00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,160 jumped down at me was you mentioned several times in 538 00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:34,839 the book sitting outside these very grim jails with death 539 00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:38,440 row setups and sitting in your rental car with a 540 00:28:38,519 --> 00:28:41,359 legal pad. And I thought to myself, you didn't write 541 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,960 this whole book out, longhand did you. 542 00:28:45,039 --> 00:28:47,799 Speaker 7: I have really demanding day job and I have two kids, right, 543 00:28:47,839 --> 00:28:51,599 and so the way that I wrote the book is that. Yes, 544 00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,400 it was a lot of long hands in yellow pads, 545 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,079 and then whenever I was traveling, if I didn't need 546 00:28:57,119 --> 00:29:01,079 to prep for litigation on planes, trains, our hotel rooms, 547 00:29:01,079 --> 00:29:03,640 whenever I was away from my family. So I just 548 00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:05,359 it took me four years, you know, I mean to 549 00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,519 get it down. So it was, Yeah, thank you for asking. 550 00:29:07,559 --> 00:29:08,519 It was a lot, but it was. 551 00:29:09,319 --> 00:29:10,920 Speaker 2: But yeah, I have that habit though. 552 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,279 Speaker 6: I always have a legal pad with me. 553 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,200 Speaker 3: Were you able to call all of the research for 554 00:29:15,359 --> 00:29:18,160 the book from cases that you personally worked or did 555 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,799 you go around to folks at the Innocence Project and 556 00:29:20,839 --> 00:29:22,279 say give me your best stories. 557 00:29:23,039 --> 00:29:25,880 Speaker 7: No, I only wrote about my cases. The three cases 558 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,880 that I focus on are Eddie Lee Howard, Stephen Cheney, 559 00:29:29,119 --> 00:29:34,039 and Keith Harward, and they all represented different aspects of 560 00:29:34,079 --> 00:29:37,519 our working. Like Keith Harward is traditional kind of slammed 561 00:29:37,519 --> 00:29:41,799 on DNA exoneration where we identified the actual perpetrator I 562 00:29:41,799 --> 00:29:44,279 meaning he did thirty three years in prison for the 563 00:29:44,319 --> 00:29:46,680 horribook the crime that he was convicted of. Is how 564 00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,000 I opened the book. That's it's a trigger warring for 565 00:29:49,039 --> 00:29:51,359 anybody who's going to continue to read that this is 566 00:29:51,599 --> 00:29:53,440 it's true crime, right, and they are undrew. 567 00:29:53,599 --> 00:29:55,440 Speaker 6: But the and so what I did. 568 00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,160 Speaker 7: I had all the transcripts, all the forensic reports, I 569 00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,880 had personally been involved, So I I had a lot 570 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,200 of material to draw on. And if you look, I 571 00:30:03,279 --> 00:30:07,559 was really careful with the endnotes or like thirty pages long, yeah, 572 00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,799 because I want to lay all the dialogue that is there. 573 00:30:12,039 --> 00:30:14,519 None of it is invented. It's what happened either on 574 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,200 court or from my notes and so and so I 575 00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,799 have cited that, and also I need names throughout the book, 576 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:23,680 and so of course I didn't want to be sued, 577 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,160 and so I had a lot of andnotes on that. 578 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,039 And then the other cases that were not like the 579 00:30:28,079 --> 00:30:31,440 Ted Bundy case or some of the other high profile 580 00:30:31,759 --> 00:30:34,000 cases that I do write about that weren't mine and 581 00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,400 that weren't Innocence Project cases. I was very careful about 582 00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:39,440 citing those. And of course I talked to my colleagues 583 00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:42,400 about any case that I referenced that was happened to 584 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,119 be an Innocence Project case that I didn't work on. 585 00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:45,920 Speaker 6: But there are primarily my cases. 586 00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,880 Speaker 2: Does somebody end up going through it and reading through 587 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,240 carefully and you're dealing with a lot of delicate stuff here, 588 00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:58,799 and obviously for family members who were convinced and you 589 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,160 referenced this in the book, that a particular individual is 590 00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:06,759 responsible for the murder of their loved one, they then 591 00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:11,119 have to accept the fact, often years later, that the 592 00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:16,920 person that was convicted was wrongfully convicted and therefore look 593 00:31:17,039 --> 00:31:21,119 back at square one in some of these examples. 594 00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,319 Speaker 7: Yeah, I was thinking, because I know that both you 595 00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:28,160 and Kristen have been touched by violent crime and bring 596 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,000 that perspective to your show and into your audience, which 597 00:31:32,039 --> 00:31:35,839 is such a hugely important piece of everything that is 598 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,240 involved in wrongful conviction and regular convictions. We at the 599 00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,920 Innocent Project are very sensitive to this and work with 600 00:31:43,039 --> 00:31:46,640 victim advocates to try to ease the pain of an 601 00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,480 exoneration because for most of us it's his great salvatory, 602 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,880 finally free moments, and then for the victim's family a 603 00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:56,720 mirror in. 604 00:31:56,759 --> 00:32:00,440 Speaker 2: The mirror image of that, but in a very imagine 605 00:32:00,519 --> 00:32:01,519 a very unhappy way. 606 00:32:02,279 --> 00:32:07,279 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's very challenging toe even accept the reality, right. 607 00:32:07,359 --> 00:32:11,279 So often the victim's family can't accept that the wrong 608 00:32:11,319 --> 00:32:14,519 person was convicted because it's usually very persuasive me. Most 609 00:32:14,839 --> 00:32:16,480 of our clients were not picked out of phone books. 610 00:32:16,519 --> 00:32:19,160 There was reasons to suspect them or and then most 611 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,920 of them sat through a trial, watched them get convicted, 612 00:32:22,319 --> 00:32:26,640 and can't believe that they didn't get justice, you know 613 00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:30,119 what I mean? And I tell the story sometimes and 614 00:32:30,279 --> 00:32:33,400 we like the Alfred Swinning case again in Connecticut. I 615 00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:36,440 remember the day that he was going to be exonerated 616 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,519 in court that day, and he had been convicted of 617 00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:44,400 killing a sex workers living in a very marginalized lifestyle. 618 00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,000 She had family, people who loved her who are also 619 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,759 marginalized in the community as far as that goes, and 620 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:57,400 are regularly the victims of poverty and everything that relates 621 00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,000 to being poorant the United States. 622 00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,759 Speaker 6: One was brutally murdered, and. 623 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,200 Speaker 7: They have believed that they had gotten justice, right, and 624 00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:09,359 so you know, in a lifetime that the way that 625 00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,720 I was interpreting the victim's family here was that in 626 00:33:12,759 --> 00:33:16,680 a lifetime of a lot of unfairness, that at least 627 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:18,279 their sisters. 628 00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,279 Speaker 6: Or their daughters or their murderer had. 629 00:33:20,119 --> 00:33:22,039 Speaker 7: Been put away, you know, I mean, they had got 630 00:33:22,079 --> 00:33:25,240 some justice there. So we knew that this was going 631 00:33:25,319 --> 00:33:28,279 to be a really painful and sensitive topic, you know 632 00:33:28,319 --> 00:33:30,319 I mean, And a lot of district attorneys are reluctant 633 00:33:30,359 --> 00:33:32,640 to kind of do the right thing because victims' families 634 00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:37,279 are invested in the conviction, and so we often will 635 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,119 try to have and we don't personally talk to because 636 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,079 there's social workers that can are better in handling those 637 00:33:43,079 --> 00:33:45,559 types of conversation to prepare somebody something like this. But 638 00:33:45,599 --> 00:33:47,960 when it doesn't happen, when it's not handled well, like 639 00:33:48,039 --> 00:33:50,680 it wasn't here. I told the court officers when I 640 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,640 was standing in court and you could feel the tension in. 641 00:33:53,559 --> 00:33:55,880 Speaker 2: The room, I imagine. 642 00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:57,759 Speaker 7: And you could just feel that something was going to happen. 643 00:33:57,920 --> 00:33:59,759 And I told him, is you really need to separate 644 00:34:00,039 --> 00:34:01,799 this victims families from us, you know what I mean, 645 00:34:01,799 --> 00:34:04,720 because something will happen on this It's not the first 646 00:34:04,799 --> 00:34:06,960 time that I have been in court like this. 647 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:08,840 Speaker 6: They didn't do anything about it. 648 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,000 Speaker 2: Oh they didn't, even though you told them to expect 649 00:34:13,199 --> 00:34:15,519 an explosion of emotion at a minimum. 650 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,559 Speaker 7: Yeah, And so when we walked out of the courtroom 651 00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:20,719 door and the victims family made a b line for 652 00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:25,199 us and spat on us, and the truth was, I 653 00:34:25,199 --> 00:34:27,239 wasn't even mad at them, and neither was mister Swinton, 654 00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,559 who was a shock. He'd just been seventeen years in 655 00:34:29,599 --> 00:34:32,039 prison for this crime. He was just like, didn't even 656 00:34:32,079 --> 00:34:34,000 know what to make of it, and you could just 657 00:34:34,039 --> 00:34:34,719 feel the pain. 658 00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,639 Speaker 6: Of course is revolting, but the but. 659 00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:41,199 Speaker 2: You also understand their anger because they believed in the 660 00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,119 process person was being freed a man. 661 00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:49,280 Speaker 7: So it's nobody wins in wrongful conviction. It's painful for everybody, 662 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:51,679 you know what I mean. And mister Swinton, like a 663 00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,480 lot of our clients and some of the clients that 664 00:34:54,519 --> 00:34:58,719 I write about in the book, I shortly after being exonerated, right, 665 00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:03,239 because prison health is abominable, and I think the emotional 666 00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:05,559 pressure of decades of wrongful conviction. 667 00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:06,440 Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean. 668 00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:10,199 Speaker 2: It's like you, yeah, it shortens your life. 669 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:12,280 Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, Chris. 670 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,239 Speaker 5: What can our listeners do to number one, support the 671 00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:18,960 Innocence Project because the work that you do is so important. 672 00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,320 Speaker 3: What can we, as people in the true crime. 673 00:35:22,119 --> 00:35:25,400 Speaker 5: Space do to call attention to the prevalence of junk 674 00:35:25,519 --> 00:35:28,320 science so that we can maybe lessen your workload. 675 00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,960 Speaker 7: Hopefully our goals to go out of business, of course, 676 00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,840 but sadly it doesn't look likely. Your listeners, of course, 677 00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,800 please donate to us where Innocence Project dot org VI 678 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,480 and they make that very easy as far as a 679 00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,039 and thank you for having me on and for being 680 00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:47,000 receptive to this. Other really important aspect of the criminal 681 00:35:47,079 --> 00:35:51,920 justice system fundamentally is that is injecting and notice skepticism 682 00:35:52,199 --> 00:35:56,280 into We can't just assume because somebody who was convicted 683 00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,639 that they necessarily got the right person, you know, I mean, 684 00:35:58,679 --> 00:36:02,440 and particular things that that we know to be unreliable 685 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:06,719 evidence like eyewitness identification, be skeptical just because somebody knows 686 00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:07,880 it lads to have confessed. 687 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,639 Speaker 6: Do we know that's a reliable confession? 688 00:36:09,679 --> 00:36:11,760 Speaker 7: Does it match up with the physical evidence in the case, 689 00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,639 for example, what kinds of techniques were used during the interrogation? 690 00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:17,199 Speaker 6: And then of course drunk science. 691 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,679 Speaker 7: So you know, when a lot of the case identification 692 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:21,559 work that we do in strategical litigation, which is a 693 00:36:21,559 --> 00:36:24,519 little bit different than the other legal department that does 694 00:36:24,639 --> 00:36:27,639 all our DNA exoneration work, is that when we're looking 695 00:36:27,679 --> 00:36:30,960 at a case and I see something that involves the 696 00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:36,840 leading contributing factors to wrongful conviction, inevitably these are innocence cases, right, 697 00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,239 And if they're relying on this type of evidence so 698 00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,840 often an innocent person, particularly in not every idea, not 699 00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,000 every confession, not every piece of forensics. But if I'm 700 00:36:46,039 --> 00:36:49,119 looking at an idea and it's cross racial identification and 701 00:36:49,159 --> 00:36:52,119 it was done months or years after the incident, or 702 00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,639 here's a confession and there are some mistakes. 703 00:36:55,079 --> 00:36:55,960 Speaker 6: Made about like. 704 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,079 Speaker 7: The factual details in this confession that we're just kind 705 00:36:58,119 --> 00:37:01,360 of paper over during trial, or these junk science, there's 706 00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,360 skepticism that it's appropriate. And when people ask me about 707 00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:07,320 your I would give you a much more detailed answer 708 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,159 about how to think about science as a juror, but 709 00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,679 as the short answer is just to be skeptical, you know. 710 00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:16,440 I mean, it's really important to maintain critical thinking skills. 711 00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,079 That's what jurors are there for, that's what your listeners 712 00:37:19,079 --> 00:37:19,519 are there for. 713 00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,760 Speaker 2: You mentioned across racial identification. For people that might not 714 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,559 have heard that expression before, Can you explain a little 715 00:37:27,559 --> 00:37:29,840 bit more about where we all get tripped up? 716 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,119 Speaker 7: Sure, it doesn't really have anything to do with racial bias. 717 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:38,159 It's really it's your own race bias. To the extent 718 00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,280 that it has to do about racial bias, it's probably 719 00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,280 because we live in highly segregated societies. What the science 720 00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,320 shows is that we're much better at identifying people of 721 00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:48,639 our own race than. 722 00:37:48,519 --> 00:37:49,599 Speaker 6: Those of other races. 723 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,360 Speaker 7: So white people are better identifying white people, and black 724 00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,360 people are identifying black people. And so when you're we're 725 00:37:55,679 --> 00:37:59,480 identifying somebody from the other race and other race, other ethnicity, 726 00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:02,679 somebody doesn't look like you, it's less reliable. 727 00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:06,000 Speaker 2: And all the jokes and cliches about it. But if 728 00:38:06,119 --> 00:38:12,280 that's not your world that you've grown up in. Typically, yes, 729 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,079 our families in society can be more blended as we 730 00:38:16,199 --> 00:38:18,920 move forward, But if you're a white person, you might 731 00:38:19,039 --> 00:38:24,199 not be able to identify someone from another race as readily, 732 00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,440 but simply because you haven't been exposed to them as much. 733 00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,840 Speaker 7: Yeah, it's just is there are lots of jokes about 734 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,519 picking up white people looking like white people to people 735 00:38:34,519 --> 00:38:37,119 who aren't white, you know, I mean, there's just another 736 00:38:37,159 --> 00:38:40,119 white guy, you know. I mean that is what the 737 00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,960 science demonstrates, and it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense. 738 00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,880 Speaker 6: For example, and I don't know. 739 00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,360 Speaker 7: How robust the research is here, it's something that I've heard, 740 00:38:50,599 --> 00:38:52,760 so you can quote me on it, but quote me 741 00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:54,760 in saying it's something that I heard, not something that 742 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,400 I research, but I have heard when I was in Hawaii, 743 00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,119 which is one of the most multi cultural places that 744 00:39:01,119 --> 00:39:04,639 I've ever been, and that people in Hawaii are really 745 00:39:04,679 --> 00:39:10,559 good at identifying ethnicities or mixed race people like which races. 746 00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:12,880 And that seemed to me when I heard this, that 747 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,800 would speak to what we're talking about. Right, these folks 748 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:19,480 are exposed to people multicultural people every day with them 749 00:39:19,679 --> 00:39:22,960 and have some familiarity with you know, what a Filipino 750 00:39:23,039 --> 00:39:25,920 looks like as compared to a Japanese person, as compared 751 00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,760 to a Native Hawaiian as compared to another. 752 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:30,079 Speaker 6: You know, I mean that a lot of white people 753 00:39:30,119 --> 00:39:30,760 have no idea. 754 00:39:31,119 --> 00:39:33,159 Speaker 7: Most white people wouldn't be able to tell you, like 755 00:39:33,639 --> 00:39:36,800 beyond somebody being Asian, you know what I mean, you know, 756 00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,519 and Asian folks certainly can. 757 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,239 Speaker 2: Yeah, they get the distinctions. And by the way, it's 758 00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:46,119 a proud graduate of Pearl Harbor Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii. 759 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,239 This is true. They call Hawaii they're the melting pot, 760 00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,719 and there are a lot of different people from all 761 00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,039 over the world who've come to Hawaii to live and work. 762 00:39:56,119 --> 00:39:59,320 But you're absolutely right. I think people they would get 763 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,480 the nu once is then the differences. We're somebody that 764 00:40:02,599 --> 00:40:07,239 might not be exposed to specific islanders and named dozens 765 00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,840 of different categories of wonderful people. They might not really 766 00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,840 have that much familiarity with what does a Filipino person 767 00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,840 look like versus Japanese, American or any other category. 768 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:22,960 Speaker 7: And these problems are exacerbated by suggestive lineup procedures and 769 00:40:23,039 --> 00:40:25,440 identification procedures that are used all the time, you know, 770 00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,960 I mean in a huge part of our agenda at 771 00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,639 the Innocence Project is attempting to get law enforcement to 772 00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:38,920 use scientifically validated, non suggestive appropriate identification procedures, like a 773 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,559 series of recommendations that we make, and we do it 774 00:40:41,559 --> 00:40:45,320 a lot on litigation, asking courts to reconsider the way 775 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:49,079 that they're evaluating the reliability of an eyewitness identification before 776 00:40:49,119 --> 00:40:53,679 they introduced it at trial. Because there's nothing more forensic sciences, 777 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,079 confessions and I identification, which again are the leading factors 778 00:40:58,119 --> 00:41:01,719 through offical conviction. There's also nothing more persuasive than those things. Right, 779 00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:04,280 Somebody getting on the stand saying I'll never forget that face. 780 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,480 It seared it to my mind, right, that type of 781 00:41:06,519 --> 00:41:12,000 testimony is actually probably a statement almost asserting its. 782 00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,480 Speaker 6: Unreliability because often when we're talking. 783 00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,280 Speaker 7: About is like a gunpoint robbery or something like that, 784 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:17,599 or that coart a weapon being. 785 00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,079 Speaker 2: Inherently a stressful situation. 786 00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:24,000 Speaker 7: Yeah, And what the research demonstrates is that those inherently 787 00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:27,559 stressful situations corrupt our memories and make the ability to 788 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,400 encode the memory of the perpetrator's face very difficult, particularly 789 00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:34,199 if there's a weapon involved, because there's something called weapon focus. 790 00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,360 Speaker 6: Right, if you ever had weapon pointed. 791 00:41:36,119 --> 00:41:39,400 Speaker 7: At you, yes, what you were looking at, I imagine 792 00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:41,480 was the weapon and not the person's face. 793 00:41:41,679 --> 00:41:44,880 Speaker 2: Sure, I was in a store and we were held 794 00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,360 up at gunpoint, and I wrote, I can tell you 795 00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,440 a lot of details about what happened that day, and 796 00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,159 no one got hurt. But man, I wouldn't be able 797 00:41:53,159 --> 00:41:55,360 to pick those two guys out of a lineup no 798 00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,400 matter what, because first of all, they ordered us to 799 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,199 turn away, and we did. And you, when someone sticks 800 00:42:01,199 --> 00:42:03,639 a gun in your face, you tend to do what 801 00:42:03,679 --> 00:42:06,280 they tell you to do. And then if we add in, 802 00:42:06,599 --> 00:42:10,840 it's often dark and these things happen quickly. You might 803 00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,719 only get a glance at someone and you're terrified. 804 00:42:15,559 --> 00:42:18,199 Speaker 7: You really want to make an identification you know, I mean, 805 00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,639 because you want the perpetrator to be caught. Of course, 806 00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,880 these have an idea. They and crime victims want the 807 00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,760 police to catch the bad guy and trust the police 808 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:35,039 to have identified an appropriate suspect, which makes a suggestive 809 00:42:35,159 --> 00:42:38,679 lineup procedure all the more pernicious. And police, I mean, 810 00:42:39,199 --> 00:42:42,119 I'm not here to slag them for this, but they 811 00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,679 believe that I'm not trying to typically trying to frame 812 00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:46,800 innocent people, you know what I mean. But there are 813 00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,000 ways to actually test the witness's memory, and there are 814 00:42:51,039 --> 00:42:54,880 ways that a lineup or identification procedure of any kind 815 00:42:55,199 --> 00:42:57,440 are not going to test the witness memory. They're just 816 00:42:57,599 --> 00:43:00,440 there to confirm the police aspect. 817 00:43:01,079 --> 00:43:05,239 Speaker 5: Chris tell us where our listeners can find your book? 818 00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,559 I actually found it in a wonderful little indie bookstore 819 00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,400 in Stanton, Virginia. But I assume that not everybody has 820 00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,199 a little indie bookstore at their disposals, So if they 821 00:43:15,199 --> 00:43:17,880 do not have one as such, where can they find yours? 822 00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:18,760 Speaker 2: Everywhere? 823 00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:23,880 Speaker 7: Books are sold online and my book tour was almost 824 00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,159 entirely in indie bookstores. So I am very proud to 825 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,239 have gotten the support from the indie bookstores, which I love, 826 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:31,519 and that started right. 827 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,239 Speaker 6: Here in Brooklyn at the green Light Books. 828 00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:33,719 Speaker 2: Yeah. 829 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,239 Speaker 7: Please. And I still pop up once in a while 830 00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,920 on around the country. Yeah, and I'm not I used 831 00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:41,000 to be active. I was on Twitter for a little while, 832 00:43:41,039 --> 00:43:45,000 but then everything went crazy, and but I think sometimes 833 00:43:45,039 --> 00:43:47,599 i'll post things on Instagram about where I'll be. 834 00:43:48,199 --> 00:43:50,880 Speaker 3: Do you have any other writing projects in your near future? 835 00:43:51,039 --> 00:43:53,079 Speaker 5: Because I got to tell you, Chris, you're a hell 836 00:43:53,119 --> 00:43:57,320 of a writer and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, so. 837 00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:58,639 Speaker 3: I hope you have more in your future. 838 00:43:59,159 --> 00:43:59,559 Speaker 2: Thank you. 839 00:44:00,199 --> 00:44:02,119 Speaker 7: Maybe I'm not sure if I would have written it 840 00:44:02,159 --> 00:44:03,320 if I had known how much work. 841 00:44:03,159 --> 00:44:03,679 Speaker 6: It would have been. 842 00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:09,880 Speaker 7: Absolutely as I said at demanding day job, but I 843 00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,320 get the itch and I'll probably write something again at 844 00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:14,400 some point when you know when it happens. 845 00:44:15,159 --> 00:44:17,039 Speaker 5: I think it's so important that you did write it, 846 00:44:17,119 --> 00:44:20,199 because it's all stuff that really needed to be said. 847 00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:23,119 And I would say to our listeners, this is the 848 00:44:23,119 --> 00:44:27,840 best education on forensic science that you didn't know you needed. 849 00:44:28,199 --> 00:44:29,800 But I'm here to tell you that you need it, 850 00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,039 so please do pick up the book. It is junk 851 00:44:32,119 --> 00:44:34,880 Science and the American Criminal Justice System. 852 00:44:35,079 --> 00:44:37,719 Speaker 3: Chris, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your time. 853 00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,280 Speaker 7: I really appreciate you having me. Thank you so much 854 00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:41,800 for really thoughtful questions. 855 00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,000 Speaker 3: That is going to do it for this episode of 856 00:44:44,039 --> 00:44:47,079 mind Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll 857 00:44:47,079 --> 00:44:47,840 see you next time. 858 00:44:57,199 --> 00:45:00,239 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Disease, Kiko 859 00:45:00,599 --> 00:45:02,239 and Another Dog Productions. 860 00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,119 Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. 861 00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,880 Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. 862 00:45:09,559 --> 00:45:11,559 Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud. 863 00:45:12,119 --> 00:45:16,039 Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media. 864 00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,960 Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. 865 00:45:20,159 --> 00:45:22,760 Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway 866 00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,639 Murders on Facebook. 867 00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,480 Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at 868 00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,119 Bill Thomas five six. 869 00:45:29,599 --> 00:45:32,679 Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.