[SMITH] Give me one concrete way, in which
you, if you coUld wave your wand, would fix
the system.
One way.
[GRISHAM] We have 365 exonerations at the
Innocence Project, all by DNA.
At least 25% involve false confessions.
[SMITH] Okay.
[GRISHAM] Jurors do not believe, most people
do not believe, that you would confess to
a murder if you had nothing to do with it.
That sounds fine.
[SMITH] So these are people who confess to
a crime they didn't commit, for whatever the
reason.
They feel pressure, this-- [GRISHAM] Oh, pressure,
how about 15 hours of brutal, police interrogation.
And so, they finally break down.
You can break people.
I mean, it's not that difficult to break people
under pressure with a constant threat of incarceration,
death, death penalty.
[SMITH] Come after your family.
[GRISHAM] Think about Texas.
In Texas, the death penalty is pretty efficient.
And you're investigating the murder of a suspect
in Texas, you'll say, the cops, "Hey, we'll
take care of you.
"We'll get you on death row.
"We know how to do it."
That's powerful.
So this interrogation goes on for 10, 12,
throughout the night.
And so then, when the guy's broken he'll say,
"Okay."
I had a defendant, an innocent guy one time
tell me, he said, "I would have confessed
to killing my mother "to get out of that room."
[SMITH] Right.
[GRISHAM] "I was so beat down."
Then when you're beat down, broken, whatever,
they turn on the video camera for the last
15 minutes-- [SMITH] And you confess.
[GRISHAM] And you confess.
[SMITH] And the juries don't believe that
that may have been the predicate.
[GRISHAM] You asked me how to fix it?
Turn the camera on initially.
[SMITH] Have them see the whole thing.
[GRISHAM] Yeah, and if you do that, it cuts
out a lot of BS, a lot of the tactics, and
some cities-- [SMITH] Because they know they're
on tape.
[GRISHAM] And some jurisdictions say, "Okay,
we're gonna video all the interrogations."
It makes the police play by a different set
of rules.
[SMITH] Maybe we should have body cameras
in interrogation rooms.
[GRISHAM] Well, the cameras are there.
[SMITH] Right, they just don't turn them on.
[GRISHAM] Don't turn them on.
[SMITH] Okay, that's a good fix.
[GRISHAM] Jailhouse snitches.
A huge problem, okay?
In most civilized countries, if you're gonna
put a snitch on the stand, or a jailhouse
informant, not a snitch.
It takes a special hearing before the judge,
who is super suspicious to begin with.
So you bring the guy in and he's gonna grill
him on his record, how many times he's testified
before as an informant.
It's probably several.
What deals they have given him.
It's a very harsh interrogation because the
judge is suspicious.
That cuts down on a lot of jailhouse snitch
testimony.
[SMITH] Sure.
[GRISHAM] The prosecutors say, "Well, let's
don't do that."
[SMITH] It's too much trouble to go through
that.
[GRISHAM] Then we could pass that law.
[SMITH] Correct.
That's two good ones.
