Various False Confession Cases

The following are relevant excerpts from New York State wrongful conviction cases in which a false confession was obtained:

Blyden, Malisha AND Johnson, Latisha; attempted murder; NRE: mistaken witness identification, perjury/false accusation, [Johnson:] false confession, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree; "OVERWHELMING"

Suggestibility issues

"In the course of a roughly 24-hour interrogation, police elicited a 30-minute videotaped confession from Johnson in which she provided details that generally fit the facts as then known to detectives. Johnson implicated herself and Blyden.

"At trial, [ADA] Lawrence Piergrossi did not use Johnson's confession, apparently because, as facts later suggested, portions of it were inaccurate and seemingly contradicted other evidence in the case."

[ Austin Babb synopsis says: "Detective [Steven] Smith had been involved in obtaining a false confession and several false witness identifications" in the Blyden/Johnson case.] "The new evidence was presented to the Bronx [DA's] office, which conducted its own investigation and re-interviewed witnesses. The investigation concluded that the lead detective, Steven Smith, had elicited a false confession from Johnson and five false identifications of Blyden and Johnson from three witnesses. Smith also obtained three false identifications of the two men who were alleged to be accomplices -- two from Johnson and one from the victim."

[So, this 'detective' was responsible for one false confession, and eight false identifications.]

Deskovic, Jeffrey; murder, sexual assault; NRE: false confession, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree; "OVERWHELMING"

Suggestibility issues

"Deskovic became a suspect because he seemed overly distraught at the victim's death, visiting her wake three times. Police spoke with Deskovic several times, and in January 1990, he agreed to a polygraph examination. Over a period of six hours, Deskovic was held in isolation, given three polygraph tests by an examiner who was instructed to 'get a confession,' and grilled by officers who told him that they knew he was guilty, that he had failed the lie detector test -- and that he could go home if he just told them what he had done.

"Eventually, Deskovic gave up and admitted, sobbing, that he killed the girl. Years later, he explained, 'I felt like my life was in danger, I didn't think they were going to stop until I told them what they wanted to hear.'"

"In January 1990, at the close of an eight-hour interrogation session [by 'investigator' Daniel Stevens ] that left him 'lying under a desk in a fetal postion, sobbing uncontrollably,' Deskovic confessed to the murder. The interrogation session was not recorded. Deskovic's admissions included details 'that the prosecution insisted could only have been known to the real perpetrator.'"

"Deskovic had been told before the alleged confession that if his DNA did not match the semen in the rape kit, he would be cleared as a suspect."

"Miranda warnings were given and obtained only after at least eight hours of continuous interrogations..."

"On January 25, 1990...Detective McIntyre drove [Deskovic]...to be tested by Putnam County Sheriff's Office Senior Investigator Daniel Stephens (not a State Police polygrapher)...Moreover, the extent of his expertise, if indeed he was qualified, was never established since the trial court barred cross-examination of Stephens as to his qualifications, his procedures and his experience. The locale for the testing was a tiny room in a real estate/law office. Stephens, in deceptive civilian dress, gave [Deskovic] a 'polygraph examination' by interrogation... Stephens hid his police status from [Deskovic], [and] gave no Miranda warnings..."

Figueroa, Fancy; filing a false report; NRE: plea, no crime, false confession, police misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence

Suggestibility issues

"When medical personnel discovered that Figueroa was pregnant, police suspected she had concocted the report of being raped to cover it up.

"Figueroa insisted that the rape did occur, but the detectives did not believe her. 'They told me if I wrote down on a piece of paper that I was lying, they would help me look for this guy,' she said years later, but instead they used her written statement to charge her with filing a false report, a misdemeanor."

Bell, George AND Bolt, Rohan AND Johnson, Gary; murder; NRE:

(all 3) perjury/false accusation, prosecutor misconduct, police officer misconduct, withheld exculpatory evidence, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant

(Bell) mistaken witness identification, false confession, inadequate legal defense, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

(Bolt) mistaken witness identification, knowingly permitting perjury (Johnson) false confession, knowingly permitting perjury, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"Bell proceeded to describe in detail what occurred inside the store, relating facts which he could not have known if he were only a lookout. Moreover, the ballistics evidence, of which [interrogating Detective Louis] Pia was aware, established that a 9 mm weapon was used. When pressed on this score, Bell began to cry and admitted being in the store with a 9 mm weapon. He said he and 'Roti' (Rohan Bolt) entered the store and pointed guns at Epstein and Davis while 'Gary' (Gary Johnson) and 'Carl' (Mendez Collier) served as lookouts and 'Jason,' the getaway driver, sat at the wheel of a burgundy van with Pennsylvania license plates. Bell also admitted to firing the shots that killed Epstein and Davis...Bell repeated his confession on videotape...More than two hours after Bell had videotaped his statement, Detectives Pia and [Richard] Sica visited Bell in his holding cell and asked him why he alone had implicated Collier...Bell said that he falsely accused Collier because he feared that if he implicated John Mark Bigweh, the actual lookout, he and his family would be in danger."

"Both [Bell and Johnson] said detectives had physically abused them."

"In May 1997, police arrested Jason Ligon...After an interrogation, Ligon said he drove the van on the night of the crime. He was not prosecuted, however. Evidence showed he was in Washington, D.C. at the time of the crime. * The prosecution did not dismiss charges against Ligon until June of 2000 -- after Bell, Johnson, and Bolt had been convicted."

[* So, now we actually see a third false confession connected with this case. Those 'detectives' sure were good at getting them.]

Gathers, Vanessa; manslaughter; NRE: false confession

Suggestibility issues

"Inaccuracies Gathers made to authorities about her role in the crime, evidence that police lied about Shaw's death, and a 'complete lack of coherent narrative' in her confession, led [the] conviction review unit to conclude that reasonable doubt existed about her guilt."

Thomas, Adrian; murder; NRE: false confession, no crime, false/misleading forensic evidence, police officer misconduct, misconduct that it is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"These interrogators...repeatedly assured [Thomas] that they understood Matthew's injuries to have been accidental. They said they were not investigating what they thought to be a crime and that once [Thomas] had told them what happened he could go home. He would not, they reassured over and over again, be arrested. When, however, [Thomas] continued to deny having hurt Matthew, even accidentally, the officers falsely represented that his wife had blamed him for Matthew's injuries and then threatened that, if he did not take responsibility, they woud 'scoop' Ms. Hicks out from the hospital and bring her in, since one of them must have injured the child.

"Most prominent among the totality of circumstances in this case is the set of highly coercive deceptions. They were of a kind sufficiently potent to nullify individual judgment in the ordinarily resolute person and were manifestly lethal to self-determination when deployed against [Thomas], an unsophisticated individual without experience in the criminal justice system."

"When Thomas said he had accidentally dropped Matthew five or six inches into his crib about 10 to 15 days earlier, a detective entered the interrogation room and said that based on his experience with head injuries in the military in Operation Desert Storm, he knew that Thomas was lying. The detective said that the child's head injuries were consistent with the type of injuries suffered in a high-speed auto collision.

"After that detective left, other detectives suggested to Thomas that perhaps he had been depressed, emotionally overwhelmed, upset after his wife berated him for chronic unemployment and acted out of frustration and hurled the child to the mattress. Eventually, Thomas was persuaded to re-enact what the police believed he did, using a clipboard to stand in for the baby.

"Thomas was charged with murder on September 22nd, based on his statement during the seven-hour interrogation that he slammed Matthew down on a mattress on three occasions, including the day before Matthew died. Almost immediately after he was charged, Thomas recanted to his defense attorney, saying he did not harm Matthew."

"The prosecution played portions of Thomas's videotaped interrogation, during which Thomas, who weighed more than 300 pounds, demonstrated how he raised Matthew above his head and forcefully threw him down onto a low mattress."

"[The Court of Appeals noted that] Thomas was told 67 times that what had been done to the baby was an accident, 14 times that he would not be arrested and eight times that he would be going home."

Gristwood, Daniel; attempted murder; NRE: false confession, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"From the moment police arrived at the scene, he cooperated with them, agreeing to everything they asked of him...He gave a detailed statement, underwent a polygraph, and remained in their custody for well over fourteen hours before they finally broke him...By that point, he had been up for over thirty-four hours, experienced a horrific crime scene involving his wife of ten years, was sweating, crying, had been screamed at, bullied, berated, and had begun to believe what investigators had accused him of -- that he had committed a crime...Investigators fully admitted to employing these techniques.

"At 6:42 p.m., Gristwood was presented with a much shorter, second statement to sign by the New York State Police investigators...It was obtained after they employed a variety of investigation techniques, and reduced Gristwood to a state where he was sweating, crying, and believing he had done something wrong...This statement contained no meaningful details of the crime or crime scene, but was expressed in the following language, suggesting it was phantasmic and not a real occurence:

'I also remember seeing my arm and my fist going towards her head and I remember seeing the hammer on a pillow on the floor next to head (sic). . .I realize that what I had done up in the bedroom when I could see my arm and fist going towards my wife's head and that I was hitting her in the head.'"

"Such words evince a dream-like recounting, more like a third-person's view of the crime rather than the actual perpetrator's. More significantly, the statement does not say Gristwood hit his wife in the head with the hammer, or how many times -- indeed, there is a reference to his arm and fist going towards his wife's head.

"Up until this point in time, after hours of investigation and interrogation, there was no evidence connecting Gristwood to the crime. The facts in his original statement, which was very detailed, had been checked out and determined to be accurate..." "He signed a voluntary statement for investigator [Matthew] Tynan around 8:05 a.m....Everything in the statement was subsequently verified by law enforcement to be true...After he signed the statement, police investigators began yelling at him, accusing him of lying, and telling him that there were inconsistencies in his statement. They also told him that he was 'sick' and 'needed help.' They suggested that he was lying and that he needed to take a polygraph to establish his innocence."

"Gristwood agreed to the polygraph, 'because I don't have nothing to hide.'...He never expected the polygraph to take four to six hours, and recalled that during the exam, he could hardly keep his eyes open, was having anxiety pains in his chest, and was falling asleep at the end of it. He recounted that the polygraph administrator, [John] Fallon, stated, 'I don't believe you neither. You're lying to us.'...At that point, Gristwood tried to get up and leave. The polygraph administrator used a ruse of asking him to return to sign some necessary paperwork, and maintained him in police custody for further questoning...According to Gristwood, investigators told him that if he did not sign the papers, they could not help him, and his kids would be taken away forever."

Moses, Sundhe; murder; NRE: false confession, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"[Moses]...testified on his own behalf at trial and stated that his statement was coerced...[He] stated that Detective Scarcella and other detectives threatened him but only Detective Scarcella struck him in the face, choked him while pressing his head against a wall and blew cigar smoke in his face. [Moses] testified that the other detectives held him down..."

"Moses said that after repeatedly denying involvement, Detective Louis Scarcella struck him in the face. Other detectives held him down while Scarcella choked him. Moses said he was terrified because he did not know what else the detectives might do, so he ultimately admitted to the crime. He said that when he signed the statement -- which he had not prepared -- he tried to smudge his signature as a way of signaling that he was not acting voluntarily."

Ranta, David; murder; NRE: mistaken witness identification, false confession, perjury/false accusation, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, witness tampering or misconduct interrogating co-defendant; "OVERWHELMING"

Suggestibility issues

"Ranta was arrested on August 13, 1990 and taken to a police station where detectives said that after initial denials, Ranta eventually admitted that he had been at the crime scene with Bloom and Drikman in a station wagon, which he believed Bloom had stolen. Police said Ranta said that he had known about a plan to rob a Jewish jewel courier and that he was to have been the 'lookout' during the robbery. The detectives said Ranta said he saw Bloom and Drikman exchange a gun in the station wagon and that, before any of the crimes occurred, he had left the scene when Bloom and Drikman began arguing about which one of them was going to commit the actual robbery."

Sterling, Frank; murder; NRE: false confession, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence

Suggestibility issues

"More than two-and-one-half years [after the murder], in July 1991, detectives again visited Frank Sterling at his home. He had just returned from a truck-driving job that had consumed the better part of two days. Although tired, he agreed to a polygraph examination, and accompanied the detectives to the sheriff's office in Rochester. During the pre-examination session, the polygraph technician falsely told Sterling that his brother Glen had bragged to other prisoners that Frank had killed Ms. Manville. After the examination, Sterling was advised that he was being deceitful when he denied the killling. As midnight approached, another interrogator took over the questioning. He got Sterling to admit he was angry enough about his brother's incarceration to have killed Manville, but Sterling continued to deny that he had done so. He asked to be hypnotized to prove that he was telling the truth. The investigators responded by holding his hands and assisting him with relaxation exercises. They told him that 'we were here for him, we understood [and] felt he should tell the truth to get it off his chest.' Roughly eight hours into the interrogation session, Sterling admitted killing Ms. Manville. Shortly after five o'clock in the morning, a twenty-minute video-recording preserved his detailed confession."

"Sterling repudiated his confession shortly after making it..."

"Frank Sterling was...convicted of murder based on a confession, which he had given after a thirty-six hour trucking shift followed by an eight-hour police interrogation."

"Investigators approached Sterling as he returned from a 36-hour trucking job. He agreed to an interview at the police station, which began in the afternoon and continued overnight into the following morning. Sterling maintained his innocence, while saying he had trouble remembering. The interrogation included several highly suggestive methods -- including hypnosis and the suggestion of details. At one point, the officers showed crime scene photos to Sterling to 'help him remember.' Interrogation standards followed by hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout the country admonish against such techniques.

"The officers had Sterling lay on the floor with his feet up on a chair and his eyes closed. As they rubbed his back, the interrogators insisted that Sterling had committed the murder, showed him pictures of the crime scene and the victim's body and shared key details with him. One of the officers told Sterling that he would feel better if he let out his anger towards the victim, telling him that the victim 'deserved what she got,' and insisted that 'we're here for you, we still care for you.'

"Finally, after more than eight hours at the police station, Sterling tightened up, began to shake, and blurted out 'I did it, I need help.' At this point, the officers demanded a videotaped confession and an exhausted Sterling complied."

Warney, Douglas; murder; NRE: false confession, false/misleading forensic evidence, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"In 1997, [Warney] was convicted of murder based upon self-incriminating statements made by [Warney], a mentally retarded man suffering from serious physical and mental disabilities at the time of his interrogation and arrest."

"According to police investigators, Warney's confession contained numerous nonpublic facts that seemingly corroborated his guilt...[T]hese included:

- that the victim was wearing a nightshirt; - that the victim was cooking chicken; - that the victim was missing money from his wallet; - that the murder weapon was a knife with an approximately twelve-inch serrated blade; - that the knife had been kept in the kitchen; - that the victim was stabbed multiple times; - that the victim owned a pinky ring and a particular necklace; - that a tissue used as a bandage was covered with blood; and that - there was a pornographic tape in the victim's television.

"The investigator who interrogated Warney emphatically denied feeding Warney crime facts or suggesting answers to him during the unrecorded interrogation.* The prosecutor who successfully convicted Warney argued to the jury that the accuracy of Warney's confession was corroborated by his detailed knowledge of these nonpublic crime facts."

[IQ of 68, 8th-grade dropout.]

"Douglas Warney...had full-blown AIDS..."

"On January 4, 1996, after the news of Beason's murder was widely reported in the press, Mr. Warney called the RPD in reference to the murder. Mr. Warney -- who has an IQ of 68, was in special education until he dropped out of school in the eighth grade, and was heavily medicated for full-blown AIDS -- was severely mentally impaired at the time he called the RPD. In fact, just days prior to the Beason murder, Mr. Warney had been hospitalized in a Rochester psychiatric facility for making crank calls to the police."

"Prior to January 4, 1996, officers at the RPD knew of Mr. Warney because of his crank calls to the police in December 1995 and also because he had called the police on a prior occasion about drug activity in his apartment building."

"On January 6, 1996, Gropp and Beaudrault arranged a meeting with Mr. Warney. They picked him up at his apartment at approximately 10:45 a.m. and brought him to the police station, where they placed him in a small office."

"Almost immediately, Gropp, in the presence of Beaudrault, began employing escalating coercive tactics to force Mr. Warney to make statements or admissions concerning the murder. Gropp began to verbally abuse Mr. Warney and threaten him, both physically and otherwise, in order to force him to admit that he committed the murder.

"In response to Gropp's intensified interrogation tactics, Mr. Warney requested an attorney, but Gropp and Beaudrault rejected Mr. Warney's request, stating that he did not need an attorney because they were simply investigating the crime."

"Neither Gropp, Beaudrault, or anyone else ever informed Mr. Warney of his Miranda rights at any point during the interrogation."

"After...constant and repeated threats, Mr. Warney yielded to [their] coercive tactics and provided at least four different versions of events. The first...implicated Szymkowski and conformed to the facts Mr. Warney allegedly reported to Adams two days before. According to the second statement, however...he joined Szymkowski inside Beason's home. In the third...Mr. Warney's story evolved into an admission of greater culpability, as he stated that he and Szymkowski stabbed Beason together. By the fourth and final version of events, reflected in a typewritten statement created by Beaudrault and Gropp, Szymkowski was no longer present during the crime, and Mr. Warney falsely confessed that he acted alone in murdering Beason."

"In the typewritten 'confession,' Mr. Warney purportedly stated that he stabbed Beason in the downstairs kitchen, but Beason was in fact attacked and killed in his upstairs bedroom...Mr. Warney also allegedly stated that he drove his brother's Chevrolet to Beason's home, yet his brother had not owned a Chevrolet in years and did not even own a car at the time of the murder...The...officers also attributed to Mr. Warney the admission that he cut his finger and bled at the scene of the crime -- an admission that was central to the police theory of the crime since they recovered a bloody tissue and towel in the bathroom, which suggested that the perpetrator used these items to wipe his wounds. But when Mr. Warney's hands were inspected and photographed on January 6, 1996 -- only days after the murder occurred -- he had no cuts or scratches, and when post-arrest blood group and enzyme testing was conducted on the tissue and towel, it excluded him and the victim as the source of the blood."

"During 12 hours of police interrogation, Warney gave varying accounts."

"Warney was no stranger to police. A few days before Beason's murder, police took Warney to a psychiatric hospital after he made dozens of false calls reporting fires and car accidents and ordering pizzas. He had checked out after one day."

Wilson, Sharrif AND Yarbough, Anthony; murder; NRE: false confession, perjury/false accusation, false/misleading forensic evidence, inadequate legal defense, police officer misconduct, forensic analyst misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"That same day, police began interrogating 15-year-old Sharrif Wilson and Yarbough. Both youths said they had spent the night along the Brooklyn waterfront and in Greenwich Village and that Yarbough discovered the bodies when he arrived home at about 6:30 a.m.

"After several hours, Wilson gave a videotaped confession in which he said that he and Yarbough had stabbed the victims and then tied them up while they were still alive. After 15 hours, Yarbough signed a statement confessing to taking part in the murders with Wilson."

"Wilson denied committing the murders and said that he falsely confessed because police threatened him and promised that he would be released if he confessed."

"Yarbough said he signed the confession after detectives struck him and he was told that Wilson had confessed and implicated him."

Charles, Lambert; manslaughter; NRE: plea, false confession, perjury/false accusation

Suggestibility issues

"After two witnesses identified Lambert Charles, 17, as the killer, Charles, a low level member of another drug ring, signed a hand-written confession admitting that he killed Scott because Scott had fired a gun at him.

"Charles pled guilty shortly after the shooting..."

"In December 1997, Queens...prosecutors learned from a member of law enforcement that two informants said Charles was innocent, but had agreed to plead guilty to shield other gang members after he was promised $5,000."

Gathers, Vanessa; manslaughter; NRE: false confession, police officer misconduct, misconduct that is not withholding evidence, misconduct in interrogation of exoneree

Suggestibility issues

"Inaccuracies Gathers made to authorities about her role in the crime, evidence that police lied about Shaw's death, and a 'complete lack of coherent narrative' in her confession, led [the] conviction review unit to conclude that reasonable doubt existed about her guilt."

"Soon after Shaw died, Scarcella crossed paths with 34-year-old Vanessa Gathers, a neighborhood resident, who told Scarcella that a woman in the neighborhood had admitted being involved in the assault. Scarcella interviewed the woman and she denied involvement, but implicated three others in the crime. The case went dormant.

"Five years later, after Scarcella had been transferred out of the Brooklyn homicide bureau and into the 77th Precinct to solve 'cold cases,' the first case he turned to was the Shaw murder."