Saul Kassin (psychologist on false confessions)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Dan Kassan.

[2] I'm joined by Saul Podman.

[3] Hello.

[4] Today we have Saul Kassan on and he is a psychologist and a professor.

[5] He is the world's leading expert on false confessions.

[6] He has a new book that we talk about a lot called Duped Why Innocent People Confess and why we believe their confessions.

[7] This is maddening.

[8] Yeah, it's a doozy.

[9] It's a doozy.

[10] It's heartbreaking.

[11] but also encouraging that there are people working on this.

[12] It's very informative.

[13] I think it's a really important episode.

[14] It is, yeah.

[15] I think you'll come into this thinking one thing and leave radically altered.

[16] Yeah.

[17] Please enjoy Saul Kasson.

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[21] He's an I'm chancer.

[22] How are you, sir?

[23] It's good to meet you.

[24] I'm Dax.

[25] This is Monica.

[26] Hi, hi.

[27] And you sit together?

[28] It sounds like on your podcast that you're sitting together.

[29] You know, we didn't used to sit together.

[30] We're learning as we go.

[31] I would imagine, because you've studied so many different things in psychology, I wonder if this would interest you.

[32] So it used to be that Monica sat with the guests on a couch, and then I sat in this chair across from everybody.

[33] And the people were then having a really hard time.

[34] They had to, like, whip their necks around.

[35] when I would talk.

[36] We're trying to diagnose.

[37] Why do some people talk a lot to Monica?

[38] Why don't they?

[39] Who's a misogynist?

[40] Who just knows me because I'm on TV?

[41] We're trying to muddle through all this.

[42] And then we were like, well, hold on.

[43] Let's just see if we put both of us on the side.

[44] Well, no, I have to shout out Jake Johnson.

[45] Okay.

[46] Because we had a guest, Jake Johnson.

[47] And he said, I don't like this.

[48] I can't see her.

[49] Can we try to arrange that?

[50] It required a non -people pleaser to actually say, I don't enjoy doing this.

[51] Will you accommodate us guests?

[52] And so we've then switched.

[53] and now I think the problem's largely gone away.

[54] I think if Monica were in my presence next to me on a couch, I'd be very distracted.

[55] Yes, yes, that's true.

[56] And by the way, it has up to my able to concentrate, too, because I can't see her either.

[57] So, okay, we've objectified you.

[58] I hope you're cool with it.

[59] Professor, before we get into your book, I want to first say, I don't think of myself as someone that's overly outraged often.

[60] It's not my go -to emotion.

[61] I think I've been most outraged in my life when I've seen a couple of these documentaries.

[62] In particular, the confessions on Frontline.

[63] I don't know if you saw that one about the Norfolk Four.

[64] Yes.

[65] I was so heartbroken, my sense of justice and innocent people being bullied and all that stuff.

[66] It drove me insane.

[67] So it's a topic that I'm hot under the collar about.

[68] So I'm really excited to talk to you about it.

[69] We've not had anyone thus far that's an expert in this field.

[70] Just to confess on my own part, I have to.

[71] the same reaction.

[72] And I've watched this for 40 years.

[73] And to be honest, people ask me, are you still studying false confessions?

[74] And all I keep saying is, well, yeah, because when you peel layer after layer, it gets worse and worse and worse.

[75] And I will admit to the fact that early on, I was as naive as anybody.

[76] I believed false confessions.

[77] And I've learned over the years why I shouldn't.

[78] So I had that same level of outrage, and it continues.

[79] Yeah, I could imagine it being an incredible source of energy and motivation throughout a very long career.

[80] But before we jump into that, as I learned a little bit about you today, two things that interested me is one you studied with Arthur, is it Rebier or Rebier.

[81] Reber.

[82] On implicit learning, and this is a term I've not ever heard prior to this morning, and I found it very interesting, Monica.

[83] And it's happening all the time to us once it was kind of explained.

[84] Yeah, could we for just two -second sidetrack on implicit learning?

[85] Because I think all these things are baked into ultimately when we get into these interrogations.

[86] Like, a lot of these principles are there.

[87] I think they are, too.

[88] I was lucky enough in college that I took a history of psychology class with Arthur Rieber, who was an up -and -coming and brilliant cognitive psychologist.

[89] And at the end of the course, he asked if I'd be interested in working in his lab.

[90] Well, duh, yeah.

[91] What I didn't realize was how electrifying an experience that would be.

[92] I would run the experiments.

[93] I would sit students down.

[94] I would tell them that I'm going to show them a series of slides, just a bunch of letter strings, TXXV, VTB, and that they just watch it.

[95] And then when it's done, after about 10 minutes and 100 slides later, I reveal to them that these letter strings were formed according to a rule set, according to a grammar.

[96] And they look at me like I've got two heads.

[97] What are you talking about?

[98] And then I say, now I'm going to show you some new letter strings.

[99] Tell me which ones fit the grammar and which don't.

[100] Oh, wow.

[101] And again, they're shaking their head.

[102] They're saying, what are you talking about?

[103] So now I start presenting new letter strings, same letters just in different orders that either fit or don't fit the grammar.

[104] Here's what happens.

[105] First of all, well beyond chance performance, they learn the grammar.

[106] They know which are grammatical and which are not.

[107] What?

[108] When I asked them, how confident are you on a five -point scale, their confidence levels were low, but they made their judgments quickly and they couldn't explain them.

[109] They learned without knowing that they learned.

[110] Yes.

[111] And the brilliance was we weren't allowed in the late 60s, early 70s, to use the word unconscious.

[112] It was too Freudian for experimentalists.

[113] So Arthur started to use the term implicit learning instead of unconscious learning, but he explained to me it's basically unconscious learning.

[114] People learn, but they don't know it.

[115] His subjects were learning, they didn't know they learned, they couldn't explain what they learned, they had zero confidence, but they knew what the right answers were.

[116] I just thought, wow, I got to go into psychology.

[117] This is terrific.

[118] The second thing you studied that interests me greatly, I know that you studied attribution theory.

[119] We here on this show are really obsessed with attribution error.

[120] Is that part of your attribution studies?

[121] It is so a part of it.

[122] It's scary.

[123] First of all, my dissertation was on attribution theory.

[124] It was called causal attribution, a perceptual approach.

[125] Moving into law, I couldn't think of a better application of attribution theory than how people make attributions for other people's wrongdoing or behavior that may not be wrongdoing.

[126] The first reason I got interested in confessions was because I left graduate school, went out to the University of Kansas, Rockchalk, Jayhawk, K .U. worked with an eminent social psychologist named Larry Ritesman, and he was interested in had funds for studying jury decision -making.

[127] And one of the first insights I had as we started to collect data from different stimulus trials was that every time there was a confession in evidence, everybody voted guilty.

[128] Yeah, like at what percentage?

[129] A hundred, high 90s?

[130] 90 to 100 percentage.

[131] When we're trying to find stimulus trials to use in jury research, we need trials that are somewhat ambiguous.

[132] They're not draw all convictions or all acquittals.

[133] Otherwise, we can't vary anything interesting.

[134] What turned out, people knew when a confession was coerced, when there was a lot of pressure placed on a suspect, and they would say that was a coerced confession, but they believed it reflected guilt anyway.

[135] What?

[136] They understood the situation.

[137] They understood the pressure.

[138] But that statement, that behavior, that confession indicates guilt nevertheless.

[139] That's the fundamental attribution error.

[140] I think there's three things involved in there, right?

[141] Yes, there's attribution error, which is I would never confess to something.

[142] I didn't do.

[143] And so my presumption of that person is that they would not do that.

[144] And then also there's a fluency, we just learned this one, fluency bias error in there.

[145] You believe you have some understanding of interrogation that you really don't.

[146] We think we know what.

[147] You think it's way simpler than it actually is.

[148] Right.

[149] Or that we know what it's like to be on hour 12, sleep deprived with threats of death penalty.

[150] We know that experience and can evaluate how we perform in it is insane.

[151] We don't.

[152] Yes.

[153] You know the famous Milgram obedience experiments?

[154] Oh, tell me. I don't know.

[155] In the early 1960s, Stanley Milgram at Yale University ran these obedience experiments.

[156] He would bring a pair of subjects in.

[157] He'd say we're interested in the effects of punishment on learning.

[158] We're going to have one of you become a learner and the other will be the teacher.

[159] And the learner will try and learn some problem sets.

[160] And every time they give a wrong answer, you, the teacher, should administer an electric shock.

[161] and that shock will increase 15 volts at a time.

[162] Now, as the experiment proceeds by a so -called random draw, the subject becomes the teacher, and a confederate working for the experimenter sits in another room acting as the learner.

[163] He's the one that will now make program mistakes and cause the subject to evoke these shocks.

[164] What happens over time is everything runs smoothly.

[165] The experimenter says to the subject, the first time the learner makes a mistake, administer a 15 -volt shock, and the subject does that.

[166] Then 30 volts, then 45 volts.

[167] And the shock machine ranges from 15 up through 450, which is marked X, X, X, X, X, X, X, Severe.

[168] Oh, my God.

[169] Okay, you're right.

[170] And I just have to assume that the machine doesn't actually give out that voltage.

[171] They're not giving any voltage.

[172] But what the subject is hearing from the other room on a pre -recorded tape is this alleged learner, At some point, 150 volts in starts screaming at the top of his lungs.

[173] So the, quote, teacher doesn't realize they are the experimente.

[174] Exactly.

[175] And so now the learner says, please stop.

[176] I can't take it anymore.

[177] The subject turns to the experimenter who says, the experiment requires that we go on.

[178] We're on the verge of a breakthrough.

[179] Yeah.

[180] So this proceeds.

[181] Now, when you describe this situation to people and say, would you go all the way up the shock scale to 450 volts?

[182] And that means past the point at which the learner is screaming, and now the learner falls silent.

[183] Oh, my God.

[184] Oh, my God.

[185] Almost nobody says I would go all the way up the shock scale.

[186] Of course.

[187] In fact, Milgram found that 65 % of his subjects went all the way up the shock scale.

[188] Wow.

[189] It was terrifying, but he did something brilliant alongside that.

[190] He described the study to observe.

[191] And he asked them, college students, he even used a group of psychiatrists.

[192] Here's the study.

[193] Predict what percentage of people would go all the way up the shock scale.

[194] And their prediction was less than 1%.

[195] Yes, of course.

[196] People don't fully appreciate the power of a situation to overwhelm even good people.

[197] Yeah.

[198] I couldn't agree more.

[199] I mean, there's so many immediate implications of that study.

[200] There's like how you would try and convict guards in prisons during wartime.

[201] There's so many complex dynamics that people underestimate the strength of.

[202] If you think you're doing it for an ultimate good, something happens in your brain.

[203] Yeah.

[204] That's like, I have to.

[205] Part of the magic of Milgram's experiment was that he did let them believe that he were doing this for a bigger good.

[206] We're studying the effects of punishment on learning, and that's an important topic.

[207] The other magic in his procedure was he had people run up the shock scale gradually, 15 volts at a time.

[208] So by the time you're at 150, well, 165 is just another 15 volts more, and I've already done that.

[209] It's the boiling frog paradigm.

[210] Like, if you ask someone to go from 15 to 400, they probably would have said no. But if you're only adding this little increment...

[211] Exactly.

[212] And what's frightening is that situations can overwhelm even good people, and people don't know that.

[213] And hence, this disparity between the fact that people can be induced to confess to crimes they didn't commit.

[214] and observers, like judges and juries, won't ever appreciate that fact.

[215] Yeah.

[216] Your work went into really a ton of psychology within jurisprudence.

[217] Most of your books are on that topic, and you've been engaged in that work for a long time now.

[218] First, completely inane question, what is your favorite courtroom drama?

[219] Well, that's such an interesting question.

[220] Can I preface it by saying, I studied primatology?

[221] So when I'm watching Outbreak, in the monkey from Africa, is spreading a disease, but it has a prehensile tail.

[222] I'm outraged.

[223] I can't enjoy the movie.

[224] They've got the wrong monkey.

[225] So I could see it going one way with you.

[226] Like, well, that's bullshit.

[227] They don't ever get the guy on the stand to confess.

[228] Or you could love them.

[229] That's why I'm curious.

[230] Right.

[231] Well, I'm not sure I have a favorite, but I used to watch religiously law and order.

[232] Oh, okay.

[233] In part because I was unnerved by the fact that the interrogations they presented always seemed, while coercive, acceptable.

[234] And why were they acceptable?

[235] Because the person they were interrogating was always the criminal.

[236] And we don't mind applying a little pressure on the villain.

[237] But I know that often the person they bring in is innocent and subjected to the same pressures.

[238] Yeah.

[239] Yeah, you can't forget while you're watching those scenes probably.

[240] Well, they're doing this exact same thing to the innocent person.

[241] That's problematic.

[242] Yeah.

[243] I think also it's hard for people to live in a world where that could happen, where an innocent person could be enduring this type of pain and punishment.

[244] We want to believe, like, no, it's the bad guy.

[245] And the bad guy should be feeling pain.

[246] When I give lectures to public audiences, and I discovered this years ago, and it continues today, when I tell them that in the United States, detectives are permitted by law to lie to suspects about evidence, they're shocked.

[247] Most people don't know that to be true.

[248] Most people are shocked that it's permissible.

[249] So a detective can turn to a suspect and say, we have your DNA on the victim, or we have your hair in the victim's grasp, or we have you on surveillance footage right there at the crime scene, or that polygraph, that lie detector test you wanted to take, you failed it.

[250] Like, how is that allowed?

[251] How unique are we in the world with that?

[252] Most civilized Western countries do not permit by law deception about evidence.

[253] There are exceptions.

[254] It is permitted, for example, in Israel.

[255] It is permitted in Canada, but most countries don't permit it.

[256] Interestingly, it is banned by law in China, which is not to say it's not used, but it is not lawful.

[257] What is shocking here is that it's a lawful tactic.

[258] And the courts have not set any boundaries.

[259] You can lie once, you can lie many times.

[260] You can lie small, or you can lie whoppers.

[261] You can lie to adults or you can lie to children and still produce confessions that are admissible in court.

[262] And then become insurmountable by all conflicting evidence, as you'll tell us.

[263] Yeah, well, when you tell someone, you have all this overwhelming evidence against them.

[264] And, oh, by the way, I understand why you did it.

[265] You trap the person.

[266] The reason innocent people confess is they feel like they have no choice.

[267] And if you present this overwhelming array of evidence, manufactured as it is, they start to feel trapped and pressured to find a way out.

[268] A rational person would.

[269] Yeah.

[270] When you're presented with the notion, well, fuck, somehow they have DNA.

[271] I don't understand that.

[272] And somehow my mother's putting me at the scene of the crime.

[273] I don't know why she did that.

[274] If I'm a jury, I'm going to believe them.

[275] Okay, so now I have one really terrible outcome.

[276] This seems like a slam dunk for them.

[277] versus this deal they're going to offer me if I confess, a rational person would likely go, well, this is the lesser of two horrendous outcomes.

[278] I think that's a really important point.

[279] When people hear that an innocent person confessed, their reflex responses, what's wrong with that person?

[280] Why is that person so weak, so vulnerable?

[281] When, in fact, we're all weak and vulnerable in situations where we are misinformed about reality.

[282] It's a gaslighting situation that both makes an innocent person, person feel trapped and it confuses them about their own memory or lack thereof.

[283] Yeah, it's crazy making.

[284] Yes.

[285] Well, they've already fractured reality in all these ways.

[286] Like, my fingerprints are on there.

[287] And then I imagine you're trying to do the math like, well, shit, maybe I touch this.

[288] You yourself are trying to explain.

[289] You're now put in the position to make the case against yourself.

[290] Like, well, okay, if they got a fingerprint, I've got to somehow figure out how that happened.

[291] Now you're doing leaps of logic to connect those dots yourself.

[292] Yes.

[293] Tell the inane one about the employee.

[294] It wasn't a Walmart employee, but it was like for $837.

[295] The case you're referring to was an AutoZone employee, and $830 -some dollars showed up missing in the system.

[296] And for various reasons, the loss prevention manager, who is there for the purpose of recovering loss from theft, brought him in during the workday and interrogated him.

[297] By the end of their session, he signed a confession indicating that he stole the $830.

[298] He said, I'm sorry I did it.

[299] I won't do it again.

[300] It wasn't for a drug habit.

[301] Like, he's trying to clear his overall character, right?

[302] Exactly.

[303] We needed money.

[304] My family needed money.

[305] And so he signs that confession.

[306] And then he signs a promissory note agreeing to pay that amount back from future paychecks.

[307] Oh, my God.

[308] That happens.

[309] Then it turns out it was a clerical error.

[310] There was no $830 stolen.

[311] Now, he never got his job back.

[312] His reputation was tarnished.

[313] He proceeded to sue AutoZone.

[314] and I took that case.

[315] I wouldn't normally take a case like that, but I wanted to learn about the loss prevention business.

[316] I wanted to learn about false confessions in the workplace.

[317] You don't have your Miranda rights.

[318] You're there during the workday.

[319] The loss prevention manager who got him to confess said on the witness stand, he was free to leave.

[320] And I said, really?

[321] You pulled him out in the middle of a workday.

[322] You're his supervisor.

[323] And you say he was free to get up and leave and still keep his job.

[324] Right.

[325] Right.

[326] Then the loss prevention manager said, we didn't promise him that he would keep his job because what this individual said was, look, I thought it was worth $830 to keep my job.

[327] The loss prevention manager said, we never made that promise.

[328] And I said, when you say you're going to take that, you're going to deduct from future paychecks, doesn't that imply there's a job?

[329] That there's future paychecks.

[330] Exactly.

[331] And then the loss prevention manager bragged about his 98 % confession rate.

[332] Oh, my God.

[333] If 98 % of the employees you're bringing in are confessing, we have a problem.

[334] Oh, wow.

[335] Yeah.

[336] And so in that situation, not unlike the one that happens legally, is they have ultimate leverage over you, your livelihood, the sustainability of your own family, your children.

[337] Anytime someone enters a situation with that asymmetrical of leverage, how could we assume honestys on the horizon?

[338] Exactly.

[339] And in this case, this is not in dispute.

[340] what the individual who confessed said what was happening was he was told by the loss prevention manager.

[341] Look, I know people in the police department.

[342] We can go to them and we can work it out that way or we can keep it between us and solve it this way.

[343] And I asked the individual, so why did you ultimately confess?

[344] He said, it was worth $830 to keep the police out and to keep my job.

[345] Yeah, it's a good ROI.

[346] Really good return on investment.

[347] $837.

[348] Stay out of the legal system.

[349] I want to say one thing right now is a caveat, because, I could imagine I'm listening to this thus far, and I think, yeah, but get over yourselves, y 'all.

[350] There are real criminals out there.

[351] There's real killers.

[352] If my daughter was abducted and they're going to get a confession and they got to use some techniques, I have to protect their ability to get the bad guys and I'm more concerned about the bad guys.

[353] And so I would first acknowledge that's a valid perspective to have.

[354] It's important to remind everyone that we actually have a judicial system we all agreed to hundreds of years ago that we actually would prefer that bad guys get away than innocent people go to prison.

[355] We remember the model we've all agreed to in this democracy, and it is actually one that will prioritize an innocent person being locked up over potentially a guilty person getting away.

[356] Is that a fair disclaimer for us?

[357] Let me add a second reason.

[358] One is due process.

[359] Here's the second reason.

[360] When you close a case on an innocent person, you leave the criminal free and poised and ready to strike again.

[361] Boom.

[362] Very true.

[363] See, the Innocence Project is beautiful.

[364] Not only do they use DNA to exclude people and exonerate them, but in more than 50 % of the cases, when they then enter that DNA into the national database, that DNA hits on the actual perpetrator.

[365] And when you go back and look and ask the question, so what did that perpetrator do since they didn't catch him then?

[366] oh my god the numbers of homicides sexual assault and other crimes is stunning so when you close a case on an innocent person you're not making the streets safer you're making them more dangerous yes that's a really great point yeah also real quick going back to what you were saying about the auto zone worker i just came back from spain i was about to go through customs and i had my passport out and i was like i'm scared There was something that was happening through my own brain.

[367] There's zero reason for me to be scared going through customs.

[368] And I was nervous about what she was going to ask me. And this is what happens also when you get pulled over.

[369] It's like, what have I done wrong?

[370] What am I doing?

[371] Even if you've done nothing wrong.

[372] I think it's very human to think you've done something wrong.

[373] Or minimally start searching frantically for have I done something.

[374] When I go through the same thing, customs, I'm like, you know, do I have something on me?

[375] Did someone put a candy bar in my pocket?

[376] Yeah.

[377] You do go through the checklist.

[378] One of the ways that a detective determines that you're a suspect worthy of interrogation is they interview you.

[379] They talk to you.

[380] They're not making accusations yet, but they're talking to you.

[381] And they're watching your behavior and they're watching your demeanor.

[382] And if you seem overly anxious, they infer deception from that anxiety.

[383] I look back at Innocence Project case files.

[384] And I often ask this question, now that we know this person was innocent, why was he a suspect in the first place?

[385] I cannot tell you the number of times I hear.

[386] Well, Marty Tankliff wasn't emotional enough.

[387] That's why we were suspicious.

[388] Jeffrey Descovic was too emotional.

[389] That's why we were suspicious.

[390] This is probably the other great source of my outrage is we watch a lot of Dateline and murder shows, and I can't tell you how often I hear the responding officers say, it didn't seem like a guy whose wife just got murdered to me. And I think, as compared to what?

[391] A television show you saw from actors?

[392] How many people have you encountered within minutes of their wives being killed that you would know what that looks like?

[393] Ruling out the vast variety of reactions the spectrum humans are capable of.

[394] And I, of course, egocentricly go right to the place of like, I'm not an emotional person.

[395] I have stood next to death several times and I've been pretty undeterbed visually.

[396] I have this immediate nightmare that my wife falls down the stairs and I call the police and I'm not sobbing enough.

[397] or hysterical enough.

[398] And that's exactly right.

[399] Being unemotional is something to fear.

[400] I've seen so many cases precipitated on a suspect for that reason.

[401] I don't know if you know the case of Melissa Lucio that was in the news this past spring.

[402] No. The woman in Texas who was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted and put on death row for killing her one and a half year old daughter, Mariah.

[403] And she was set to be executed and that execution was stayed two days ahead of it.

[404] Oh.

[405] What had happened there was she had 12 kids, a husband, they were moving to a new apartment, and Mariah two days earlier had fallen down the stairs.

[406] They were concerned, but they thought she was ultimately okay.

[407] Two days later, they found her dead and called 911.

[408] The police showed up, and immediately they suspected the mother, Melissa Lucio.

[409] She had no history of violence.

[410] Nothing in her background would suggest this.

[411] Nobody in the household said she was violent or beat anybody.

[412] The medical evidence hadn't even been analyzed yet.

[413] Long story short, they bring her in, literally the moment that she discovers her child, badger her for five hours, five detectives in her face yelling at her.

[414] And at three in the morning, on the tape, you can hear her.

[415] I guess I did it.

[416] Followed shortly thereafter by I Wish I Were Dead.

[417] When the Texas Ranger, who led the way on this interrogation, was asked on the witness stand, why did you suspect her so much?

[418] You had no evidence.

[419] Why did you go after her so hard?

[420] His response was, and I'm paraphrasing, I knew from my training, I walked in, her head was down, her shoulders were slumped, she was passive and she wouldn't look us in the eye, not emotional enough.

[421] That told us she was being deceptive.

[422] Oh, my God.

[423] I mean, this is, I'm boiling inside.

[424] Anyone who loses a child is going to feel great guilt.

[425] They're going to blame themselves.

[426] Particularly if you had a window to call and get medical treatment and you made a bad, call on that.

[427] I've made judgment calls.

[428] I have kids.

[429] And I don't even have 12.

[430] I'm sure her guilt of this was preventable and ultimately that came across my desk and I blew it.

[431] She actually feels some responsibility for the death.

[432] We're already starting there.

[433] Yes.

[434] And I've seen cases just like that where that demeanor is interpreted as a sign of deception and guilt.

[435] Well, maybe.

[436] I don't think it takes a PhD in psychology to come up with an alternative explanation for her being passive at that moment?

[437] Right.

[438] Wait, how did they clear her?

[439] They didn't clear her.

[440] She ended up in prison for years.

[441] She was granted a stay of execution, and there will be a retrial, which I am eager to watch.

[442] Now, you know, there's a lot about confessions that we can talk about here, but just to preview some other aspect of it that you might find unnerving that people don't understand or take for granted.

[443] The next day, after her confession was taken, two of the detectives who were involved, spent the next day with the forensic pathologist in the autopsy room.

[444] So they're now coercing the autopsy to reflect what they know implicitly from the confession, maybe.

[445] I don't know what was happening there, but why were they in there?

[446] When the forensic pathologist issues an autopsy conclusion that is consistent with the confession, that gets presented and we all process that as independent corroborating evidence.

[447] There's nothing independent about it.

[448] Yeah.

[449] And how often have you seen in these documentaries, whether it was making a murder or the Central Park Five, which you were a part of, where they're going back and forth, actually.

[450] They get a confession.

[451] There's some evidence they can't even avoid.

[452] So then they go back in the room.

[453] We know you use a blunt object.

[454] And it was like, that wasn't even part of the convention.

[455] I shot him.

[456] Well, yeah, I guess I hit him before I shot him.

[457] Okay, great.

[458] That's the one that's so heartbreaking to me about confessions, the front line one about the Norfolk Four is they get one guy, they run his blood and hair.

[459] It doesn't match.

[460] So their only next conclusion is you had a partner there.

[461] Okay, go to him.

[462] Who were you with?

[463] Now, he's scratching his head.

[464] Who can I say I was there with?

[465] Well, there's a guy you know from the Navy base.

[466] Let's bring him in.

[467] What these four poor young men had in common is clearly an incredible fear of authority.

[468] They had some compromise mental faculties, a couple of them.

[469] And they go all the way to the point where they actually get the real guy who committed this rape and murder.

[470] Now they have his blood and hair and whatever else they use physical evidence.

[471] and they got to go back to these four guys and go, okay, well, now we know that you were with James So -and -So, and they get all these guys.

[472] And instead of just dropping the whole thing, they just keep adjusting the confessions to reflect the new evidence.

[473] Yeah.

[474] You mentioned the Central Park Five case, which is fascinating because that happened in 1989.

[475] I was already studying false confessions.

[476] And even in that case, I looked and I said five of them, four of them on video, Even I was having a hard time getting past it.

[477] What people don't realize about the Central Park Jogger cases, in 1989 they confessed four of them on videotape.

[478] In 1990, they were all convicted at two trials.

[479] In 2002, they were exonerated.

[480] People think they were DNA exonerated in 2002.

[481] That's not what happened.

[482] A serial rapist stepped up from prison, contacted the Manhattan DA and said, I'm the Central Park Jogger rapist, and I did it alone.

[483] And this confession that he gave had facts about the case that were unknown that turned out to be true.

[484] And then, because there was a rape kit way back when, there were several semen samples taken from the jogger, her clothing, cervical swamps.

[485] They went back.

[486] It was his DNA.

[487] Oh, my God.

[488] So there should be no question as to what the reality is.

[489] But that DNA that told us who the perpetrator was who stepped up from prison, after the boys confessed in 1989, but before they were tried in late 1989, early 1990, the results came back from the FBI lab of the DNA test.

[490] And here's what the results showed.

[491] From these multiple samples, all of those samples are traceable to one individual.

[492] That one individual was not one of these five boys.

[493] That was known to the prosecutor.

[494] It was known to the judge.

[495] It was known to the jury.

[496] And this is what it tells me. You have a confession on the one hand.

[497] You have DNA on the other.

[498] and the confession overwhelms the DNA.

[499] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[500] What's up, guys?

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[518] Okay, this is what I need to ask you.

[519] Motivations of the investigators, I realize there's got to be a myriad of them, and I jotted down some that I thought explain this.

[520] One, their job is to clear cases.

[521] I get that.

[522] They also suffer from their own confirmation bias.

[523] They're dealing with percentages, we all know.

[524] Well, 90 % of the time a child's killed, it's from a family member.

[525] That's hard to ignore as they launch into their investigation.

[526] I'm sympathetic to some of these.

[527] things.

[528] I think a lot of times they really truly believe they know the difference whether someone's lying or not.

[529] But I am curious, what percentage do you think is actually through malice, whether that's racially motivated or some kind of socioeconomic disdain?

[530] How many people do you think are getting these confessions and they're saying, I don't really care it's the wrong person.

[531] This person did something and they're better off off the street anyways.

[532] Like, do we have any barometer of what that percentage is?

[533] To be honest, it's the million dollar question I always ask myself.

[534] I start with the benefit of the doubt.

[535] I start with the fact that detectives are human like the rest of us, which means they form judgments quickly.

[536] Those judgments are strong.

[537] Those judgments serve as a lens through which they view new evidence.

[538] They're impervious to counter facts.

[539] Exactly.

[540] And so a lot of mistakes can be made simply as a function of being human.

[541] And I don't think it indicates malice.

[542] But then in a number of cases, we reach a point where the contrary Predictory evidence piles up in such a way that I can't continue to harbor that benefit of the doubt.

[543] So, for example, a terrific guy named Hugh Burton in the Bronx, 1989.

[544] He confessed at 16 years old to killing his mother.

[545] He didn't do it.

[546] But he confessed, on camera, in a jarring confession, he goes 900 words deep without even a second question, describing a chronological story about how he got into an argument with his mother the night before, how it carried through, what happened next, how he escaped the scene, then called 911.

[547] It's hard to overlook this confession.

[548] A week later, police north of the Bronx stopped a driver who was driving Hugh Burton's mother's stolen car, because her keys were missing and her car was stolen as part of that murder.

[549] They stopped that car, and they ran the plates and realized it was Hugh's mother's car.

[550] Then they investigated the driver.

[551] had a long prior record of sexual assaults, and he was violent.

[552] And then it turns out that this driver had just weeks earlier moved into Hugh Burton's building.

[553] Oh, boy.

[554] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[555] Now, at some point, you stop and you say, okay, let's reset here.

[556] Let's reinvestigate.

[557] They didn't do that.

[558] What they did was they traveled north, interviewed this driver.

[559] He never got charged at a grand jury hearing.

[560] He did implicate Hugh Burton, said, Hugh gave me the keys and said, we can split.

[561] the proceeds.

[562] And you told me he killed his mother.

[563] Now, I don't know.

[564] It becomes more uncomfortable to me to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[565] And then I come to find out that two and a half months earlier, they had taken two other known false confessions, same cops.

[566] So I don't know.

[567] I don't know how to answer that question.

[568] I'm not a mind reader.

[569] Yeah, it's unknowable, as you say, the million dollar question.

[570] It makes me feel like the only way we're ever going to get past this is when we have AI jurors.

[571] Well, we could get into that.

[572] But, Implicit in the AI debate an issue right now is AI is spectacular and almost flawless over producing the answer to a question we set the AI out to find.

[573] Like it happened in the school case that we had a woman on who was an algorithm expert and the algorithm ended up firing all these teachers that it shouldn't have fired.

[574] But actually the algorithm did a perfect job with the parameters by which it was set out to do its job.

[575] So we can't come up with a perfect question.

[576] I know that people, when they hear that juries convict someone on the basis of a false confession, an impulse is to say, what's wrong with these juries?

[577] Why aren't they thinking more critically?

[578] How can you choose a confession over the DNA itself, for example?

[579] Part of the reason, I think, is that jurors are not provided the equipment necessary to make good judgments.

[580] So, for example, the Central Park Jogger case.

[581] The juries got to see the 20 or 30 -minute videotapes of each of the four individuals who confessed on camera.

[582] they didn't get to see the 14 to 30 hours of interrogation that preceded it off camera.

[583] I think if the jury was enabled to see the process and not just the final Hollywood product, I think they would be better jurors.

[584] And that's why I think one of the most important ways to rectify this situation is to ensure that every minute of every interrogation of every suspect is recorded from start to finish.

[585] And if it's not, then any confession taken should not be admissible in other than.

[586] Yeah, I love this.

[587] That's the last chapter of your book.

[588] What are some ways to remedy that?

[589] We've been primarily talking about coerced confessions.

[590] There are other types of confessions, although you could argue the one you just detailed with the 16 -year -old was of this variety.

[591] But can you give a couple of examples of people who just flat out called and confessed the things they had nothing?

[592] John Bonae Ramsey, right?

[593] That was an element.

[594] John Mark Carr voluntarily confessed to killing John Beney Ramsey.

[595] And that's a crime still unsolved.

[596] To their credit.

[597] the Boulder Police Department released him.

[598] They did not accept his confession.

[599] He was obsessed with the case.

[600] He read all about it.

[601] He contacted family members to get information.

[602] But the physical evidence didn't corroborate, so they did the right thing.

[603] You find voluntary false confessions sometimes in high -profile cases like that, where, and I'm not a clinical psychologist, but some kind of pathological need for attention or punishment kicks in.

[604] In 1932, when Charles Lindbergh's infant baby son was kidnapped, approximately 200 people called in and volunteered confessions.

[605] Oh, my God.

[606] Yeah.

[607] And again, it's hard to understand the pathology underlying that.

[608] The voluntary false confession, not induced by police, is not a problem for the system because, you know what happens is someone calls in a confession to a high -profile crime.

[609] And the detective's first response is, oh, so you say you were involved, prove it.

[610] Tell me what you know about this case.

[611] And then it turns out they don't know the case facts.

[612] They don't know the crime scene.

[613] Fluency bias.

[614] Exactly.

[615] The kind of voluntary false confession that is somewhat more problematic, cases where an individual confesses not as a result of pressure from police, but because they're trying to protect somebody else, like a parent protecting a child or a child protecting a parent.

[616] And that happens with some regularity.

[617] I'd do it in a heartbeat.

[618] Yeah.

[619] But when somebody volunteers a confession that tends not to become problematic in the system.

[620] Right.

[621] And you have two other categories.

[622] You have compliant and internalized.

[623] We've been largely talking about which of the remaining two, internalized or compliant?

[624] Largely compliant.

[625] We all have a breaking point.

[626] And if you are alone, if you're stressed, if you're a kid and you keep asking the detective, can I call my mother, she's worried, she doesn't know where I am, if you've been sleep deprived, if you just want to get out of the situation and you're overwhelmed, and it sounds like that signing a confession will not result in devastating consequence.

[627] You know, you mentioned making a murderer Brendan Dassey.

[628] He had a project to do in school.

[629] Oh, right.

[630] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[631] He confesses to involvement in a murder, and moments later, he says, am I going to get back to school in time for a project?

[632] Oh.

[633] And that just shows you he had no sense of what was happening.

[634] Oh, I wanted to walk in that room and go silver back on everyone involved.

[635] That was so brutally cruel.

[636] It really is bullish, you know, professionals against the kid who's limited.

[637] You see quickly a pattern in these confessions that there's a vast overrepresentation of teens and mentally handicapped folks.

[638] And I have to imagine some level of disenfranchisement.

[639] We see spikes in these confessions.

[640] Exactly.

[641] And I'm careful about the claim I want to make about that.

[642] It is clear that everybody is vulnerable to confession, that every innocent person is vulnerable, but some people are more vulnerable than others.

[643] Kids more than adults, people are handicapped, more than people who are not, people who are in a state of trauma or grief at the moment versus not.

[644] The mother who lost the daughter in Texas.

[645] At that point, the stress of the situation is something they just want to terminate.

[646] And they do what humans often do when they make decisions.

[647] decisions is they prefer the immediate benefit to the delayed negative consequence.

[648] I'm so glad you just said that because what I wanted to say is after listening to you speak so much about this topic, I kept getting reminded of the marshmallow experiment.

[649] And I was thinking in so many ways these interrogations are truly inverted marshmallow experiments where I'm going to make you incredibly uncomfortable right now through sleep deprivation and being screamed at and yelled at and threatened.

[650] The delayed gratification is, if I can hold off and withstand this, I will have my freedom.

[651] When you make the current situation aversive enough and unpleasant enough, if you need nothing more than to put your head down and get sleep, or get a drink, or if you are substance abuser, you need your fix.

[652] Or talk to your mom or your dad or your wife.

[653] And you'd be amazed with a number of times there's a teenager in the room, and all they keep saying is, can I call my mother?

[654] Not till we're done here.

[655] And that becomes the primary motive.

[656] That's what they want more than anything else is to touch base with home.

[657] And you might even say, yes, I'll do this, but I'm ultimately going to talk to my mom, and she will straighten this out.

[658] Whatever I do right now could hopefully get unraveled once my guardian and protector is available.

[659] Yes, and here is one of the most shocking realizations that I've had when I ask exoneries who confessed.

[660] We now know they're innocent.

[661] So why ultimately did you confess?

[662] Take, for example, Jeffrey Descovic from Westchester County, New York.

[663] Well, they said they had this DNA evidence they were sending out.

[664] I figured, oh, okay, then it's all going to work itself out.

[665] They'll see, I didn't do this.

[666] I have always believed that the great deterrent to a false confession is your innocence.

[667] Damn it, I didn't do this.

[668] And damn it, I'm not going to say that I did.

[669] Well, guess what?

[670] Innocence is a mental state.

[671] And when you're pressed for a confession, in the back of your mind, you're thinking, You know what?

[672] I'll give them what they want to hear now.

[673] But when the other evidence comes in or when we talk, they'll see I didn't do this.

[674] There is what I have called the phenomenology of innocence.

[675] It's a mental state that makes people think they're not really at risk.

[676] It'll all settle itself out.

[677] So innocence is a risk factor.

[678] Your innocence will enable you to give a confession thinking you're not going to have to pay that consequence later.

[679] That's right, because it'll be obvious once I get out of this insane situation where people are yelling at me. It'll be a refutable down the road.

[680] It's in a Malcolm Gladwell book, this famous case of these pilots from Brazil who were circling Manhattan, they were going to land at JFK, they were told to get in a holding pattern.

[681] They kept saying they were running out of fuel, but in a very mitigating fashion.

[682] We're getting pretty low on fuel, right?

[683] And when you chart this against their country of origin, you find that on this worldwide data they collected on people's aversion to authority, you know, Brazil's at like the height of it.

[684] Whereas Americans, in these, people at JFK that were in the flight control, we are not afraid to tell the boss to fuck off at a certain point.

[685] Culturally, you know, we're an eight and these Brazilians are at one.

[686] And you would think, well, no one would run a plane out of gas before they would get on the radio and go, fuck you, we're landing right now.

[687] And here they did it.

[688] They just ran out of gas and crashed into Long Island and killed everyone.

[689] That is the power of that authority index.

[690] It's that strong.

[691] So the fact that we assume our state is a given state and that we have a certain amount of fight in us, it's highly variable.

[692] It is.

[693] What is internalized confession?

[694] Oh, my God, the internalized false confessions.

[695] The first time I discovered this, I did not have psychology to turn to.

[696] It was 1978.

[697] I had just gotten my PhD.

[698] I was doing jury research with Larry Ritesman, starting to get interested in confessions, in part because I saw the juries thought confessions were near perfect, and in part because I read an interrogation manual which scared the hell out of me. And at that point, I went back to the library and found a book about a case of a kid named Peter Riley from 1973 in Canaan, Connecticut.

[699] Riley was 18 years old.

[700] Now, I was in graduate school in Connecticut, so we're about the same age.

[701] And while I was applying a graduate school, he was being induced into confessing to killing his mother.

[702] He comes home at the end of a day, and there's his mother having been mutilated, stabbed.

[703] There was blood everywhere.

[704] He calls 911.

[705] They interrogate him for hours.

[706] He was a good kid.

[707] He had no problem or conflict with his mother.

[708] Everybody who knew him said, this is inconceivable.

[709] And yet, after the course of several hours of interrogation, and he continued to tell the same story about coming home and finding his mother the way he did, detective said, are you willing to take a lie detector test?

[710] And He said, yes, and they administered it, or so they said.

[711] They came back with the result.

[712] Peter, the test shows that you're being deceptive, that you lied.

[713] He said, that's not possible.

[714] There is an audio of this session that resulted in the transcript, and when you read the transcript, it's horrifying.

[715] He transitions from adamant denial to, is it possible somebody could do this and not know it?

[716] And the conversation turns to memory, consciousness, the possibility of having a blackout because of the unpleasantness of what you did.

[717] He caves a bit.

[718] And he says, I guess I did it.

[719] He uses not the language of memory, but the language of inference.

[720] He is deducing that he must have done it because, after all, you have this scientific evidence through the polygraph.

[721] And then he finally says, it looks like I did it.

[722] I can't believe I did it.

[723] I must have slashed her with my razor knife that I used for my model airplane.

[724] He was exonerated a year later.

[725] I wasn't a memory psychologist, but I scoured the memory literature.

[726] Is it possible to alter somebody's memory with false evidence?

[727] Now, at the time, Elizabeth Loftus, who became the false memory guru, had just started to publish some basic lab experiments, but showing that you can affect people's memory for a slideshow, not showing you can affect their memory of whether they kill their mother.

[728] So there wasn't anything I could turn to.

[729] But what I saw in that script, I started seeing it over and over and over again.

[730] Process of internalization is you get a vulnerable suspect.

[731] You lie about the evidence.

[732] You tell them it's possible to do this and have no memory.

[733] Gary Gagger was told maybe you had an alcoholic blackout.

[734] Peter Riley was told that he probably blacked it out.

[735] Marty Tankliff was told he must have been sleepwalking.

[736] Michael Crow was told that there's a good.

[737] Michael and a bad Michael, and the good Michael remained asleep while the bad Michael killed his sister.

[738] This is what is uniquely diabolical about these situations, is they are both causing the trauma and the accusation, and they're also comforting.

[739] Yes.

[740] It's so diabolical.

[741] It is the pattern of an abusive marital relationship where I beat you.

[742] It's because I love you.

[743] I mean, it's so dark.

[744] And what they all have in common is you start to hear the language of inference.

[745] I must have done it.

[746] I guess I did it.

[747] It looks like I did it.

[748] Not, oh my God, yes, I remember.

[749] It's not that.

[750] But then they become so confused that when they bring a lawyer in, they can't even unequivocally assert their innocence anymore.

[751] They've been broken.

[752] Okay, so you work with the Innocence Project, and I got to say, I'm always so goddamn relieved when I'm watching these documentaries, and then finally the Innocence Project takes up someone's case.

[753] They're always the cowboy in the white hat.

[754] How many convictions have been overturned that involve false convictions?

[755] thus far.

[756] The Innocence Project, historically, this was their mission at the outset, takes only cases resolvable by DNA.

[757] Oh, so it's very new.

[758] Yeah, so the Innocence Project was founded in 1992, once DNA became the technology allowed for them to test microscopic samples, and since then, they've reported 375 DNA exonerations.

[759] Keep in mind, they're all murders and sexual assaults because those are the crimes that tend to leave traces of DNA.

[760] Now, there's another, archive, another database, the National Registry of Exonerations, and from 1989 to the present, they now report on 3 ,200 wrongful convictions.

[761] And these are not just resolvable by DNA, but resolvable by any means.

[762] And so this is a much more diverse sample, not just murders and sexual assaults.

[763] But 3 ,200, and I have to tell you, this is the tip of the iceberg.

[764] What we don't know is all of the individuals who, after confessing, their lawyers said, you know, you should plead guilty because you're going to get convicted at trial.

[765] The lawyer's not wrong in giving that advice.

[766] And in many states, when you accept a guilty plea, you waive your right to an appeal.

[767] So a large number of cases become invisible and they never get scrutinized again.

[768] And then there are a number of people like Brendan Dassey, who's still in prison and may be there until the year 2048.

[769] Oh, how is he still in prison?

[770] Who could not watch that interrogation?

[771] It's maddening.

[772] Wow, so 3 ,200 that are on record.

[773] So I think it is important to put a point on this.

[774] These are not anomalies.

[775] Nobody can attach a prevalence rate to it.

[776] I can't state a percentage of cases that are, in fact, false confessions.

[777] But we know that what we are seeing is not the full number.

[778] And that those numbers do not include the Brendan Dassey's.

[779] They don't include the people who become invisible after pleading guilty.

[780] And they don't include cases like some I've worked on in which the perpetrator is identified after the confessor, gives a confession.

[781] And the confessor is then released, and they work out some kind of confidential compromise.

[782] There are a lot of off -the -books cases that we just don't know about.

[783] There was a case in New York fairly recently that was just depressing beyond belief.

[784] It was a kid from Denmark, 22 years old.

[785] his name was Malte Thompson, and he came here, he's from a family of teachers, and he went to New York to work at a preschool that was associated with the United Nations.

[786] One day, a kind of troublemaker assistant who was also there on a temporary basis that she saw him touching kids inappropriately.

[787] Oh.

[788] She had made trouble before they investigated, as they responsibly should.

[789] It was a tough situation to imagine anybody getting away with that.

[790] It's a big open room with teachers and students, everywhere.

[791] They contacted some parents.

[792] They contacted some students.

[793] Nobody saw or knew anything.

[794] They proceeded to drop the case with him and fire her, at which point she went to NYPD and reported this case.

[795] Oh, my lord.

[796] NYPD proceeded to show up at Malte's apartment at 6 a .m. And they interrogated him for hours.

[797] English is not his first language.

[798] And he's from Denmark, where police are not allowed to lie about evidence.

[799] Yes.

[800] And what happens is Maltay comes in, and after hours of interrogation, the detective tells him that they have him on surveillance video, touching these kids inappropriately.

[801] That was a lie.

[802] That was not true.

[803] But it shook him.

[804] He doesn't know that police are allowed to do this.

[805] He trusts police by nature.

[806] He then is induced to sign a confession, after which he says, now I'd like you to appear with the assistant district attorney and give a statement.

[807] He then comes on camera with the assistant district attorney, and the first sentence of his admission is, I kid you not, and this is a quote, it has come to my attention that I've done a bad thing.

[808] Oh, God.

[809] Oh, my God.

[810] This is so motivating.

[811] The reason I mention this is twofold.

[812] One, he is then sent to Rikers Island and then released.

[813] The New York local papers vilify him.

[814] They believe hookline and sinker his confession.

[815] The bottom line was, after several months of investigation, the Manhattan DA's office did what they should have done.

[816] They investigated, found absolutely no evidence, released him, and settled privately.

[817] I don't know what the settlement figure was, got on the next plane back to Denmark, and that was sort of the end of his story.

[818] But there's another aspect of this.

[819] So first of all, Malte is not on the books.

[820] He's not counted in the numbers of false confessions.

[821] Second, he was in a documentary film released in 2019 that I was in.

[822] He was in.

[823] He can't smile in that film.

[824] He's clearly depressed.

[825] Two years later, he died of a blood clot.

[826] So he died at the age of 27.

[827] And that brings together another point.

[828] Just because the charges dismissed, just because he didn't spend 25 years in prison, doesn't mean it didn't affect him.

[829] Yes.

[830] Okay, so thankfully, it's not all doom and gloom.

[831] the end of your book, which is called duped why innocent people confess and why we believe their confessions.

[832] The last chapter is on what to do about this problem.

[833] One of the things you've already brought up, which seems like no one could have a problem with is every second of every interrogation should be recorded and unedited and available for us to scrutinize.

[834] Yes.

[835] That is now the case in 30 states.

[836] I have no idea what the other 20 or thinking?

[837] What is the objection?

[838] It's a labor issue.

[839] It's a expensive filming issue.

[840] It's an archiving issue.

[841] What could be the issue?

[842] You being in the media business, you'll appreciate this.

[843] The argument used to be the camera equipment is expensive.

[844] Where would we store these tapes?

[845] Gotcha.

[846] But now we have infinite storage capacity.

[847] And now you don't need to buy a big camera.

[848] You can pull the freaking phone out of your pocket and everybody is equipped with one.

[849] That logistical excuse doesn't work anymore.

[850] One of the points of resistance is we use tactics that the average person won't appreciate or understand.

[851] Then you have a problem with your techniques.

[852] If they can't stand up to the test of common sense and an explanation, then that's probably reason.

[853] Well, they're saying they don't want people to see them lie outright, which is what they do.

[854] And they know if somebody saw that, it would be like, wait, what?

[855] Yeah, I mean, any technique that they think the average man couldn't and comprehend.

[856] I have a hard time believing that they're so sophisticated that they're understanding something that I can't.

[857] I couldn't agree more.

[858] My question is, if you are proud of the tactics you use to pull this confession, don't you want us to all see it?

[859] And I'll say, and I think the listeners should know, you are highly motivated to perfect these techniques to quicker get confessions out of guilty people.

[860] Like you have a two -pronged desire, which is not only prevent innocent people from confessing, but get the techniques good enough that we get the confessions we want.

[861] Absolutely.

[862] I have children.

[863] I have grandchildren.

[864] I have friends and neighbors, and I want us all to be safe, and so that's absolutely right.

[865] The goal is not to reduce the number of cases solved.

[866] The goal is to get the guilty people, the perpetrators and not the innocence.

[867] This must have fascinated you greatly during the height of post -9 -11 and how we would interrogate people, whether it was at Guantanamo Bay, or we would capture these solar.

[868] in Afghanistan.

[869] And there was debate against the FBI believed in one method.

[870] I guess waterboarding is when it really came to the forefront.

[871] Yes.

[872] And a lot of these FBI people were saying, well, look, it just doesn't actually give you the truth.

[873] I got no ethical dilemma about making terrorists suffer.

[874] But our guide light should be, does it give us true information?

[875] Exactly.

[876] Even in an intelligence gathering mode, if you're interrogating suspected terrorists, you want to get it right.

[877] Because getting it wrong leads you on the wrong path on a wild goose chase.

[878] It's not to anybody's benefit to get it wrong.

[879] Yes.

[880] The ultimate complaint or resistance about recording is if we turn on the camera, the suspect will clam up and refuse to speak.

[881] There is absolutely no evidence that that happens, particularly today when people are accustomed to being on camera all the time.

[882] I actually collected some data with cooperation of a police department.

[883] We randomly inform some real suspects that their sessions would be recorded.

[884] We randomly told the other half nothing.

[885] A lot of states are one -party consent states.

[886] You can record without informing the suspect.

[887] And what we found in the cases in which we brought suspects in and told them ahead of time that they would be recorded, not a single person blinked or refused.

[888] So that excuse is just that.

[889] It's an excuse.

[890] The reason often you find in the 30 states that, do require recording, I'm not happy with those laws because those laws contain loopholes that you could drive a truck through.

[891] For example, the suspect wouldn't go on camera.

[892] False.

[893] That just doesn't happen.

[894] Two, the equipment malfunctioned.

[895] Let's pause this interrogation for 12 seconds until someone else with an iPhone can appear.

[896] Exactly.

[897] Or we were in a place that didn't have equipment.

[898] Again, I the following exception.

[899] Inadvertence.

[900] Oops, I forgot.

[901] Oh, well.

[902] Not when someone's life is on the line.

[903] Exactly.

[904] All we're saying is show us your work.

[905] Transparency.

[906] And if you fail to do that, there should without exception be the rule that the confession you then take is not admissible in evidence.

[907] Yes.

[908] End of story.

[909] Just like any other job.

[910] If you don't follow protocol, that doesn't count.

[911] Now, what is your advice on people about remaining silent?

[912] Again, I love to fantasize that I'm going to be set up for a murder.

[913] It's one of my great preoccupations.

[914] I'd imagine, too, because you've focused so much of your attention on this, you must have a lopsided fear of this as well, because you've seen what can go wrong.

[915] Yes.

[916] I'm constantly thinking like, okay, so someone comes in and kills my wife.

[917] Of course, they're going to assume it's me. Now, I'm probably not going to respond correctly emotionally.

[918] That's going to trigger them.

[919] Even though I'm innocent, I want a lawyer there from the jump.

[920] And also, I don't want to talk to anybody.

[921] And that looks guilty.

[922] It's a paradox.

[923] It's a trap.

[924] Tell us about remaining silent versus cooperating versus a lawyer, president, all that stuff.

[925] When the Supreme Court gave us our Miranda rights in 1966, all hell broke loose.

[926] The criticisms, the calls for Justice Warren to be impeached, it became a political law and order issue.

[927] That's only from the 60s.

[928] That's how long we've had it.

[929] 1960s.

[930] Oh my God.

[931] I would have thought this was like embedded into the Constitution.

[932] In 1966, They did embed it in the Constitution by saying you're right against self -incrimination, which applies in court, also now applies in the police station, the Fifth Amendment.

[933] Okay.

[934] All hell broke loose.

[935] Law enforcement complained that we're never going to solve crimes anymore.

[936] There'll be high crime rates right out of the gate.

[937] None of that was true.

[938] The sky did not fall.

[939] And in fact, the waiver rate immediately studied in thereafter up until today, the waiver rate is up around 80, 85%.

[940] In other words, most people waive their rights.

[941] You have the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, if you can't afford them, we'll give one to you.

[942] All of that can be said, but 80 % of people will sign a waiver saying, I understand my rights, and I'm willing to talk to you at this time.

[943] End of story.

[944] What is particularly frightening is, I saw this anecdotally in the world, brought it into the laboratory and studied it.

[945] You know who particularly doesn't use their rights?

[946] Innocent people.

[947] Exactly.

[948] Because they're like, I'm fine to talk because I didn't do anything.

[949] Yeah.

[950] You nailed the language.

[951] That's exactly what they say.

[952] When I ask exoneries, why did you confess?

[953] My second question is, when it got really bad, why didn't you get a lawyer?

[954] And they look at me like I've got two heads.

[955] Well, I didn't need a lawyer.

[956] I didn't do anything wrong.

[957] Right.

[958] Yeah, you need a lawyer when you're guilty.

[959] That's been sold to us.

[960] And you need to be silent when you're guilty.

[961] Yeah.

[962] So innocent people, there's a safeguard that they're just not going to use because they don't understand the peril they're in.

[963] They don't get it.

[964] They still are banking on their innocence to prevail.

[965] And so there's another reason why the waiver rates are high.

[966] because innocent people don't use their rights.

[967] Observational studies showed that police learned early on how to produce waivers of Miranda just the way they learn how to produce confessions.

[968] So you bring a suspect in, I know this looks bad, everyone in my department thinks you did this.

[969] I'm not so sure, but I'd like to get your side of the story, but we can't do that until we get past this formality.

[970] And so it becomes in the suspect's best interest to sign the waiver.

[971] So the waiver rates are high, and Miranda has proved not to be an...

[972] impediment at all.

[973] It doesn't serve to protect anybody.

[974] And any statement taken after Miranda is waived is just by law now considered voluntary.

[975] Yeah.

[976] I've had this experience in real life several times where I get pulled over for speeding.

[977] I've had gentlemen say to me, it's always a gentleman.

[978] Mind if I take a look around in the car?

[979] I don't have drugs and I feel very comfortable and saying no. But I've remembered after the fact like, wow, that actually didn't sound like what I would have thought it sounded like i guess i would have thought they would have said do i have permission to conduct the search of your vehicle like that would trigger to me no you need probable cause to search my vehicle and i don't really understand how you think you have probable cause but the way it was delivered the nonchalance like i've realized after the fact i almost said sure well i'd only say no if i was harboring something but then i've been like i don't have the time it's generally come out of my greediness over time like no i don't have time for you to go through my car i have time for you to this ticket but even that's a subtle little thing that happens and like you said it's presented as no big deal it's like an afterthought you don't even give it a second thought you almost think they really are asking can i shine my light in your car which they can do without asking and of course i don't mind if they do that but really no that's not what they're asking you're complying to pop the trunk let's tear some seats out we don't know our rights necessarily we don't know they can shine the flashlight but that they can't look through the trunk yeah your glove box i might even be wrong on what i think they can do Part of the reason I wrote this book is people need to know how to protect their kids.

[980] If you ask me years ago, what is the best way to protect a child in the interrogation room?

[981] By child, I'm saying anyone 18 and younger, I would say put their parents in the room, because bring into the room the person who cares most about them.

[982] Turns out not to be the best advice.

[983] Really?

[984] One of the Central Park Five, that was true.

[985] His mother was a battler.

[986] Her mother refused to let them continue interrogation when she saw what was happening.

[987] But another one, Antron McCrae, had a stepfather who was eager to get out of the room.

[988] They'd been in there for hours being interrogated.

[989] He turned to the detective, say, when are we getting out of here?

[990] And he said, you can't go home until he cooperates.

[991] At which point, his stepfather stepped in and said, tell them what they want to hear so that we can go home.

[992] Another case in Denver where police interrogate this boy and his mother overruns the Miranda rights and urges him to tell the police what they need to hear.

[993] Because they've duped her the way they were duping him.

[994] They were lying about evidence.

[995] It's one of these fallacies we would imagine there's nothing we wouldn't do to protect our kids.

[996] We have this notion that we would take a bullet.

[997] So, of course, we wouldn't do X, Y, or Z, but that is incomplete.

[998] Exactly.

[999] The message is a lawyer should be present, not a parent, because a parent is not necessarily going to act in the best interest of their child.

[1000] Yeah.

[1001] Wow.

[1002] What happens to you?

[1003] You got to call 911.

[1004] Knowing what you know, do you speak?

[1005] I'm not an attorney, so I'm not giving legal advice.

[1006] But I speak, if I've witnessed something, I certainly want to be of assistance.

[1007] At the point at which I discern that I am under suspicion, I stop.

[1008] You want people to be good citizens and help police solve crimes.

[1009] And it may be hard to know when that moment is that you are the one under suspicion.

[1010] One of the sad realities among false confessors is so many of them say afterward, I thought I was there as a witness.

[1011] I thought I was helping.

[1012] They didn't realize they were under suspicion.

[1013] And again, kind of in a milgram -esque way, by gradual escalation, a momentum builds.

[1014] And now they can't extricate themselves from that situation.

[1015] And it is good for us to remember, like, when you're watching Dateline and stuff, and people are like, I need a lawyer, it does sound like they're guilty.

[1016] Like, why wouldn't they just tell them what they know?

[1017] Why are they immediately say they want a lawyer?

[1018] They obviously have done something.

[1019] No, they're just being really smart and you should too.

[1020] But you're right.

[1021] The optics of silence are not favorable.

[1022] and research shows that people will draw the adverse inference.

[1023] If you claim silence, people will wonder what you're hiding.

[1024] I do it.

[1025] I do it.

[1026] I do it, too.

[1027] I'm guilty of it.

[1028] It's built in us.

[1029] Well, this was a heavy and outrageous topic, duped why innocent people confess and why we believe their confessions.

[1030] There are many, many more really interesting case studies that are in your book that we did not cover.

[1031] There's so much in there that we didn't even touch on.

[1032] Thank God you're talking about this.

[1033] Yes, I'm so grateful for the Innocence Project.

[1034] even though I'm not wrongly incarcerated.

[1035] I'd like to end on a lighter note.

[1036] I just want to tell you, because I'm obsessed with these Dateline episodes and getting eventually accused of killing my wife, I asked my wife if I could borrow her phone.

[1037] It was unlocked, and I went to Google, and I typed in how to get away with killing my husband.

[1038] I handed it back to her, and I said, I just want you know, it is now off the table for you to kill me, because there is a digital record of you trying to find out how to get away with it.

[1039] just neutralized your ability to try to murder me. That's a good piece of advice for your listeners.

[1040] I don't want to give unsolicited advice, but if you're married, you know what?

[1041] It doesn't cost much.

[1042] Just search on her phone, how to get away with killing my husband and let her know that exists.

[1043] I think you can sleep peacefully.

[1044] You ended on a very light note.

[1045] Professor Kasten, what a pleasure to talk to you.

[1046] I know you came to us by way of our friend, Adam Grant.

[1047] He's like 12 for 12 recommendations.

[1048] You were spectacular.

[1049] We thank you so much for your time.

[1050] And I really hope everyone gets duped why innocent people confess and why we believe their confession.

[1051] So thank you so much for joining us.

[1052] You are very welcome.

[1053] And I appreciate you bringing this to the attention of your listeners.

[1054] Absolutely.

[1055] I'm going to right now pledge that when this conversation ends, I'm going to donate to the Innocence Project.

[1056] So how would people donate to the Innocence Project?

[1057] If you log into their website, a window will pop up that enables you to make a donation.

[1058] Okay, well, I'm going to do it.

[1059] It looks like Monica's going to do it.

[1060] Yeah, I've already done it, and I'll do it again.

[1061] Well, don't brag.

[1062] You're bragging?

[1063] I'm not bragging.

[1064] No, I'm painting myself into a corner, so I have to do it.

[1065] I was totally teasing.

[1066] You should brag about that.

[1067] Rob, you haven't supported shit, right?

[1068] I always do the donation for you.

[1069] Oh, he does the logistical work, so it counts.

[1070] Okay.

[1071] Well, we're going to donate.

[1072] We thank you for your time, and I hope we get to talk to you again.

[1073] And good luck on your crusade.

[1074] It's a noble one, and I'm glad you're up to it.

[1075] Thank you.

[1076] Pleasure.

[1077] Bye -bye.

[1078] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1079] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1080] What's on the docket just to bring everyone into the fold is my current lazy boy, the original lazy boy.

[1081] I don't know.

[1082] I don't want to talk about it because like what if I want it?

[1083] What if I want it?

[1084] I'm serious.

[1085] Okay.

[1086] Look, in some weird way, I want.

[1087] it too but then another part of my brain's like why do you need this stuff you had an experience in this chair it's important i'm scared okay okay so slow down i really am not liking okay slow down we're not gonna we're not committing to any um getting rid what we are gonna talk about though is me getting a cloth version of this chair because i'm just too sweaty in it i'm my whole every single day that we interview people and we go to take a picture i'm panic they're gonna brush my back when we put our arms around each other because i'm soaking wet at the end of every interview Only am back.

[1088] You know this.

[1089] I know, but I'm just like, deal with it.

[1090] I don't know that I'm willing to deal with it.

[1091] Really?

[1092] Well, listen, man. We're going to do 2 ,000 more.

[1093] Eventually, we will need new furniture.

[1094] Like that couch that you're sitting on right now, I was doing some work on it earlier today.

[1095] And I was like, we're getting close to the, you know.

[1096] I mean, we could maybe have it restuffed or whatever, but we're going to run into the lifespan of furniture.

[1097] Okay.

[1098] Do you think we're going to do this for like 45 years?

[1099] No, but we're at 500 guests have sat in that seat right there.

[1100] Well, that's not true, but yeah.

[1101] It's not?

[1102] No, because a lot are over Zoom.

[1103] Oh, that's a good point.

[1104] I hadn't thought of that.

[1105] But also a lot of fact checks, you're sitting in it.

[1106] Yeah, I've sat in it 500 times, yeah.

[1107] Yeah, so anyways, you know, there's a lot of traffic.

[1108] If the fucking leg falls off this chair when you're sitting in.

[1109] I'm fine.

[1110] We'll glue it back.

[1111] Okay.

[1112] I'm serious.

[1113] Oh, this is great.

[1114] This is great.

[1115] You're hot.

[1116] I am.

[1117] You're always trying to change stuff up, make me uncomfortable, and I don't like it.

[1118] What I'm trying to do is not be soaking wet at the end of every interview.

[1119] That's my primary driver right now.

[1120] Why don't you just put an ice pack?

[1121] Oh, Jesus.

[1122] And I have fucking water dripping down my ass crack during these things.

[1123] I can barely concentrate as it is.

[1124] Well, listen, just I don't want to talk about this right now.

[1125] My flies still haven't come, and I'm at all.

[1126] upset.

[1127] I know.

[1128] Okay.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] So let's talk about that.

[1131] My father still haven't come.

[1132] No, no, I know.

[1133] But in particular, you're feeling um, um, um, ficey, um, what's the thing, uh, tantrumy?

[1134] And you watched a program.

[1135] We started to talk about it at lunch.

[1136] And then we thought, you know what, let's earmark this because we want our fresh opinions on it.

[1137] But you had recommended the bling ring document.

[1138] Yeah.

[1139] What's it called?

[1140] Do we think just like a bling ring.

[1141] I figured out.

[1142] It's on Netflix.

[1143] Okay.

[1144] It's called bling ring.

[1145] document.

[1146] Okay.

[1147] The real bling ring, Hollywood Heights.

[1148] The real bingling but you at lunch said Oh my God, you got to watch this doc.

[1149] The bling wing The real new wing wing And I said oh my god I started it now I only watch one episode.

[1150] Yeah and it's like three But you were on your bed you told me and you were like wrestling around and you were having tantrums on your bed while you're watching I was.

[1151] Were you like on all fours like scratching like a rat?

[1152] I was just like flailing like flailing.

[1153] Okay but you know You never changed your full body orientation.

[1154] No, I did, but not like a rat.

[1155] You like sit up really quick and then you spin your arms.

[1156] Sometimes I like, like, we'll slam on my side.

[1157] Yeah, that's part of your tantrums.

[1158] I've seen that part.

[1159] Anyways, we both had seen it, which was great.

[1160] You need to finish.

[1161] I don't know if we can talk about it until you finish.

[1162] Well, can't we talk about the first episode?

[1163] Sure.

[1164] Okay.

[1165] Well, it's a documentary.

[1166] Two of the people, I don't know, I remember how many were actually involved for, something like that.

[1167] There's some people that came in And she said sheeshad Sheesh There's like around five -ish Seven teenagers Seven teenagers Here's the thing that for me Right out of the gates as I was watching it I kept trying to challenge myself To imagine I wasn't an actor living in Los Angeles Yes Because I guess I would think this was cool Like if I was in Michigan I'd be like yeah Fuck those celebrities You would I think maybe because they were like they're rich and famous they got it all and these are rag tag kids and yeah like i don't i don't know i just how about this what if it was like a gang uh brooklyn thugs that had figured out how to rob hedge fund managers in connecticut let's just say that that's what it was okay um i'm not for it i'm not for i'm not for robbery yeah i'm not either but there is like a robin hood aspect that i'm just imagining myself being 1920 but of course my house may or may not been involved it doesn't come up yeah it doesn't come up I honestly I thought it when I was watching I was like well there's no way let's say that even mine was it's not making that list hedge fund managers in Connecticut let's just say that that's what it was okay um I'm not for it I'm not for I'm not for robbery yeah I'm not either but there is like a Robin hood aspect that I'm just a I'm imagining myself being 1920.

[1168] But of course, my house may or may not been involved.

[1169] It doesn't come up.

[1170] Yeah, it doesn't come up.

[1171] I honestly, I thought it when I was watching.

[1172] I was like, oh, my God.

[1173] Well, there's no way.

[1174] Let's say that even mine was.

[1175] It's not making that list.

[1176] The ones that they talk about.

[1177] Or huge.

[1178] Like, what the people got from my house, like, a Sig Sighauer 40Kal handgun.

[1179] Oh, my God.

[1180] And some vodka and well, they would have stole anything, no. No, no, no. They were stealing luxury items, not guns.

[1181] They were teenagers.

[1182] Let me reframe this.

[1183] When I see a show about a group of criminals who are watching celebrities' social media so they know when to go into their home, that story is very personal to me. Yeah.

[1184] You know, our house was robbed, the old house, three times in one week.

[1185] I believe it was highly social media related.

[1186] We were clearly away on a vacation and Fourth of July.

[1187] You remember, you were there.

[1188] Yeah, it was so fun.

[1189] It was so fun.

[1190] Yeah.

[1191] Was it worth it?

[1192] Yeah.

[1193] Oh, that's nice.

[1194] Of course.

[1195] I wouldn't trade any of my possessions for the good memories I've had.

[1196] When I'm recognizing is I'm going to be more judgmental of these people than I otherwise would be because I could potentially be a victim.

[1197] But I don't think you're being more judgmental.

[1198] I think you're seeing it clearly because you know you're a person.

[1199] I'm a real person.

[1200] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1201] Things in my house like took me years to get.

[1202] I mean a lot to me. Exactly.

[1203] And the feeling of a stranger in your home is a bad feeling.

[1204] It is.

[1205] Regardless of who you are, that's very violating.

[1206] I think if you're someone who watches that and does think like, well, fuck those celebrities.

[1207] Like, that's on them for not understanding that these are real people.

[1208] Yeah, most of them.

[1209] Well, some AIs.

[1210] There's a couple fake.

[1211] But, like, Rachel Bilsen, one of the things that was taken was her mom's engagement ring.

[1212] There were irreplaceable items.

[1213] Anyway.

[1214] And Rachel Billson at the time is a small woman living on her own in Los Angeles.

[1215] That's scary.

[1216] You've permanently ruined her falling asleep in her house with any sense of security.

[1217] Yeah, me too.

[1218] You've ruined mine.

[1219] I have.

[1220] No, those people.

[1221] They have.

[1222] Okay.

[1223] Because I'm also a small woman living in Los Angeles.

[1224] You are, you are, petite.

[1225] Oh, fun ding ding ding, ding, duck, guise.

[1226] I saw this in comments.

[1227] there's already a Disney property with a mouse riding on an albatross.

[1228] No. Yes.

[1229] It's called...

[1230] The Rescue Rangers?

[1231] It's called like Wing Version.

[1232] When I saw the name...

[1233] Rescue, Rob, that popped out of his mouth so fast.

[1234] Wait, what?

[1235] I don't want to take the time to find it, but I saw it and I recognize the name of the thing.

[1236] I'm inclined to believe them.

[1237] I don't think they would have said that existed and then gave an actual title to a movie I recognized but had not seen.

[1238] The rescuers down.

[1239] under do have I think it is an albatross any mice writing with with two little mice on oh that's it I don't know what to feel I feel like I should be upset but I'm happy you know you should be so excited it's already been I know trial tested it's safe but now I know I am upset why because now when you write that into the story it's like uh plagiarism yeah yeah okay anyway um bling ring real ring ring also this is a tiny sidebar, but I also started watching Dommer this weekend.

[1240] Same.

[1241] We had the exact same viewing schedule.

[1242] I know.

[1243] We didn't watch anything together.

[1244] No, but independently around the world, we were having the same great thought.

[1245] I would have enjoyed watching both of those things with you or with people for multiple reasons.

[1246] One, interesting to talk about both.

[1247] Two, they were both very skilly.

[1248] And I couldn't walk to Callies last night because I was afraid of Dombers.

[1249] Oh, okay.

[1250] And bling ringers.

[1251] Sure.

[1252] The world's crawling with these insects.

[1253] It's true.

[1254] Anyway, you got to keep watching.

[1255] Shit gets really weird.

[1256] And I feel very, it's so fucked up.

[1257] Like, fame.

[1258] Well, yes.

[1259] For you and I, and this may shock the listener, we don't know we're in Hollywood, California.

[1260] No. Like in the sense that it's in the movies, it's a thing.

[1261] We're just not.

[1262] I've been here for 27 years.

[1263] You've been here for 10 years, whatever it is.

[1264] 12.

[1265] It's just 12.

[1266] It's just a sidewalk in front of my house.

[1267] And then it's I got to run to here.

[1268] Like, it's not an idea at all.

[1269] It's just my neighborhood.

[1270] Yeah.

[1271] And I would have assumed everyone that lived in L .A. had already overcome that.

[1272] Certainly the first month or two or a year you live in L .A. You're like, whoa, the Hollywood sign.

[1273] Oh, yeah.

[1274] You are, I was at least, intoxicated by having seen this thing on TV for so many years and now here I am.

[1275] So I definitely had a window of it.

[1276] Yeah.

[1277] But then just you get used to your surroundings.

[1278] Yeah.

[1279] What was shocking to me is that there are people in this city that almost look at it like people did in Michigan.

[1280] Like they're in L .A., yet L .A. is still this abstract thing.

[1281] And they want to be, they were even saying, like, the detective wants to be famous.

[1282] The attorney wants to be famous.

[1283] The real estate person wants to be famous.

[1284] I think it's more than just L .A., though.

[1285] I think, and the social media is showing this, everyone, given the opportunity, wants...

[1286] to be famous or thinks they want to be, let's say that.

[1287] Yeah.

[1288] Thinks it's something exciting to have.

[1289] And then all these people got this opportunity and some people living in L .A. because they're so close and I guess these teenagers are going to clubs.

[1290] See, I would have disillusioned them with it.

[1291] But in fact, it made it worse.

[1292] I think depending on the type of person, like these people were like going to clubs and stuff.

[1293] Oh yeah.

[1294] They were at all the hot clubs.

[1295] Right.

[1296] So then maybe that's part of it.

[1297] Like they're seeing fancy people.

[1298] Yeah, those people are, they're getting a different treat.

[1299] at these clubs so you want what they have yeah part of what was so disturbing about it is especially with him there was still a lack of remorse yes you're right there's i didn't maybe he's got tons of remorse i don't want to misrepresent him and maybe the filmmakers were ruthless on him so i want to give him the benefit of it but i detected no remorse you know there was some consequences for all this you'll see but another part of me was thinking did you have this thought about him he just has a lot of anxiety, so he nervously laughs or smiles at the end of every sentence, which is actually reading as totally lack of remorse.

[1300] So I was also trying to give him that benefit of that.

[1301] Like, is he just have a bad timed smile after everything?

[1302] I'm sure there were so many things happening.

[1303] Also, this is going to sound bad to say, but there's trauma on both ends, right?

[1304] Like, even if you've done something horrible to someone, if you've come out of it and you can actually see it clearly, you're left with like, oh my God, I'm a person who did that.

[1305] It leaves.

[1306] It leaves some marks.

[1307] So, you know, he, I'm sure, is processing that or processed it and maybe has like some sense of removal from it.

[1308] I don't know.

[1309] I like the woman.

[1310] You got to keep watching.

[1311] I do, too.

[1312] I mean, I feel.

[1313] I like her.

[1314] Like, there's something about her I like.

[1315] Well, I feel horrible for her.

[1316] Uh -huh.

[1317] Because you get to see some of her family life.

[1318] Of course she was so fucked up.

[1319] She was doing a reality show about her.

[1320] Oh, my God.

[1321] people you're going to hate the the worst two characters on this.

[1322] They're coming up.

[1323] Yeah.

[1324] Oh, great.

[1325] The producers of the reality show.

[1326] I'm serious.

[1327] They are.

[1328] Wait, the two women?

[1329] Yes.

[1330] Okay, I just saw a snippet of them.

[1331] They haven't gone full.

[1332] Well, even when they introduced themselves and she's like, I ruined people's lives.

[1333] Did you hear that?

[1334] Ew.

[1335] I don't know.

[1336] I might have missed that.

[1337] I mean, it's, it's I hated it.

[1338] Anyway, it's worth watching, but if you do watch it, I want to to our listeners, that does not have to be your life if you live in Los Angeles.

[1339] It was definitely not mine.

[1340] Well, okay, right.

[1341] That was the other thing we were talking about is like this, I feel like will be so misleading.

[1342] Yes.

[1343] This is not how people in L .A. are.

[1344] That's why it shocked me. Like I said, I actually do think most people are disillusioned.

[1345] Let's put it this way.

[1346] And I say this with love and kindness.

[1347] Whenever I travel on posting pictures, people often write like, I bet you are fine in X place because everyone's so kind.

[1348] I bet they left you alone.

[1349] that's not how it works the smaller town you're in the bigger of a deal you are understandably the only place you are not literally the only place i will never get asked for a picture when i'm with my family is in los angeles in new york that people get used to it and it's less exciting and everyone has the same excitement level it just goes down anyways i think because that because we can move around here in l .A. without anyone turning their heads i assumed everyone in l .a was over it and i do think i think i'm right about that the majority of aren't the people in this documentary.

[1350] The distinction is they're not actually obsessed with the celebrities.

[1351] They're obsessed with the things.

[1352] They're obsessed with being a celebrity.

[1353] They're not obsessed with the person.

[1354] Exactly.

[1355] That's a good point.

[1356] It's a good distinction.

[1357] And they want to live that life.

[1358] And have that cargo, as the Papua New Guinea would say.

[1359] And I do think that there is an elevated sense.

[1360] You see designer stores everywhere.

[1361] where you see people dressed really well.

[1362] Lamborghinis, if you take a 10 -minute ride in Los Angeles, you'll see multiple Lamborghinis.

[1363] Yeah, and everyone's driving Tesla's Mercedes.

[1364] But anyway, so that is true.

[1365] There is some...

[1366] There's a huge income in a quality.

[1367] Yes.

[1368] Yes, and it's quite in your face.

[1369] Yeah.

[1370] Yeah, I agree with that.

[1371] So that is different from other places.

[1372] Yeah.

[1373] If I got one of my friends from home, a pair of pants from the row.

[1374] Right.

[1375] They'd be like...

[1376] They wouldn't care.

[1377] They'd be like, these are so nice.

[1378] Like, thank you.

[1379] Right.

[1380] If I got Callie a pair of pants from the row, she would be, I'm sure, excited, just like Kristen would be excited if I got her a pair of pants.

[1381] Because it means, it died.

[1382] In her group of people.

[1383] Yes.

[1384] In her social circle.

[1385] Yeah.

[1386] It's relevant.

[1387] It means a little more or something.

[1388] I don't know.

[1389] This all sounds disgusting.

[1390] It doesn't.

[1391] Sure.

[1392] But anyone who's throwing a rock, it happens on every socioeconomic strata.

[1393] So, sure, you're gross out because it's that much more.

[1394] But when I was a kid, you wanted Levi's instead of tough skins.

[1395] Okay.

[1396] There's something.

[1397] There's always something.

[1398] You wanted fucking Nikes instead of Avia's.

[1399] You wanted Avia's instead of stadiums.

[1400] You wanted, you know, these are the really, this is what I was doing on.

[1401] You want a set of juju -ju -beens.

[1402] No, I can't think it was a. Tom McCanns.

[1403] Tom McCanns.

[1404] There's status symbols on all strata.

[1405] That's how I should say.

[1406] Yeah.

[1407] This is for Saul.

[1408] What incredible timing for the false confessions expert.

[1409] Because of Adnan.

[1410] We recorded him right before Adon was released, or we would have probably brought that up.

[1411] I wish.

[1412] Something else happened, though.

[1413] Aside from him, there was another thing in the news where I thought, oh, my God, this is timely.

[1414] Fuck, what was it?

[1415] Making the murderer guy got out, too, I heard.

[1416] No. Don't listen to my mom.

[1417] I'm not sure about that, Rob.

[1418] I think I heard myself saying it this weekend once, and I wasn't purposely doing a show.

[1419] Oh, you weren't?

[1420] I think I was honestly going, I'm not sure about that, like real mitigated.

[1421] Anyway, I loved this episode.

[1422] I thought it was really important because we're all, okay, I won't speak for anyone, but me, I believe that people give false confessions all the time.

[1423] But I've also believed that I would never give one.

[1424] Oh, sure.

[1425] I'm certain I wouldn't.

[1426] Right, but I would.

[1427] If they were holding a torch to a pair of row pants just off frame.

[1428] I don't know that I agree with that about you.

[1429] Well, here's what I definitely would.

[1430] I'd find myself in that room being accused because if I didn't do something, I would, of course, trust that I could say whatever I needed to say.

[1431] First of all, you'd ask for a lawyer.

[1432] The second, it felt like, do you want to have?

[1433] I mean, now I would.

[1434] But you wouldn't have prior.

[1435] I don't think if I was in it.

[1436] you like we have video of you stealing this horse and you knew you hadn't stole the horse wouldn't you at that point go I need a lawyer here now but I think in the moment I would just be like no I didn't and then I could really see myself going down a rabbit hole of what if I like blacked out I know enough about brains to know sometimes your brain can betray you as can your face yeah but also your brain yeah so I feel like I would go down that rabbit hole of like oh my god I did it and I didn't know this is the only time in life where my complete arrogance and indignance is my asset I go the fuck you do you do not have a fucking video like I know and I don't there's nothing you can say to me where I'm not like the fuck you're not I know what you're trying to manipulate me and act like fuck you you think you're fucking smarter than me like it become what would happen is I'd probably get into a physical altercation with them and then they have a real crime to try me with and I'd have to confessed to punching one of them.

[1437] When I watch these things, I'm like, God damn it.

[1438] Because of course, one of my many complexes is I fucking hate bullies and I'm the sheriff.

[1439] So I'm the person that's going to stand up to the boat.

[1440] This is why I got too many fights at bars.

[1441] If there's a bully, I'm the one that's going to raise my hand and go pick on me, right?

[1442] So when I'm seeing these interrogations of these poor, soft, nice, kind people, I'm like, put me in their seat right now.

[1443] I want to light this motherfucker up.

[1444] Oh, I know.

[1445] I feel that too.

[1446] You do.

[1447] Okay.

[1448] Well, yeah.

[1449] I mean, This is a little bit dangerous territory, but we'll try.

[1450] Okay.

[1451] So you are the sheriff.

[1452] Yeah.

[1453] Are you still the sheriff, do you think?

[1454] Of a different degree.

[1455] Like, if I see somebody getting bullied still, yes, I'm going to intervene.

[1456] But something blatant.

[1457] Like, I was in an international first class lounge on a layover.

[1458] This British guy started yelling at this waiter.

[1459] It was a layover in Dubai.

[1460] This guy just starts to lighten up this poor dude.

[1461] And I listened to it for about a minute.

[1462] And then finally I go, hey, motherfucker, you get off on making people feel shitty?

[1463] You want to feel shitty, motherfucker?

[1464] Like, I went straight to, fuck you.

[1465] You can't treat someone this way.

[1466] You want to see how fucking strong and imposing you are?

[1467] Let's do it.

[1468] Like, all you have over this kid is your wealth right now.

[1469] But now I'm going to introduce this other thing to you.

[1470] I know.

[1471] It's just, like, interesting because it is meeting a bully with a bully.

[1472] Yeah.

[1473] And it doesn't, it doesn't, like, if I'm.

[1474] I'm there, if I'm watching this, I hate that guy.

[1475] Right.

[1476] I hate that guy.

[1477] Right.

[1478] But I also don't love you in this situation.

[1479] Because then I'm just like, oh, God, this is an insanely uncomfortable environment now.

[1480] Certainly uncomfortable.

[1481] I concede to that.

[1482] But can I just point out one thing?

[1483] Yeah.

[1484] If I said to him, sir, you're being rude.

[1485] Would that have made you uncomfortable?

[1486] Less.

[1487] Less.

[1488] Less.

[1489] Okay, the reason I don't do, sir, you're rude, is because that guy, I want defeated and humiliated.

[1490] And if I get into a ratat tat with that dude about decorum in airports, he's going to have some take on it, why he's completely justified.

[1491] And he'll keep arguing with me, if we do it civilly, ad nauseum.

[1492] What I really want to get him to realize is if you talk to that person like that again, I'm going to knock you up.

[1493] because then the guy has to sit there quietly and shamefully.

[1494] Why is that?

[1495] I need him to experience embarrassment and shame because that's what he's doing to this guy.

[1496] And the polite conversation won't get me there.

[1497] But, okay.

[1498] But that to me is why is that your goal?

[1499] Why isn't your goal for him to stop and not do that again?

[1500] Well, again, if I think if I get in a civilized debate with him, he's going to leave feeling completely justified in what he did.

[1501] If I scare him into thinking he's about to get his ass kicked over this, I have a hunch he might consider next time before he publicly humiliates someone that he might get his ass kick.

[1502] That's a deterrent.

[1503] Him getting an erratitat he lives for it.

[1504] The guy was probably a lawyer or something.

[1505] I wouldn't want to be in a lounge where that is going to.

[1506] I wouldn't.

[1507] When the dude shut the fuck up and look down out of embarrassment, you wouldn't have felt victory for the kid who just got humiliating.

[1508] Would you have at least had some sense of like, oh, good, there was, there was justice.

[1509] I don't actually feel like that's justice.

[1510] Like, I think that person walks away and isn't, I don't think he walks away.

[1511] This is the mic sure.

[1512] Like, you know what?

[1513] I'm wrong.

[1514] I don't think he's, no, I don't think he'd ever think he's going to be wrong.

[1515] I don't think you can convince that guy he's wrong.

[1516] Anyone who's that blatantly screaming at someone in public feels very entitled to treat someone that way?

[1517] I don't think I'm going to re -educate him.

[1518] Do you know what I think actually would make that person feel like he's wrong?

[1519] If the flight attendant.

[1520] It was like a waiter inside the...

[1521] Who wouldn't do this, I'm saying.

[1522] But this is, I actually think the way, is to say, hey, you know, I'm just doing my job.

[1523] I'm trying really hard.

[1524] We've had this many...

[1525] Like, actually speak to his humanity and his, like, compassionate piece might make that person be like, oh, fuck.

[1526] Maybe I shouldn't.

[1527] He could have killed him with.

[1528] kindness but he wasn't in a position to do that he was voiceless and couldn't defend himself right so to me this is like watching a cop fucking shake down a black dude on the side of the road like i'm gonna say something if it's inappropriate and so i want to be the voice for some kid who can't do anything and then my next option is like well how am i the voice of this guy me getting in a fucking semantic debate with some lawyer it's not going to result in that for me but reminding him oh there's there's forces in this world and you're not on top you're not the king of this castle because you got a fucking first class ticket yeah yeah i get i get all that i just i just it's ugly it's the whole thing's ugly and it makes people feel unsafe and because it it is unsafe it is unsafe it is hopefully hopefully he takes me up on it no see this is why you're doing it almost self like it feels like if you really want that if you want to fight at the end of it like that's selfish.

[1529] Well, I don't know if selfish is much as childhood.

[1530] So, yes, he is the stepdad in my life, the arrogant stepdad.

[1531] And I am the person who swore that that will never happen on my watch, and then it didn't happen on my watch.

[1532] So I feel good that I was true to my commitment to myself, but not selfish in like, ooh, I can't wait to watch him suffer.

[1533] No, not that.

[1534] I don't even mean that.

[1535] I mean, it's selfish.

[1536] because it's putting your need for justice.

[1537] I guess justice or controlling that environment or putting that guy in his place.

[1538] It's prioritizing that over everyone else, like the 45 people in that lounge who don't want to be there for a fight and feel scared or like.

[1539] I'm not defending what I did.

[1540] There's better ways to handle it than what I did.

[1541] That's how I handle certain things.

[1542] So I'm not making that argument.

[1543] But I will push back and say if you had surveyed the 10 people that witnessed this thing, certainly someone would feel like you.

[1544] Certainly a handful of people would have loved it.

[1545] Like, if I witness it, I love that.

[1546] Oh, this loudmouth entitled fuck had to just sit there quietly.

[1547] Yeah, but because you don't feel unsafe as a person.

[1548] I know, I know.

[1549] So people who...

[1550] So it's going to be a grab bag of reactions.

[1551] But people who walk around the world feeling a bit unsafe are going to feel extremely unsafe there.

[1552] People who don't won't.

[1553] So it's really just making the people who already feel unsafe very unsafe.

[1554] Unless your version of unsafe is I'm a voiceless person and it's great to see that someone sticks up for the voiceless.

[1555] I think sticking up for the voiceless, this is, I do that and then I get.

[1556] So really we're arguing about the method of sticking up.

[1557] Yes, 100%.

[1558] And I just don't think the other method that you would want me to do is effective.

[1559] Would have been justice at all.

[1560] Okay.

[1561] Personally.

[1562] But you're right.

[1563] It would suck that I would make someone who was already uncomfortable with the way he was talking to the person now scared.

[1564] That's unfortunate.

[1565] That's a shitty outcome of it and regrettable on my end.

[1566] Rob, you're witnessing that whole thing.

[1567] What's your two cents?

[1568] I think I'm more Monica.

[1569] Okay.

[1570] And that to where he might be more uncomfortable with the confrontation than comforted.

[1571] Oh, no, I'm saying let's say you watch that.

[1572] I watched that.

[1573] Yeah, you were just someone next to us in the lounge and you watched the whole thing happen.

[1574] Him being a dick and yelling at this person, that means saying...

[1575] Yeah, I don't confront him in that way either.

[1576] No, you just watched me do this.

[1577] You're in the lounge and somebody is sticking up for somebody else, but in the manner.

[1578] That I just did.

[1579] Do you like it or dislike it?

[1580] I'm in the middle of the spectrum.

[1581] Okay.

[1582] I kind of like seeing that guy get put in its place, but also don't want to be.

[1583] watch a fight.

[1584] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1585] Everyone loves seeing an asshole get put in their place.

[1586] Yeah, poetic justice.

[1587] But it's the manner of which it's going down when it's starting to feel very scary.

[1588] It's like, no, I'd actually rather just, I don't know.

[1589] I don't know.

[1590] I mean, I don't know what that guy was saying.

[1591] Oh, it was like Kristen, I guarantee if we brought her in here, she'd remember to me. Like, it was very memorable, how insanely rude the guy was yelling.

[1592] But do you think also part of the reason she would remember that is your reaction?

[1593] Possibly.

[1594] We could ask that i'm just saying that it was um quite a memorable explosion this guy was having not like your average like i asked for this it wasn't yeah yeah yeah anyway i know where christin's mind probably would have went was like oh this guy is flying home because his wife just died and he's unraveling and maybe i've also heard her say people are asshole like she there's there's she's somewhere between you and i on this spectrum we're talking about she doesn't mind when someone's grabbing her and I grabbed that person back.

[1595] She's been fine with that.

[1596] So intimate partner violence accounts for 15 % of all violent crime.

[1597] And by the way, that has to be reported.

[1598] I think 80, 90 % of romantic violence doesn't even go reported.

[1599] Yeah.

[1600] Over half of the killings of American women are related to intimate partner violence, with the vast majority of the victims dying at the hands of a current or former romantic partner.

[1601] according to a new report released by the CDC.

[1602] The CDC analyzed the murders of women in 18 states from 2003 to 2014, finding a total of 10 ,000 deaths.

[1603] Of those, 55 % were intimate partner violence -related, meaning they occurred at the hands of a former or current partner or the partner's family or friends.

[1604] In 93 % of those cases, the culprit was a current or former romantic partner.

[1605] This is murders against women, I'm assuming.

[1606] Yeah, it is.

[1607] The murders of women in 18 states.

[1608] 55 % are from ex -lovers.

[1609] Intimate partner violence.

[1610] Maybe it's not an ex.

[1611] Okay, yeah, just a lover.

[1612] Yeah.

[1613] Ugh.

[1614] That goes back to that saying, the great one.

[1615] Man's greatest fear is to be embarrassed and women's greatest fears to be murdered by a man. Yeah.

[1616] Such a bummer.

[1617] Okay, yeah.

[1618] Adnan, that's on here.

[1619] Donations.

[1620] We just said we were going to make donations.

[1621] that's it there weren't obviously very many facts I also think in listening to this guy even I may have and I already thought there were a lot of false confessions and I thought there were quite a few false convictions but nowhere near the numbers he threw out in this yeah it's pretty crazy like tons thousands and thousands of people yeah very disturbing it is it is scary talk about the number one trigger for justice of being like putting an innocent human being in jail is like so unforgivable.

[1622] Yeah.

[1623] And it's, you know, of course, it's normally like marginalized people or people with mental disorders or people who can't really stick up for themselves.

[1624] Yeah.

[1625] Such a bummer.

[1626] Yeah.

[1627] Oh.

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] That's that.

[1630] Love you.

[1631] Love you.

[1632] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you.

[1633] you get your podcasts.

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