February 26, 2020 • 33 mins
What can I say I did to get me out of this?
Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin use real interrogation audio to tell the shocking story of Robert Davis, a Virginia teenager who in 2003 falsely confessed to a double murder after enduring an interrogation complete with death threats, lies about the evidence, and fact-feeding, only to tell investigators, "I’m lying to you, full front to your face."
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This episode includes story line about and clips from Dateline NBC: In the Shadow of Justice
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Ritter and I'm Steve Drissy. In our previous episode, we
talked about how the interrogation room works. Today we're gonna
show you. Steve and I are going to tell you
about a young man named Robert Davis. This is a
frightening story of a murder investigation that went horribly wrong.
(00:23):
Roberts was one of the first false confession cases I
worked on, and I'll never forget it because it taught
me how easily an ordinary person can get caught up
in a web of injustice. We first learned about Robert
(00:45):
Davis back in two thousand eleven. The story came from
a local newspaper out of Charlottesville, Virginia. I was in
a space at the time where I was looking for
false confessions wherever I could find them, and one day
a an article about Robert's case turned up in my
news feed. And when I read the article, I was
(01:07):
attracted to it for a number of reasons. One was
that there was a recording of the entire interrogation process,
and that's sort of the gold that everybody was looking for.
Can you see how police manipulate an innocent suspect into
confessing to a crime they didn't commit. Yeah, I mean,
(01:30):
so many people think that's only for extremely young children,
that's only for intellectually limited people. But Robert Davis is
every man. He's us. He's a normal, normal guy. Um
in every sense, you know, to the extent there is
a normal person. Robert Davis could be your neighbor, he
could be your your kid's friend. And there's no better
(01:50):
illustration of the power of the interrogation room, the way
these techniques work, the way they can transform the innocent
into the guilty in a matter of hours than this case.
After receiving the interrogation video, I knew I had to
get involved in this case, and I knew I had
to work on it with Laura. Robert Davis's case was
(02:10):
my first case where I became involved as an expert.
The interrogation video, you know, it's one of the most
coercive videos I've ever seen. It speaks for itself. It's
horrible to watch, and it calls out for action in
many ways. Robert's case was an early incarnation of the
kind of clemency campaign that Laura and I recently mounted.
(02:32):
In the case of Brendan Dacy, using clips from the
interrogation to tell what had happened him, bringing in experts
from different fields, including law enforcement, to weigh in on
what was wrong with that interrogation, and helping to personalize
Robert through the media. Robert Davis's story begins in crows A, Virginia,
(02:58):
a middle class suburb of Charlotte's film. Robert lived in
a small house with his mom, and they were really close.
In the winter of two thousand three, he was a
senior in high school and with graduation just a few
months away, Robert was looking forward to the next phase
of his life. But on the night of February a
terrible tragedy happened on Robert's block. Fire broke out in
(03:20):
a neighboring house, the home of a young mother and
her three children. The fire department is called. They arrive
at the scene. It's a snowy night right snowflakes are
coming down fast and furious firefighters get there. They battle
through the snow. They put out the fire, and once
the fires subdued, they go upstairs to one of the bedrooms,
which is where they find the body of the homeowner.
(03:43):
A forty one year old woman named Nola Charles. And
when they turned Nola's body over, they saw a knife
in her back, and suddenly it became very clear that
this fire had been set to cover up a murder.
Then the firefighters walked down the hallway to look in
some of the other bedrooms. This is a very small house,
so it was just a short walk, and under some
(04:08):
debris they found the body of Nola's young son, Thomas Charles,
and he had died of smoke inhalation. You know, this
was a horrific crime anyway you slice it. You know,
the murder of a mother, the death of a small child,
stabbing an arson to try to cover up the crime.
(04:31):
This is something that would have been unheard of in
CROs A and just would have been a complete and
total shock to the entire community. An investigation starts and
pretty soon the police identify some likely suspects. It's actually
two other teenagers with her names are Rocky and Jessica Fugit.
Rocky was nineteen. He was also a senior in high school,
(04:53):
like Robert Davis, but he was somebody who had a
really troubled past. He'd struggled with drug addiction with alcohol
action um and he'd gotten in trouble with the police
for doing things like leaving dead birds in church sanctuaries.
His sister, Jessica was fifteen, and she had struggled her
whole life with mental illness, delusions, hallucinations. She was somebody
(05:16):
who really grappled with her own demons, and she was
friends with Nola charles teenage daughter Wendy, but Jessica didn't
like Wendy's mom. Jessica was known to have a grudge
against Nola Charles, and so based on all this information,
the police picked up Rocky in Jessica within only a
few days of this fire, and they bring them down
to the police station for questioning, and soon enough the
(05:37):
two of them confess that they were involved in the
killing of Nolah Charles at the setting of the house
on fire. After they confessed, Jessica led the police to
a snowy field behind Nola charles home where she and
Rocky had buried an iron bar that had been used
to bludgeon Nola Charles before she was stabbed, and that
iron bar still had Nolah's DNA all over it, so
(06:00):
Jessica was able to lead the police to this new
evidence that they didn't know about that corroborated her confession.
The confessions true. Rocky and Jessica are guilty. They've never
said otherwise. Case closed, And if this was the end
of the story, right, we wouldn't be telling it to you.
But it's not the end of the story. Because the
police were convinced that Rocky and Jessica had not acted alone,
(06:22):
and they each started rattling off a list of names
other kids in their high school. The police determined that
each one of these other high schoolers had an ironclad
alibi until the last name on the list, which is
Robert Davis. Robert had been at home alone asleep, not
(06:43):
a very good alibi, so the police decided to bring
him in for questioning too. Now, from the get go,
Robert Davis and Jessica and Rocky being together in the
same space committing a horrific crime maiden no sense at all.
These two kids picked on Robert, especially Rocky. The idea
(07:07):
that Robert would be with them and would commit a
murder was absurd and it didn't take a lot of
smarts to see that. But nonetheless, right the police go
and pick up Robert Davis. They bring him in for
questioning in the middle of the night. Now, before we
(07:27):
hear what happens next, I want to stop for a
minute and talk to you about how interrogations work. Obviously,
the goal is to get the suspect to confess to
the crime, but how does that happen exactly. In the
last episode, Steve and I shared some of what we've
learned from watching many hours of interrogation tapes. But as
shocking as what we described is, you should know that
(07:49):
interrogations used to be even worse. A hundred years ago,
it was common for police to use physical violence. Innocent
and guilty suspects alike were beaten, hung from winds, and
otherwise tortured until they confessed just to escape the suffering. Then,
starting in the nineteen forties and fifties, reform was in
(08:09):
the air. Physically abusive practices were thrown out. Police were
trained to use words instead of fists, and this change
seemed like a progressive one at the time, But now
we know that psychological interrogation techniques can also be highly problematic.
They're very good at persuading actual criminals to admit guilt,
but they can also produce false confessions. The manipulation begins
(08:32):
with the interrogation room itself. Like Steve said, these rooms
are designed to make the suspect feel isolated, cut off
from all sources of support or help. This is the
type of room where police brought Robert Davis on February
twenty two, two thousand three, at about one o'clock in
the morning. He's by himself, He's eighteen years old, and
(08:55):
he's sitting in there alone, not knowing what's happening, terrifying
circum stances. And then all of a sudden, with the
video camera rolling, the police come into the interrogation room
to officers, big burly guys, and they say to him,
murg on Ola, Charles, Thomas, Charles, you let me charge
(09:21):
with the attempted murder? How the two Charles daughters, Katie
and Windy. Now it's really got serious? Has this right?
And literally? You know when you watched Robert react to
being accused of murder, you can feel the fear and
the panic and the anxiety just radiating off this video
(09:44):
and you could just watch his mind spin. What can
I do? What can I do to convince these guys
I've got the wrong person. And so Robert says to them,
what any of us I think in that situation, would
say us out all my life right now that I
do not know oh this matter, I had nothing to
do with this. I will tell you the polygraph test
(10:05):
right now to prove to you that I did not
have nothing to do with this. Interrogation trainers teach law
enforcement officers that if a suspect affirmatively asks for a
polygraph exam, that that's one indicator of innocence. It's not
rock solid proof that somebody is innocent, but it's a
(10:27):
powerful statement that they have nothing to fear and that
they're willing to put their innocence to the test. And
the officers shut them down. They tell them, no, we
don't have the polygraph, even though they actually have one
in the room next door. Now, why are they refusing
to listen to Robert as he's asserting dozens of times
his innocence. Well, that's how officers are trained to interrogate.
(10:53):
Interrogation is basically a two staged process. The goal of
the first stage, which we've just heard a little bit of,
is to bring the suspect down to hopelessness. This officer
is telling Robert that it's pointless to say he's innocent
because they already know he's guilty. An interrogator's job is
to make the suspect feel trapped using every tool available,
(11:15):
and as many people don't realize, these tools can include
lying is the worst dust. They say to him, we
found your DNA in the house from your skin cells
that just shed naturally off you. And of course this
is false, right. The house have got up in flames,
there was no forensic evidence whatsoever recovered from the scene.
(11:37):
It's a complete lie. But in the United States, police
are allowed to lie during interrogations. And again you can
see radiating off this videotape the terror in Robert's face. Right,
how can this be? I've never been in that home.
And then the officer says something I have never seen
(11:57):
in any other interrogation, and I've seen thousands of hours
of interrogations. I can't lie about the evidence, Robert. I mean,
talk about a whopper. Not only can he lie during
the interrogations, but he can lie about the evidence. And
he's lying about a lie exactly, talk about a mind fuck.
(12:18):
Let's just drop the F word, drop the it's appropriate
in this case, right, I mean, this is the psychological
game that twists the world for people in the box,
and it works. Now, let's take a moment to remember
that Robert is going through this ordeal completely alone. At
eighteen years old, he's legally an adult, but even if
(12:41):
he were younger, in most states, it's perfectly legal to
question a child without notifying their parents or guardian. This
is a desperate situation, and like anyone would, Robert asks
for the best protector he has. He asks for his mom,
but that request is turned around and used to break
him down, even for their co operation coation. Then they
(13:13):
do something especially insidious. The lead investigator says that he
had just had a phone call with Robert's mother and
his mother was crying hysterically on the phone, you know,
And this investigator tells Robert, your mom wants you to cooperate.
Your mom is saying, Robert, you know, tell the truth,
(13:35):
so that I can help you to go on with
your life, all right, to save your life exactly. And
of course that's all made up, right. He didn't actually
have this conversation with a mother at all. It's horrible
to watch the police twist a mother child relationship into
a bludgeon to be used in the interrogation room. It's
a disgusting employ deeply manipulative, and it's it's very hard
(13:58):
to watch. There are other moments that are just you know,
classic threats of punishment and promises of leniency and the
calculated choice of words on the part of this officer
have always intrigued me. And I'm trying to keep you
from the most ultimate punishment and you're not helping. He
(14:20):
refuses to say death penalty. He uses the words ultimate
punishment as if that's somehow less direct a threat. You know,
it's an effort to dance around something that everybody knows
is true, which is Robert is fighting for his life
(14:40):
in this interrogation room. The moment when all of these
psychological techniques, all of this mind funk finally takes hold
and Robert looks up at these officers from the corner
of the interrogation room and he says, that's the climax
of the entire interrogation. What can I say I did
(15:01):
to get me out of this. Once the suspect has
been brought down to hopelessness, once their will has been broken,
that's when the second stage of interrogation begins. This is
the moment when the suspect is offered a choice. What's
(15:22):
going to happen if they don't confess, and what will
happen if they do. For Robert, option number one looks
pretty terrible. The ultimate punishment or best case scenario ninety
years in prison. But on the other hand, the police
tell Robert that if he confesses his involvement in the crime,
if he cooperates, the judge will go easy on him.
(15:44):
He might get his few as five to ten years
in prison, and at the very least, they tell him
he'll save his own life. The interrogators have finally achieved
their goal to make confessing look like the best choice
Robert has. So you can see Robert breaking down. But
(16:05):
he has a problem. He's never been in that house,
he's never been with these people. He doesn't know who
the people are that are accusing him of these crimes.
Even if he wants to confess to this cry, he
has no idea of what happened. So now the game
becomes not convincing Robert that he has to confess, but
rather simply telling him what to say. And so that's
(16:27):
how the final few hours of this interrogation are spent.
Robert starts out not even knowing who his accomplices are,
and they have to give him the names Rocky and Jessica. Okay,
so Robert adopts those. Yes, I was there with Rocky
and Jessica, and we went in the back door of
the home. No. In fact, the evidence of the scene
was that the entry had occurred through the front door,
(16:49):
so the officers have to correct that. No, Robert, the
three of you went through the front door. Then he's
telling a story in which he and Rocky and Jessica
are down on the first floor of the home and
he Robert stays down there during the attack. But of
course Nola Charles body was found in an upstairs bedroom.
He's getting it wrong again. So again, no, no, Robert,
you were upstairs. We know you were upstairs. You have
to say you were upstairs. And this goes on and
(17:10):
on and on. I got somebody else, Cluverner, you didn't
know that you that one. And the amazing thing is
that while the officers are feeding Robert all of his information,
correcting his mistakes. While they're doing it, there's a level
of self awareness because they say to him Robert, you
(17:31):
realize that if I have to tell you what you did,
that defeats the purpose, and then they do it anyway.
After Robert creates this confession and seals his own fate,
he looks up at these officers and he says, do
you think by me telling you all this, it's going
to get me home? And the officer looks at him
(17:51):
and says, no, you're not going to go home. You'll
see a judge on Monday. And Robert looks at him
and says, I'm lying to you. Upon all of this,
it is the clearest recantation I have ever seen, and
(18:12):
the most immediate. I mean, he hasn't left the interrogation
room yet. He thought he's going to go home, back
to his mom, back to his high school life, and
instead he is handcuffed and led out of that room
to a jail cell, where he's booked for double murder
and arson, and where in fact he's staring at decades
in prison. Robert Davis couldn't afford to hire a lawyer,
(18:39):
so the court appointed one for him. And when that happens,
some people get a lawyer, like Lynn Kachinsky, the guy
who botched Brendon Daisy's case in Wisconsin. But for Robert,
this was a moment when he finally got some amazing
luck because the lawyer appointed to defend him with a
man who's dedicated his life to fighting for people without
a voice. My name is Steven Rosenfield, been practicing law
(19:06):
for forty three years. I'm a civil rights lawyer. Steve
Rosenfield is one of my heroes nine two. And when
Steve looks at the tape, he sees everything that we've
just talked about. He sees that police officers browbeat a
teenager into confessing to a crime that he didn't even
know how to describe, and that they were the ones
(19:30):
who scripted this confession. Steve threw himself into this case
with a passion of a father who saw how worthless
this confession was, but who also saw the stakes. The
real stakes here were the rest of this eighteen year
old's life. So the job of a good lawyer, when
faced with a confession is to try to do everything
(19:50):
in their power to keep that evidence out of the
trial and to argue that that confession was involuntary and unreliable.
Ball and that's exactly what Steve did. Our goal was
to keep the confession out because it was coerced and
did not reflect what really happened on the night of
(20:12):
the murders. Steve litigated this case, fought hard for Robert
hired a psychological expert to talk about the tactics that
were used by police officers, and he pointed out all
of the highlights that we've been talking about. I was
able to call our expert witness, and he went through
the kinds of factors that lend themselves towards false confessions.
(20:36):
Why a young man, having been threatened with a death
sentence might say that he had done something when in
fact he had not. And if you want to understand
the problem of false confessions, why this happened so much
white people are convicted on the basis of confessions like
this one, it's because too many judges believed that the
law does not clearly prohibit even threats that someone will
(20:58):
face death if they don't confess right, even cases where
they have to be told exactly what to say by
their interrogators. This judge didn't think the law prohibited that
and allow this confession of evidence. And when that happened,
of course, then Robert Davis had a horrible choice to make.
Knowing Steve, he was very clear and honest with Robert
(21:20):
about what the options were and what the chances are
of his being convicted. Confessions are powerful. There was a
more than likely chance of him being convicted, and with
a conviction surely would have come a very half day sentence.
We were guessing that it would have been a huge
number of years or life sentences for the killing of
(21:41):
the child and the mother. Do I go to trial
and risk being sent to prison for the rest of
my life for something I didn't do? Or do I
accept an offer that the prosecution has made to me.
If I plead guilty to one count of murder, I
will be to twenty three years. Robert was eighteen years
(22:04):
old when he was arrested, so that would mean that
he could get out at the age of forty one.
He would still have a life, half a life, half
a life. He could have a family, he could have
some future. Right. It's a horrible choice, but it's the
kind of choice that defendant's face in courtrooms around the
(22:25):
country every single day. Robert chose the deal. He entered
a plea of guilty in exchange for those twenty three
years horribly difficult, deeply unjust decision that he was forced
to make, but also one that I can't fault him
for in the slightest I think any of us in
that position would probably do the same thing. But what
(22:47):
Steve said to robertuce I will not give up on you.
I will continue to investigate this case. Steve Rosenfield promised
Robert Davis that he would walk with him, that he
would stay with him, he would visit him in prison,
he wouldn't forget him. And Steve also said to him, Look,
I know you didn't commit this crime, and I know
you don't want to say an open court that you did.
(23:11):
There is something called an Alfred plea that will enable
you to save face. You've got someone proclaiming their innocence,
but who doesn't have the power of resources, ability, legal
standing to fight the evidence against them. So they cry, uncle,
I'm innocent, but I can't fight this. That's what an
Alfred plea is. We've seen it in many other wrongful
(23:31):
conviction cases, most prominently in the West Memphis three case.
One of the consequences is that you can't sue the
state for violating your civil rights. The Alfred plea disqualifies
you from recovering any compensation for the years, sometimes decades,
you've spent in prison. It's a tool of injustice. Should
(23:52):
not exist, but it does, and that's the tool that
was used to secure Robert Davis's twenty three year prisons ends.
Steve Rosenfield kept his promise even while Robert served his time.
Steve continued pounding the pavement looking for new evidence of
(24:13):
Robert's innocence. He even reached out to family members of
Rocky and Jessica Fugit, who were both serving life sentences
in prison. Steve never gave up hope that one day
Rocky and Jessica might come forward and tell the truth.
And then one day that hope arrived in the mail.
After about eight years, I received a letter from the
(24:34):
boy who said that his conscience was bothering him and
would I come down and visit him? And he told
us the truth. He told us that he and his
sister were the only two present. He came up with
the idea of framing Robert because he thought it could
help at his sentencing if the prosecutor was pleased with
(24:56):
his cooperation. It was like manna from heaven right the
accuser of Robert Davis. We can'ts and says I was wrong.
I feel terrible about it. Help me make this right.
The only hope that Robert had was if the governor
of Virginia would step in and issue a pardon. And
so that's Steve Rosenfield's plan. Let's go to the governor,
(25:19):
Let's tell him about Rocky's recantation, and let's highlight all
the problems with this interrogation. Now, a local Charlottesville newspaper
called The Hook wrote an article about steve clemency campaign
for Robert. And that's the article that showed up in
your news feed, right, Steve exactly. I read that story
and I reached out to Steve and I said, what
can we do to help? And as we talked, I
(25:41):
noticed that Steve had hired a psychological expert for Robert's case,
but he didn't have an expert who could really look
at the interrogation and say, these are the kinds of
tactics that lead to coerced and unreliable confessions. I volunteered
our assistance in doing that. I had done some expert work,
(26:04):
and I wanted Laura start doing some expert work. So
I assigned Laura the lead role in analyzing this interrogation,
but we also offered Steve other ways in which to
publicize and highlight Robert's plight. I had worked with a
number of producers on NBC's Dateline Show, and I reached
(26:28):
out to them and I said, this is gold. We
have a videotaped interrogation from start to finish. You can
actually see on this tape how someone confesses to a
crime they didn't commit. And we also reached out to
other experts in the law enforcement field to look at
(26:49):
Robert's interrogation and to weigh in on all the things
that police officers did wrong. I mean, that's the thing right.
We knew that we needed to elevate Robert's story and
bring a community of different people to get other to
push all in their different ways against a system that's
designed to keep people in prison. We knew that public
opinion would rally around Robert Davis once people saw this story.
(27:11):
We knew that people inside Virginia would care about the
way interrogations were being conducted in their state and would
hopefully press the governor to do the right thing in
Robert's case. And then one more thing happened more men
from Heaven. It was Jessica fu Jets. I received a
letter from her saying that she knew that she had
done wrong by framing Robert and that she wanted to
(27:35):
make amends for that. That's when we started to really
believe there was a chance of getting Robert Davis out
of prison. I met with Governor mccaulliff. We talked for
about forty minutes. I suggested to him that he grant
at least a conditional pardon and then revisit the case
in a year, and that was the grounds under which
Governor mccaulliff agreed to release Robert, deciding that with the
(28:00):
statements of the two kids, there was a much better
likelihood that he would have been found not guilty. That's
been twelve years of incarceration for Roberts and suddenly, a
few days before Christmas, he's allowed to go home. It's
an incredible moment where you can you can hear the
(28:21):
joy in his voice and in his mother's voice as
they embrace for the first time after Robert is freed.
It was beautiful, just beautiful. I'm home, like I can
(28:41):
reach out and not touch nothing. I don't see no
gates now, I don't see no fences. As a part
of dateline documenting Robert's release, they go and speak to
the chief of the Albemarle County Police Department and they
asked him how he feels about Robert Davis's release. I
will say this, I believe that the confession is an
unreliable confession. Using terms like the ultimate punishment, length of
(29:05):
the interview, those kinds of things would be clearly not
done today. He was embarrassed by what he saw, and
this was somebody from the same police department, um in
the same community, reflecting back on what he saw when
he looked at the tape, and with that admission of
(29:26):
a mistake, the Governor of Virginia a year later granted
Roberts that full pardon based on actual innocence. He exonerated him.
Robert and I have maintained a close relationship all of
these years. He's just such a great kid. I called
the kid mid thirties now, he has an extended family,
(29:47):
wonderful friends. He's highly thought of in the community. He's
a sweet guy with a big heart. He's very optimistic
about the future. And this has been in spite of
having spent his form out of years in prison, So
by and large he uses every day to enjoy and
put behind him some of that ugly past. That's the thing.
(30:10):
I mean. We'd watched on that interrogation video Robert be
transformed from just an innocent member of the community into
a confessed murderer, and now thirteen years later we could
watch him be transformed back and it was a beautiful
thing to watch, the retelling of the story the right way. Hey,
(30:33):
Robert and Laura, how are you doing. I'm doing well.
How are you? I'm good, I'm good. You just got
off work today, Hunt, what are you doing for a
job you day? I'm doing electric work, working for the
five days. Amazing, fantastic. I heard you got engaged recently
to your congratulations so much. And she's got a daughter.
I here, so you're the stepdad. That's a lot of responsibility.
(30:55):
It is a lot of responsibility, but I definitely enjoy
it great. The one question we're always asking our work
is why would anyone confess to a crime that they
didn't commit? And when you watch the video of Robert Davis,
it's a perfect answer to the question, why would anyone
confess to a crime they didn't commit. The answer is
(31:16):
because they're interrogated like this. When you're fighting a wrongful conviction,
what you are doing, at the end of the day
is trying to rewrite the story that's been told about
your clients. You're rewriting history, right, You're changing the legacy
of what happened. And the story that led to the
conviction is a story of guilt, a story of harm,
of damage, of pain, and of someone who at the
(31:38):
end of the day deserves to be locked up in
a cage for the rest of their life. That's the
story that when you fight a wrongful conviction, that you
have to change. Thanks so much for joining us. I
hope you'll come back next week when we'll be telling
the story of Chicago's own Central Park jogger case, known
as the Dicks Moore five. The Dicks Moore five were
(32:00):
a group of teenage boys who confess to the rape
and murder of their own classmate, and we're convicted despite
some of the strongest evidence of innocence. Imaginable wrongful conviction.
False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to
(32:22):
our executive producer Jason Flom and the team at Signal
Company Number one executive producer Kevin Wardace, Senior Producer and Pope,
and additional production and editing by Connor Hall. Our music
was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me on
Instagram or Twitter at Laura ni Rider and you can
follow me on Twitter at s Drizen. For more information
(32:45):
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Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Ritter and I'm Steve Drissy. In our previous episode, we
talked about how the interrogation room works. Today we're gonna
show you. Steve and I are going to tell you
about a young man named Robert Davis. This is a
frightening story of a murder investigation that went horribly wrong.
(00:23):
Roberts was one of the first false confession cases I
worked on, and I'll never forget it because it taught
me how easily an ordinary person can get caught up
in a web of injustice. We first learned about Robert
(00:45):
Davis back in two thousand eleven. The story came from
a local newspaper out of Charlottesville, Virginia. I was in
a space at the time where I was looking for
false confessions wherever I could find them, and one day
a an article about Robert's case turned up in my
news feed. And when I read the article, I was
(01:07):
attracted to it for a number of reasons. One was
that there was a recording of the entire interrogation process,
and that's sort of the gold that everybody was looking for.
Can you see how police manipulate an innocent suspect into
confessing to a crime they didn't commit. Yeah, I mean,
(01:30):
so many people think that's only for extremely young children,
that's only for intellectually limited people. But Robert Davis is
every man. He's us. He's a normal, normal guy. Um
in every sense, you know, to the extent there is
a normal person. Robert Davis could be your neighbor, he
could be your your kid's friend. And there's no better
(01:50):
illustration of the power of the interrogation room, the way
these techniques work, the way they can transform the innocent
into the guilty in a matter of hours than this case.
After receiving the interrogation video, I knew I had to
get involved in this case, and I knew I had
to work on it with Laura. Robert Davis's case was
(02:10):
my first case where I became involved as an expert.
The interrogation video, you know, it's one of the most
coercive videos I've ever seen. It speaks for itself. It's
horrible to watch, and it calls out for action in
many ways. Robert's case was an early incarnation of the
kind of clemency campaign that Laura and I recently mounted.
(02:32):
In the case of Brendan Dacy, using clips from the
interrogation to tell what had happened him, bringing in experts
from different fields, including law enforcement, to weigh in on
what was wrong with that interrogation, and helping to personalize
Robert through the media. Robert Davis's story begins in crows A, Virginia,
(02:58):
a middle class suburb of Charlotte's film. Robert lived in
a small house with his mom, and they were really close.
In the winter of two thousand three, he was a
senior in high school and with graduation just a few
months away, Robert was looking forward to the next phase
of his life. But on the night of February a
terrible tragedy happened on Robert's block. Fire broke out in
(03:20):
a neighboring house, the home of a young mother and
her three children. The fire department is called. They arrive
at the scene. It's a snowy night right snowflakes are
coming down fast and furious firefighters get there. They battle
through the snow. They put out the fire, and once
the fires subdued, they go upstairs to one of the bedrooms,
which is where they find the body of the homeowner.
(03:43):
A forty one year old woman named Nola Charles. And
when they turned Nola's body over, they saw a knife
in her back, and suddenly it became very clear that
this fire had been set to cover up a murder.
Then the firefighters walked down the hallway to look in
some of the other bedrooms. This is a very small house,
so it was just a short walk, and under some
(04:08):
debris they found the body of Nola's young son, Thomas Charles,
and he had died of smoke inhalation. You know, this
was a horrific crime anyway you slice it. You know,
the murder of a mother, the death of a small child,
stabbing an arson to try to cover up the crime.
(04:31):
This is something that would have been unheard of in
CROs A and just would have been a complete and
total shock to the entire community. An investigation starts and
pretty soon the police identify some likely suspects. It's actually
two other teenagers with her names are Rocky and Jessica Fugit.
Rocky was nineteen. He was also a senior in high school,
(04:53):
like Robert Davis, but he was somebody who had a
really troubled past. He'd struggled with drug addiction with alcohol
action um and he'd gotten in trouble with the police
for doing things like leaving dead birds in church sanctuaries.
His sister, Jessica was fifteen, and she had struggled her
whole life with mental illness, delusions, hallucinations. She was somebody
(05:16):
who really grappled with her own demons, and she was
friends with Nola charles teenage daughter Wendy, but Jessica didn't
like Wendy's mom. Jessica was known to have a grudge
against Nola Charles, and so based on all this information,
the police picked up Rocky in Jessica within only a
few days of this fire, and they bring them down
to the police station for questioning, and soon enough the
(05:37):
two of them confess that they were involved in the
killing of Nolah Charles at the setting of the house
on fire. After they confessed, Jessica led the police to
a snowy field behind Nola charles home where she and
Rocky had buried an iron bar that had been used
to bludgeon Nola Charles before she was stabbed, and that
iron bar still had Nolah's DNA all over it, so
(06:00):
Jessica was able to lead the police to this new
evidence that they didn't know about that corroborated her confession.
The confessions true. Rocky and Jessica are guilty. They've never
said otherwise. Case closed, And if this was the end
of the story, right, we wouldn't be telling it to you.
But it's not the end of the story. Because the
police were convinced that Rocky and Jessica had not acted alone,
(06:22):
and they each started rattling off a list of names
other kids in their high school. The police determined that
each one of these other high schoolers had an ironclad
alibi until the last name on the list, which is
Robert Davis. Robert had been at home alone asleep, not
(06:43):
a very good alibi, so the police decided to bring
him in for questioning too. Now, from the get go,
Robert Davis and Jessica and Rocky being together in the
same space committing a horrific crime maiden no sense at all.
These two kids picked on Robert, especially Rocky. The idea
(07:07):
that Robert would be with them and would commit a
murder was absurd and it didn't take a lot of
smarts to see that. But nonetheless, right the police go
and pick up Robert Davis. They bring him in for
questioning in the middle of the night. Now, before we
(07:27):
hear what happens next, I want to stop for a
minute and talk to you about how interrogations work. Obviously,
the goal is to get the suspect to confess to
the crime, but how does that happen exactly. In the
last episode, Steve and I shared some of what we've
learned from watching many hours of interrogation tapes. But as
shocking as what we described is, you should know that
(07:49):
interrogations used to be even worse. A hundred years ago,
it was common for police to use physical violence. Innocent
and guilty suspects alike were beaten, hung from winds, and
otherwise tortured until they confessed just to escape the suffering. Then,
starting in the nineteen forties and fifties, reform was in
(08:09):
the air. Physically abusive practices were thrown out. Police were
trained to use words instead of fists, and this change
seemed like a progressive one at the time, But now
we know that psychological interrogation techniques can also be highly problematic.
They're very good at persuading actual criminals to admit guilt,
but they can also produce false confessions. The manipulation begins
(08:32):
with the interrogation room itself. Like Steve said, these rooms
are designed to make the suspect feel isolated, cut off
from all sources of support or help. This is the
type of room where police brought Robert Davis on February
twenty two, two thousand three, at about one o'clock in
the morning. He's by himself, He's eighteen years old, and
(08:55):
he's sitting in there alone, not knowing what's happening, terrifying
circum stances. And then all of a sudden, with the
video camera rolling, the police come into the interrogation room
to officers, big burly guys, and they say to him,
murg on Ola, Charles, Thomas, Charles, you let me charge
(09:21):
with the attempted murder? How the two Charles daughters, Katie
and Windy. Now it's really got serious? Has this right?
And literally? You know when you watched Robert react to
being accused of murder, you can feel the fear and
the panic and the anxiety just radiating off this video
(09:44):
and you could just watch his mind spin. What can
I do? What can I do to convince these guys
I've got the wrong person. And so Robert says to them,
what any of us I think in that situation, would
say us out all my life right now that I
do not know oh this matter, I had nothing to
do with this. I will tell you the polygraph test
(10:05):
right now to prove to you that I did not
have nothing to do with this. Interrogation trainers teach law
enforcement officers that if a suspect affirmatively asks for a
polygraph exam, that that's one indicator of innocence. It's not
rock solid proof that somebody is innocent, but it's a
(10:27):
powerful statement that they have nothing to fear and that
they're willing to put their innocence to the test. And
the officers shut them down. They tell them, no, we
don't have the polygraph, even though they actually have one
in the room next door. Now, why are they refusing
to listen to Robert as he's asserting dozens of times
his innocence. Well, that's how officers are trained to interrogate.
(10:53):
Interrogation is basically a two staged process. The goal of
the first stage, which we've just heard a little bit of,
is to bring the suspect down to hopelessness. This officer
is telling Robert that it's pointless to say he's innocent
because they already know he's guilty. An interrogator's job is
to make the suspect feel trapped using every tool available,
(11:15):
and as many people don't realize, these tools can include
lying is the worst dust. They say to him, we
found your DNA in the house from your skin cells
that just shed naturally off you. And of course this
is false, right. The house have got up in flames,
there was no forensic evidence whatsoever recovered from the scene.
(11:37):
It's a complete lie. But in the United States, police
are allowed to lie during interrogations. And again you can
see radiating off this videotape the terror in Robert's face. Right,
how can this be? I've never been in that home.
And then the officer says something I have never seen
(11:57):
in any other interrogation, and I've seen thousands of hours
of interrogations. I can't lie about the evidence, Robert. I mean,
talk about a whopper. Not only can he lie during
the interrogations, but he can lie about the evidence. And
he's lying about a lie exactly, talk about a mind fuck.
(12:18):
Let's just drop the F word, drop the it's appropriate
in this case, right, I mean, this is the psychological
game that twists the world for people in the box,
and it works. Now, let's take a moment to remember
that Robert is going through this ordeal completely alone. At
eighteen years old, he's legally an adult, but even if
(12:41):
he were younger, in most states, it's perfectly legal to
question a child without notifying their parents or guardian. This
is a desperate situation, and like anyone would, Robert asks
for the best protector he has. He asks for his mom,
but that request is turned around and used to break
him down, even for their co operation coation. Then they
(13:13):
do something especially insidious. The lead investigator says that he
had just had a phone call with Robert's mother and
his mother was crying hysterically on the phone, you know,
And this investigator tells Robert, your mom wants you to cooperate.
Your mom is saying, Robert, you know, tell the truth,
(13:35):
so that I can help you to go on with
your life, all right, to save your life exactly. And
of course that's all made up, right. He didn't actually
have this conversation with a mother at all. It's horrible
to watch the police twist a mother child relationship into
a bludgeon to be used in the interrogation room. It's
a disgusting employ deeply manipulative, and it's it's very hard
(13:58):
to watch. There are other moments that are just you know,
classic threats of punishment and promises of leniency and the
calculated choice of words on the part of this officer
have always intrigued me. And I'm trying to keep you
from the most ultimate punishment and you're not helping. He
(14:20):
refuses to say death penalty. He uses the words ultimate
punishment as if that's somehow less direct a threat. You know,
it's an effort to dance around something that everybody knows
is true, which is Robert is fighting for his life
(14:40):
in this interrogation room. The moment when all of these
psychological techniques, all of this mind funk finally takes hold
and Robert looks up at these officers from the corner
of the interrogation room and he says, that's the climax
of the entire interrogation. What can I say I did
(15:01):
to get me out of this. Once the suspect has
been brought down to hopelessness, once their will has been broken,
that's when the second stage of interrogation begins. This is
the moment when the suspect is offered a choice. What's
(15:22):
going to happen if they don't confess, and what will
happen if they do. For Robert, option number one looks
pretty terrible. The ultimate punishment or best case scenario ninety
years in prison. But on the other hand, the police
tell Robert that if he confesses his involvement in the crime,
if he cooperates, the judge will go easy on him.
(15:44):
He might get his few as five to ten years
in prison, and at the very least, they tell him
he'll save his own life. The interrogators have finally achieved
their goal to make confessing look like the best choice
Robert has. So you can see Robert breaking down. But
(16:05):
he has a problem. He's never been in that house,
he's never been with these people. He doesn't know who
the people are that are accusing him of these crimes.
Even if he wants to confess to this cry, he
has no idea of what happened. So now the game
becomes not convincing Robert that he has to confess, but
rather simply telling him what to say. And so that's
(16:27):
how the final few hours of this interrogation are spent.
Robert starts out not even knowing who his accomplices are,
and they have to give him the names Rocky and Jessica. Okay,
so Robert adopts those. Yes, I was there with Rocky
and Jessica, and we went in the back door of
the home. No. In fact, the evidence of the scene
was that the entry had occurred through the front door,
(16:49):
so the officers have to correct that. No, Robert, the
three of you went through the front door. Then he's
telling a story in which he and Rocky and Jessica
are down on the first floor of the home and
he Robert stays down there during the attack. But of
course Nola Charles body was found in an upstairs bedroom.
He's getting it wrong again. So again, no, no, Robert,
you were upstairs. We know you were upstairs. You have
to say you were upstairs. And this goes on and
(17:10):
on and on. I got somebody else, Cluverner, you didn't
know that you that one. And the amazing thing is
that while the officers are feeding Robert all of his information,
correcting his mistakes. While they're doing it, there's a level
of self awareness because they say to him Robert, you
(17:31):
realize that if I have to tell you what you did,
that defeats the purpose, and then they do it anyway.
After Robert creates this confession and seals his own fate,
he looks up at these officers and he says, do
you think by me telling you all this, it's going
to get me home? And the officer looks at him
(17:51):
and says, no, you're not going to go home. You'll
see a judge on Monday. And Robert looks at him
and says, I'm lying to you. Upon all of this,
it is the clearest recantation I have ever seen, and
(18:12):
the most immediate. I mean, he hasn't left the interrogation
room yet. He thought he's going to go home, back
to his mom, back to his high school life, and
instead he is handcuffed and led out of that room
to a jail cell, where he's booked for double murder
and arson, and where in fact he's staring at decades
in prison. Robert Davis couldn't afford to hire a lawyer,
(18:39):
so the court appointed one for him. And when that happens,
some people get a lawyer, like Lynn Kachinsky, the guy
who botched Brendon Daisy's case in Wisconsin. But for Robert,
this was a moment when he finally got some amazing
luck because the lawyer appointed to defend him with a
man who's dedicated his life to fighting for people without
a voice. My name is Steven Rosenfield, been practicing law
(19:06):
for forty three years. I'm a civil rights lawyer. Steve
Rosenfield is one of my heroes nine two. And when
Steve looks at the tape, he sees everything that we've
just talked about. He sees that police officers browbeat a
teenager into confessing to a crime that he didn't even
know how to describe, and that they were the ones
(19:30):
who scripted this confession. Steve threw himself into this case
with a passion of a father who saw how worthless
this confession was, but who also saw the stakes. The
real stakes here were the rest of this eighteen year
old's life. So the job of a good lawyer, when
faced with a confession is to try to do everything
(19:50):
in their power to keep that evidence out of the
trial and to argue that that confession was involuntary and unreliable.
Ball and that's exactly what Steve did. Our goal was
to keep the confession out because it was coerced and
did not reflect what really happened on the night of
(20:12):
the murders. Steve litigated this case, fought hard for Robert
hired a psychological expert to talk about the tactics that
were used by police officers, and he pointed out all
of the highlights that we've been talking about. I was
able to call our expert witness, and he went through
the kinds of factors that lend themselves towards false confessions.
(20:36):
Why a young man, having been threatened with a death
sentence might say that he had done something when in
fact he had not. And if you want to understand
the problem of false confessions, why this happened so much
white people are convicted on the basis of confessions like
this one, it's because too many judges believed that the
law does not clearly prohibit even threats that someone will
(20:58):
face death if they don't confess right, even cases where
they have to be told exactly what to say by
their interrogators. This judge didn't think the law prohibited that
and allow this confession of evidence. And when that happened,
of course, then Robert Davis had a horrible choice to make.
Knowing Steve, he was very clear and honest with Robert
(21:20):
about what the options were and what the chances are
of his being convicted. Confessions are powerful. There was a
more than likely chance of him being convicted, and with
a conviction surely would have come a very half day sentence.
We were guessing that it would have been a huge
number of years or life sentences for the killing of
(21:41):
the child and the mother. Do I go to trial
and risk being sent to prison for the rest of
my life for something I didn't do? Or do I
accept an offer that the prosecution has made to me.
If I plead guilty to one count of murder, I
will be to twenty three years. Robert was eighteen years
(22:04):
old when he was arrested, so that would mean that
he could get out at the age of forty one.
He would still have a life, half a life, half
a life. He could have a family, he could have
some future. Right. It's a horrible choice, but it's the
kind of choice that defendant's face in courtrooms around the
(22:25):
country every single day. Robert chose the deal. He entered
a plea of guilty in exchange for those twenty three
years horribly difficult, deeply unjust decision that he was forced
to make, but also one that I can't fault him
for in the slightest I think any of us in
that position would probably do the same thing. But what
(22:47):
Steve said to robertuce I will not give up on you.
I will continue to investigate this case. Steve Rosenfield promised
Robert Davis that he would walk with him, that he
would stay with him, he would visit him in prison,
he wouldn't forget him. And Steve also said to him, Look,
I know you didn't commit this crime, and I know
you don't want to say an open court that you did.
(23:11):
There is something called an Alfred plea that will enable
you to save face. You've got someone proclaiming their innocence,
but who doesn't have the power of resources, ability, legal
standing to fight the evidence against them. So they cry, uncle,
I'm innocent, but I can't fight this. That's what an
Alfred plea is. We've seen it in many other wrongful
(23:31):
conviction cases, most prominently in the West Memphis three case.
One of the consequences is that you can't sue the
state for violating your civil rights. The Alfred plea disqualifies
you from recovering any compensation for the years, sometimes decades,
you've spent in prison. It's a tool of injustice. Should
(23:52):
not exist, but it does, and that's the tool that
was used to secure Robert Davis's twenty three year prisons ends.
Steve Rosenfield kept his promise even while Robert served his time.
Steve continued pounding the pavement looking for new evidence of
(24:13):
Robert's innocence. He even reached out to family members of
Rocky and Jessica Fugit, who were both serving life sentences
in prison. Steve never gave up hope that one day
Rocky and Jessica might come forward and tell the truth.
And then one day that hope arrived in the mail.
After about eight years, I received a letter from the
(24:34):
boy who said that his conscience was bothering him and
would I come down and visit him? And he told
us the truth. He told us that he and his
sister were the only two present. He came up with
the idea of framing Robert because he thought it could
help at his sentencing if the prosecutor was pleased with
(24:56):
his cooperation. It was like manna from heaven right the
accuser of Robert Davis. We can'ts and says I was wrong.
I feel terrible about it. Help me make this right.
The only hope that Robert had was if the governor
of Virginia would step in and issue a pardon. And
so that's Steve Rosenfield's plan. Let's go to the governor,
(25:19):
Let's tell him about Rocky's recantation, and let's highlight all
the problems with this interrogation. Now, a local Charlottesville newspaper
called The Hook wrote an article about steve clemency campaign
for Robert. And that's the article that showed up in
your news feed, right, Steve exactly. I read that story
and I reached out to Steve and I said, what
can we do to help? And as we talked, I
(25:41):
noticed that Steve had hired a psychological expert for Robert's case,
but he didn't have an expert who could really look
at the interrogation and say, these are the kinds of
tactics that lead to coerced and unreliable confessions. I volunteered
our assistance in doing that. I had done some expert work,
(26:04):
and I wanted Laura start doing some expert work. So
I assigned Laura the lead role in analyzing this interrogation,
but we also offered Steve other ways in which to
publicize and highlight Robert's plight. I had worked with a
number of producers on NBC's Dateline Show, and I reached
(26:28):
out to them and I said, this is gold. We
have a videotaped interrogation from start to finish. You can
actually see on this tape how someone confesses to a
crime they didn't commit. And we also reached out to
other experts in the law enforcement field to look at
(26:49):
Robert's interrogation and to weigh in on all the things
that police officers did wrong. I mean, that's the thing right.
We knew that we needed to elevate Robert's story and
bring a community of different people to get other to
push all in their different ways against a system that's
designed to keep people in prison. We knew that public
opinion would rally around Robert Davis once people saw this story.
(27:11):
We knew that people inside Virginia would care about the
way interrogations were being conducted in their state and would
hopefully press the governor to do the right thing in
Robert's case. And then one more thing happened more men
from Heaven. It was Jessica fu Jets. I received a
letter from her saying that she knew that she had
done wrong by framing Robert and that she wanted to
(27:35):
make amends for that. That's when we started to really
believe there was a chance of getting Robert Davis out
of prison. I met with Governor mccaulliff. We talked for
about forty minutes. I suggested to him that he grant
at least a conditional pardon and then revisit the case
in a year, and that was the grounds under which
Governor mccaulliff agreed to release Robert, deciding that with the
(28:00):
statements of the two kids, there was a much better
likelihood that he would have been found not guilty. That's
been twelve years of incarceration for Roberts and suddenly, a
few days before Christmas, he's allowed to go home. It's
an incredible moment where you can you can hear the
(28:21):
joy in his voice and in his mother's voice as
they embrace for the first time after Robert is freed.
It was beautiful, just beautiful. I'm home, like I can
(28:41):
reach out and not touch nothing. I don't see no
gates now, I don't see no fences. As a part
of dateline documenting Robert's release, they go and speak to
the chief of the Albemarle County Police Department and they
asked him how he feels about Robert Davis's release. I
will say this, I believe that the confession is an
unreliable confession. Using terms like the ultimate punishment, length of
(29:05):
the interview, those kinds of things would be clearly not
done today. He was embarrassed by what he saw, and
this was somebody from the same police department, um in
the same community, reflecting back on what he saw when
he looked at the tape, and with that admission of
(29:26):
a mistake, the Governor of Virginia a year later granted
Roberts that full pardon based on actual innocence. He exonerated him.
Robert and I have maintained a close relationship all of
these years. He's just such a great kid. I called
the kid mid thirties now, he has an extended family,
(29:47):
wonderful friends. He's highly thought of in the community. He's
a sweet guy with a big heart. He's very optimistic
about the future. And this has been in spite of
having spent his form out of years in prison, So
by and large he uses every day to enjoy and
put behind him some of that ugly past. That's the thing.
(30:10):
I mean. We'd watched on that interrogation video Robert be
transformed from just an innocent member of the community into
a confessed murderer, and now thirteen years later we could
watch him be transformed back and it was a beautiful
thing to watch, the retelling of the story the right way. Hey,
(30:33):
Robert and Laura, how are you doing. I'm doing well.
How are you? I'm good, I'm good. You just got
off work today, Hunt, what are you doing for a
job you day? I'm doing electric work, working for the
five days. Amazing, fantastic. I heard you got engaged recently
to your congratulations so much. And she's got a daughter.
I here, so you're the stepdad. That's a lot of responsibility.
(30:55):
It is a lot of responsibility, but I definitely enjoy
it great. The one question we're always asking our work
is why would anyone confess to a crime that they
didn't commit? And when you watch the video of Robert Davis,
it's a perfect answer to the question, why would anyone
confess to a crime they didn't commit. The answer is
(31:16):
because they're interrogated like this. When you're fighting a wrongful conviction,
what you are doing, at the end of the day
is trying to rewrite the story that's been told about
your clients. You're rewriting history, right, You're changing the legacy
of what happened. And the story that led to the
conviction is a story of guilt, a story of harm,
of damage, of pain, and of someone who at the
(31:38):
end of the day deserves to be locked up in
a cage for the rest of their life. That's the
story that when you fight a wrongful conviction, that you
have to change. Thanks so much for joining us. I
hope you'll come back next week when we'll be telling
the story of Chicago's own Central Park jogger case, known
as the Dicks Moore five. The Dicks Moore five were
(32:00):
a group of teenage boys who confess to the rape
and murder of their own classmate, and we're convicted despite
some of the strongest evidence of innocence. Imaginable wrongful conviction.
False Confessions is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts
in association with Signal Company Number one Special thanks to
(32:22):
our executive producer Jason Flom and the team at Signal
Company Number one executive producer Kevin Wardace, Senior Producer and Pope,
and additional production and editing by Connor Hall. Our music
was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me on
Instagram or Twitter at Laura ni Rider and you can
follow me on Twitter at s Drizen. For more information
(32:45):
on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com and
be sure to follow the show on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction,
on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and on Twitter at
wrong Conviction
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com