Criminal Law

Confession Obsession

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Confession Obsession

Last week, This American Life ran a riveting episode about confessions. The story exemplifies how cops and jurors are obsessed (to the point of irrationality) with confessions.

In the introduction, Ira interviews  Father Thomas Santa about scrupulosity—a psychological disorder similar to OCD where people obsessively confess, even things that are not immoral or sinful.

Act I (“Kim Possible”) is described as follows:

Former DC police detective Jim Trainum tells reporter Saul Elbein about how his first murder investigation went horribly wrong. He and his colleagues pinned the crime on the wrong woman, and it took 10 years and a revisit to her videotaped confession to realize how much, unbeknownst to Jim at the time, he was one of the main orchestrators of the botched confession. (28 minutes)

Here is a description of Act II (“You Don’t Say”):

A person is accused of a murder he didn’t commit. But in this story there is no false confession. Jeffrey Womack spent most of his adult life as a suspect in one of Nashville’s most notorious crimes. And for all that time — until another man was convicted of the crime — Jeffrey refused to be questioned about it. Producer Lisa Pollak tells the story. (14 minutes)

Demetria Kalodimos’ documentary Indelible: The Case Against Jeffrey Womack can be seen here.

Jeffrey Womack and his attorney John Hollins Sr. have told their story in a book called The Suspect: A Memoir. It was ghostwritten by Nashville journalist E. Thomas Wood.

“Wild Justice”: A History of the Death Penalty in America

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“Wild Justice”: A History of the Death Penalty in America

Last month, NPR’s Fresh Air featured an interview with Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, about his new book–A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America. The interview reflected the book’s title, explaining the strange and fascinating history of the death penalty in the United States. From backroom Supreme Court deals to Mandery’s argument that the death penalty is random and lacks deterrent value, this interview is worth a listen for anyone interested in the death penalty or criminal law.

Here is the introduction to the interview:

In the mid-1970s, Arkansas’ electric chair was being used by the prison barber to cut hair, and the execution chamber in New Hampshire was being used to store vegetables. That’s because in 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court shocked the nation by striking down Georgia’s death penalty law, effectively ending executions in the United States. But the decision provoked a strong backlash among those who favored the death penalty, and within four years the high court reversed course and issued a set of rulings that would permit the resumption of executions.

Evan Mandery, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former capital defense attorney, has written a new account of the tumultuous legal and political battles over the death penalty. Mandery is sympathetic to those who tried to outlaw capital punishment, but his account focuses on attorneys for both sides in the battle, as well as the views and deliberations of the justices who decided the cases. His book is called A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America.

A Wild Justice
A Wild Justice

The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America

by Evan J. Mandery

County Court Clerk Fired After Providing Public Document to Exonerated Defendant

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County Court Clerk Fired After Providing Public Document to Exonerated Defendant

The most recent episode of This American Life, titled “I Was Just Trying To Help,” told the story of Sharon Snyder a clerk for circuit court judge in Missouri who provided an inmate a motion for DNA testing.  

Here is a description of the story: 

Ira speaks with Sharon Snyder. Until recently, Sharon was a clerk for circuit court judge in Missouri. While she was at work, a man and a woman approached her looking for some paperwork so they could help out their brother, who was in prison for rape. The prisoner claimed he was innocent of the crime and had decided to file a motion for a DNA test. Sharon decided to help the man with the paperwork, which didn’t please her employer. (6 minutes)

Feel Good Friday: Burglars Return Computers To Charity

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Feel Good Friday: Burglars Return Computers To Charity

Gawker recently ran a story about apologetic burglars who returned the things they stole from a clinic that treats the victims of sexual assault. 

Here is how the story began: 

Burglars rarely return to the scene of the crime — much less in order to return the things they stole.

But that’s exactly what happened in California last week, just hours after the San Bernardino County Sexual Assault Services was robbed of several computer, monitors, and other valuables.

Candy Stallings, who runs the nonprofit, says she was called to the office on July 31st after a report came in about a break-in at the office.

The burglars had climbed in through the walls, disabling security systems and motion detectors as they went.

As Stallings left the scene around 1:30 AM, she overheard an officer explain to some “transients” who had gathered near the building what the nonprofit did.

The office has no sign on the door identifying itself in order to protect victims who seek its services.

Just three hours later, Stallings received another call: The burglars were back. But this time, rather than steal more stuff, they had left some stuff behind.

Politics and the “Culture of Rape”

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Recently, the New Yorker‘s “Political Scene,”  hosted by Dorothy Wickenden, discussed the “culture of rape” from rape in the U.S. military to the Steubenville High School case.

Here is a description of the podcast: 

“The easiest way to talk about” rape culture, Ariel Levy says on this week’s Political Scene podcast, “is in action as opposed to in abstract definition. Rape culture in action simply means taking a situation where a woman—by virtue of the progress that our society has made over the last hundred years—where a woman is in a situation where something has nothing to do with sex and where sex is forced upon her.” In the latest issue of the magazine, Levy writes about the presence and role of rape culture in the Steubenville High School case, but, as she and Ryan Lizza discuss with host Dorothy Wickenden, it’s not restricted to such places—in fact, sexual violence has retained a stubborn hold on the U.S. military that is only now finally being addressed as a political matter.

“What’s different now about what could happen in the wake of this Pentagon report about the huge increase in sexual assaults is you now have twenty women in the U.S. Senate, and you actually have five women on the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Lizza notes, saying that the increased presence of women has prompted “a pretty robust debate about what to do about this.” That debate, Levy says, ought to extend beyond the military: “Some of it has to start … with comprehensive sexual education for boys and girls.”