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tv   Maximum Drama  MSNBC  December 9, 2012 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

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hear it when i do retire. i'll be known as the batman stopper. >> and as lenny pulls away, officer borgea has a moment to share a laugh with his dispatcher. >> good night. good night, alice. now on maximum drama, our sunday feature. >> it just doesn't make sense, and i'm telling you now, i think he's a liar. >> i didn't do nothing.
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i swear to god. >> you look at him. i'm telling you i think you're a liar. and you're going to prove it to me. >> i didn't do nothing. i didn't do nothing to him. >> the most difficult part of this case we knew we had going into it was the fact that there was a written statement and that there was a videotape. >> nobody wants to remember this, man. if i wanted that, i would press that memory, too. >> and the videotape had adrian demonstrating certain things involving his child. >> could have done this, walked around and boom, into a wall. said [ bleep ]. >> to me it's probably was the most critical single piece of evidence in this trial. >> you can be thinking i don't know what to do. i can't take the pressure anymore. it's building. it's building. i haven't had a job since february. hey, come on in here and settle this baby down because i can't do it. that's not intentional. >> i know the circumstances under which confessions are typically obtained. start thinking about them kids crying all day and all night. your mother-in-law and your wife calling you a loser.
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>> i've been doing this long enough to know that there's a fairly high incident of false confessions. >> and let that aggression build up and show you how you threw matthew on your bed. >> to our case to physically have the defendant throwing a binder as if it was his son -- >> don't try to shugar coat it and make it like it wasn't that bad -- >> i knew that this was important evidence. >> show me how hard you threw him on that bed. >> hi. i'm jeff rossen. would you ever admit to a horrible crime you didn't commit? before you say no, consider this. the innocence project recently looked at more than 300 cases where convictions were overturned by dna evidence. they found 25% had contained a false confession or statement. that, of course, means plenty of people confess to killings they didn't do.
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in this hour on "maximum drama" we take you beyond speculation for a rare look inside the interrogation room as detectives deploy a variety of tactics to obtain a confession from a man they suspect of killing his own child. is it interrogation 101 or unjust manipulation? you be the judge as we present scenes of a crime. >> where you from? >> from the south. >> georgia? >> yeah. from the south. >> we knew that there was an injury to a child, and we didn't know how it occurred. and we know there was six other children. and we didn't want anything to happen to them either. so child protective decided that they were going to take them children. >> part of our role was to standby while they removed the six children from the home to make sure there was no problems with that, and we also wanted to talk to adrian about what would happen to matthew. >> we called the chief of detective, and the chief said if you're going to talk to him, i
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would like you to bring him to the station and talk to him on video. the room is a 9 by 5 shell. it's got a desk on it. there's a little tiny antenna sticking out of the ceiling. you would know know it's there unless we told you it was there. when we started within the interview, i think within a few minutes we forgot about the camera. >> it's really bad for your son. that's what the doctor says. >> swear to god, man. >> the doctor said it wasn't a kick. the doctor said it wasn't a fall. >> no, i never said -- >> he didn't really seem like his son was in the hospital on the verge of dying. he didn't really seem like he was very concerned about that. >> i believe the first person we spoke to of some authority was a doctor --. i asked him what happened and his words to me was somebody murdered this child. >> doctor edge said this was a high impact injury, similar to a motor vehicle crashing at 60 miles per hour. >> and he put his hands out, and he said it's like this, and it's a very hard hitting, quick
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stoppage. he said it doesn't happen from falling down. this happens from somebody taking somebody and slamming them into something very fast and very hard. >> do you remember anything in the last days or week that anything happened? you said the baby's been sick. the baby has been crying a lot. >> it was. it progressed over friday and saturday. i did tell you that. i'm not lying to you guys. >> we started to think that hade reeian thomas had done something to child. it was definitely our main focus. >> i don't think you would do it on purpose. i don't think you would. i don't think anybody would hurt a baby on purpose. who would hurt a baby on purpose. >> that's what i'm saying, though. >> i didn't say you did it on purpose. i didn't say anybody did it on purpose. this is an accident. >> when we're speaking to you, we're of course lying. we want you to tell us the truth. we're going to say anything we can to get you to them the the truth. here's your out. could it have happened that you dropped the baby and the the baby's head hit the back of if crib? anybody could have done that. adrian would say, well, that
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kind of looks intentional. we were trying to explain to him, no, that wouldn't be intentional. that's what a father of six people could have done because he's exhausted. >> i never dropped no baby. i would know if i dropped a baby. i would know if i dropped a baby. >> i never walk with a baby like that in my arm like a football. >> who could have done this? you tell me. we need to keep taking steps and figure out how this could have happened in your care. because as far as the other car hitting matthew in the head. >> no. i never said that. >> yeah, but i could have bumped him going into the crib. no lie. >> i wasn't certain that what he had told me at that point had caused the injury, and i wasn't certain that i was going to get the information at that point. normally when we take a statement from somebody, we write the statements and we'll have them read it over and sign
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the statement. we about to get something on paper. so what that did is lock him into this is the way it could have happened. >> and none of those examples held water to what the doctor said at all in the medical center. >> i can't imagine how must feel, you know. >> i feel like jumping off a bridge, man. >> the you think you need to talk to somebody about that, question get you help for that, too. >> at that point, we had to say maybe we should send him up to a professional because he did make the comment that he wanted to hurt himself. >> >> what do you want to do tonight? >> i want to speak to somebody. because i feel real bad. >> we're going to bring you up there. >> i feel bad, man. i feel bad, you know. >> he slept approximately an hour and a half.
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here we have a man who is subject to this overwhelming, catastrophic stress, without sleep, depressed, has a baby still, in his mind, in the hospital, at death's door. >> he didn't see seem surprised to see us when he came out. he appeared to be pretty much in the same condition as he was the night before when we first met him. >> i can't imagine how you felt. haven't worked since what, february? sitting in your house every day since february with seven kids. your wife calling and saying why ain't you got a job yet? you are so close, man. you are so close to making this right. it's right here in the front of your head. you want to do the right thing. what's holding you back? what's holding you back? are you thinking you're getting in trouble for this? i'm a man of my word. i'm not a liar. when i told you i'm not going to arrest you tonight, i'm holding to that. i'm not going to arrest you tonight.
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you admitted to some stuff tonight that if i wanted to arrest you on, i could. i don't want to arrest you on this. i want you to get help. >> all detectives have different strengths. some people want to interview someone, but an hour and a half into it, they're done and their mind just isn't in the game anymore. i'm actually someone who i can interview someone for hours and hours and hours. >> you already admitted that you would cause these injuries. adri adrian, did you or did you not cause the injuries? you did. did you mean to cause the injuries? >> no. >> so when you dropped the baby in the crib, was it intentional? it was an accident. >> it was an accident. >> when you threw the baby on the bed, was it intentional or was it an accident? >> it was an accident. >> so you threw the baby on the bed? why didn't you thell me that, then? you're lying to me. you're lying to me. >> you said it's intentional. >> here. hold that like you hold a baby.
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turn around. look at me. now here's a bed right here. start thinking about them kids crying all day and all night. your mother-in-law nagging you and your wife calling you a loser and let that aggression build up and show me how you threw matthew on your bed. don't try to shug sugar coat it and make it like it wasn't that bad. show me how hard you threw him on that bed. that's how you did it? >> it was never intentional. >> all three times you did it just like that? >> yes. >> the police tactics were something that we were concerned about. there was some trickery and deceit. that didn't trouble me professionally because i know the law tolerates that. the law allows it. it's a generally accepted interviewing technique. try running four. fortunately we've got ink.
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my solemn promise, and i haven't lied to you yet tonight, when we're done with you we're bringing you home. >> the police being dishonest, that was certainly a concern in our in our mind. how was the jury going to view the confession? were they going to maybe give less credit to the confession of adrian thomas after this? >> he's a good boy. he's gentle. he's easy. everyone at home knows he's a good boy. i know he didn't do what they said he did. >> adrian wrote a lengthy statement detailing what happened before and after the infant's death. in it he admits to violently throwing the 4-month-old into the crib. >> we dispute and we dispute now that adrian thomas caused the death of that boy. >> after determining this was a case where we needed to hire an expert in false confessions,
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immediately the name of doctor -- had been involved. >> i study interrogations as they occur in the u.s. and i study them from miami, florida, to beryl, alaska. and that became my principle area of work and has been for the last 25 years. this one is particularly ugly, but it's only the shade of ugliness that differentiates it from lots of others that i've seen. >> myself personally when i hear of an interrogation of a suspect, to me that brings me back to the old cop days on tv where somebody has a white light hanging over your head and they're asking you point-blank questions that you better answer. police interrogation in this country has been transformed over the last 80, 90 years. there was a time when the principal method that police used to overcome resistance was called the third degree. and that literally meant beating a confession out of a suspect. the supreme court handed down cases making it quite clear that
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the torturous practices that went into third degree had been and remained unacceptable in america. and this ultimately forced police to find a new way to interrogate. >> through extended research and years of experience, john reid and associates has developed a nine step interrogation process. these nine steps are as falls. step number one, the positive confrontation. >> we've been to interview and interrogation schools and how to get confessions. i went to this that one. it was a two day course. but you still have to be able to talk to people. and me and adam work well together. i think we both could talk to people. we go with the flow and make things up as we go along. >> a did a seminar a few years back and pick up pointers here and there, but to be honest with you, i don't plan ahead of time for what my approach is going to be. i just do it. >> the heart of the method is to put somebody in a position in
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which they're given a choice between two alternatives. one is much worse than the other. so in developing that choice, they do what some people call minimizing. they use soft language. they describe what happened in the least offensive terms. they also will suggest that there's a reason for why this happened. >> when things happen in bars, they're not planned. what they are is they're spur of the moment. somebody goes in and they have a couple too many cocktails, next thing you know somebody makes a wisecrack and bam, something happens. >> somebody is going to look hat this baby with a fracture in the skull and look at you and say he didn't tell you you had an accident? he did it on purpose. >> why would i do that? >> the way this interrogation goes, the creating of the sense that i don't have any power, i
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have all the power, is by the interrogator introducing an evidence ploy. an evidence ploy is any statement which if it were true would link the person to the crime. >> there's a fracture on the back of his skull, okay, and that's not something that happens -- it just doesn't happen without someone being involved and knowing that it happened, you follow me? >> yeah, but i never -- >> so however it happened, somebody knows. >> the interrogator will suggest a scenario for the crime and also make it clear that if this is the way it happened, you can go home at the end of the day. >> if you tell us that accidentally you caused this injury last night or the night before, we're still going to drive you home tonight. we ain't arresting you home tonight. we're still going to drive you home. >> that's the magic word and he keeps putting in. and it was an accident, and it was an accident, and it was an accident. >> do you think if this
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accidentally caused the injury, that we're going to arrest you? do you think that? yes or no? >> i'm telling you we can't. >> we can't lie you to you habit something like that. if we lie to you you can use that against us. >> you know the difference saying i hate this baby, i want to kill this baby and throwing it on the ground and saying, i'm frustrated. i got kids crying all day. i haven't worked in seven months. this baby won't start crying. >> that sounds like a good court case, but i didn't do it. >> and if you didn't do it, maybe that's how it happened with your wife. did she tell you something about that? >> no. >> the next move is to say there are only two adults in the house when the child was injured. if it wasn't you, it was your wife. >> this accident was caused by either you or your wife or some adult. she says sometimes you -- >> i never did it. >> never. >> we'll do whatever we have to do to get him. we'll tell them that it happened to our brother. we'll tell them that our own child did this just so we can get them to tell us the truth.
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>> who could have taken the baby and done this? who could have done it? grabbed the baby by the shoulders, smacked him down so it fractured the back of the baby's skull. holding the baby over the kitchen counter and dropping it on the kitchen floor. >> or the kitchen table. >> in you didn't accidentally harm your child, then your wife did. all right? then your wife did. >> i'll tell you what, my wife is a good wife. i have a good wife. i'm not going to lie to you. i don't believe my wife did that. i have no idea that my wife did that. you know what i'm saying. if it comes down to it, i'll take the blame for it. listen. i didn't do it. but if it comes down to it, i'll take the wrap for my wife so she won't go to jail. >> we explained if he's saying he didn't do it, his wife must have done it. and we said that to him hoping to get a rise out of him. he hadn't risen at all. >> i'm saying i will take the
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fall for my wife because i got a good wife. i didn't do it. >> you can't just say i got to take the fall for my wife. you have to say how it happened. >> i don't know what happened. >> then you can'tic that the fall. >> but adrian can't tell them what happened. and they don't seem surprised by that. they display nothing that suggests that they have any understanding that you can coerce a false confession from someone who is ignorant about the crime but you can't get blood from a stone. >> i really believe my wife didn't do that. i know for a fact i didn't do it. maybe it could have happened in my care, possibly. >> and that's when adrian finally came around a little bit and took what we had given him. he said well maybe the baby did fall and bang his head. >> he was crying. i did bump his head putting him in the crib and at the same time he was crying so i picked him back up. >> you think you bumped his head
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hard enough to cause the injury? >> i might have. if you can get the person to say, well i might have held him a little hard because you're suggesting that and you're structuring that as a way out, you've now found a crack in the wall. >> we want to talk with you again tomorrow to see if we can jar any nerms. >> if you can find that crack in the wall, you can stick something in it and bang on it and widen the crack and try to develop it. >> is that all right? talk to you again tomorrow? >>. >> yeah, yeah. talk to you tomorrow too. i ain't about to skip town or nothing. what i'm saying is i didn't do anything wrong. >> i don't think you did anything wrong either. who gets n and then treats day after day... block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn.
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the child has no signs of any bruising. >> and you have a doctor running down the haul saying this child had been murdered. this child has been murdered. is that science or zel tri? >> i'm not sure the doctor said there's a skull fracture, but he may say it appears or we believe and in fact the next day it was determined there was no skull fracture. so that was somewhat troubling because it gave ammunition to the defense to challenge the accuracy of the prosecution medical testimony. >> this is how i defend criminal cases. i try to figure out what really happened. so i picked up the phone and i called dr. leesma, who was a pathologist with evident credentials. >> i guess i need to define pathology. the study of human disease. how it works.
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what it looks like under the mic mic microscope, how it does its dirty business. so i looked at it and said, look at this. there was obviously an infection present. i was very interested to see what if any organisms could be found in these specific areas, and that requires a specific stain. and that enabled me then to say yes, these infected areas are loaded with bacterial form. the nature of the infection, its extent and so forth could be life threatening. it's a cause of death right there. >> i did a little research and found out who was the man, the physician of pediatric infectious diseases and that dr. jerome klein of boston. a world class expert on pediatrpai pediatric and infectious diseases. >> there's no doubt in my mind that this child died because of overwhelming spesis. that's a clinical term to imply
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a systemic infection. the history provided by the mother was that the child had been ill for a couple of days with vomiting, diarrhea, but on the morning of september 21st, the mom had observed the baby at 6:00 and 8:00 there appeared to be respiratory distress, and she called the emts. when the child was first seen at samaritan hospital and the differential diagnosis, sepsis was prominent. and the appropriate steps were taken. the child was started on appropriate intravenous antibiotics. when the child was transferred to albany medical center, the physician's focus changed from infection to child abuse. unfortunately in matthew's case, he proceeded to deteriorate. he dropped his blood pressure with a very low white blood cell count of a thousand. decreased clotting mechanisms,
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failure to maintain stable of temperature. failure to maintain oxygen saturations, all reflections of overwhelming infection. sepsis and septic shock. nf in fact, the blood culture taken at the hospital in the early morning hours of december 21st revealed the child had died. >> this is jerome klein. he's published 967 pieces on infectious diseases. he's the man. dr. sikirika of the county, there isn't one report of sepsis in his autopsy report. >> i think some will bring their own bias to the facts. but the biology disease is based on factual information. we have information that the
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bone marrow was suppressed. and it could be only suppressed by overwhelming sepsis. >> once the allegation of abuse or possibility of abuse comes in, it kind of whites out everything else. and i think that happened in this case. it happens frequently. >> the doctors for whatever reason suspected that abuse was going on at this point. and matthew was sent for a ct scan. >> in looking at the ct images of this child's brain, there is a gap, an inch maybe between the surface of the brain and the undersurface of the skull, and that is moderately black appearing there. that would indicate that that is more water than anything else. if you have a collection of blood, like a stroke or a hematoma or something like that, it's going to be white for a while. as it ages and is healed in process, it becomes grayer and grayer and grayer.
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and it was those things that one could see on the ct scans on this child. there are more chronic processes going on, probably many weeks, maybe many months old. >> i can't say what happened. i wasn't there. i don't know how the older head injury got there. i don't believe anyone knows how the older head injury got there. >> what was the birth like? the circumstances of birth. okay, we look into the medical record. born early. one of twins. some difficulties surrounding the birth. bacterial infection in the mother. membranes were broken early. a lot of forceps used and things trying to extract the children. the list goes on and on, meaning this poor kid is struggling. the birth is hard enough anyway, let alone when you have all of these particular problems, which can start bleeding going in the brain that maybe doesn't show itself for several months. and i think that's exactly what happened to this child. >> starting with doctor edge, he
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essentially goes in there with a theory. a conclusion. okay. based on nothing. communicated in very, very highly emotional terms, to sergeant who communicates it to detective mason and we're off and running. with nothing but a conclusion. and because adrian thomas adopts sergeant mason's scenario and throws a notebook on the floor. they should be ashamed of themes. i'm sorry. [ female announcer ] think you need to go to a department store counter
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i'm milissa rehberger. here's what's happening. president obama is praising special forces after a rescue mission in afghanistan that left a u.s. navy s.e.a.l. dead. the unidentified soldier was part of a team that saved an american doctor held by the taliban. the wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying singing star jenni rivera was
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found with no survivors. contact from the plane was lost after ten minutes. we live in a country that when people involved in the criminal justice system charged with seeking and anded a moring justice sometimes seem to not care much about it. >> fractured the back of his skull, guess what, that ain't true. he doesn't have a fracture on his skull. his skull is okay. >> i went back to albany medical center and i actually spoke with dr. edge and took a deposition from him, and i was informed that the original diagnosis of a skull fracture was actually not true. >> it's too bad the police didn't take a step back, now that they knew there was no
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fracture. let's take a step back and look at the situation. let's see what is really going on before we rush to judgment about adrian. it's too bad that didn't take plac place. >> come here. let's say a prayer. >> we have a man here who had never spent time in jail, has no criminal history, who had been through a series of really tragic things in a short period of time. i guess the best way to drim him is sort of a deer in headlights. >> to help us with a miracle in helping matthew get through tough times. >> and there are desperate measures to get a statement. and they resort to so many offensive lies, telling him the doctors are pushing us for information. basically saying anything he could do or say is save the boy's life when they already know the boy is going to die. >> these doctors are geniuses,
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man. they have the ability to keep your son alive. do you want your son alive? you're going to help keep him alive? >> i knew there was no chance at saving matthew's life, but i didn't feel bad about telling ai adrian that? >> did you shake him? >> no. >> you want to save your baby's life? >> they're planting seeds hoping that something will catch with adrian. >> you got to find that memory. >> we don't care about finding out the truth. >> if you can't find the memory and the doctors can't save your son's life, then what kind of future are you going to have? >> i'm ohours into the intervie and at this point i still have no idea what caused the injury. >> hold on. let me find an ashtray. >> for me to turn into the bad guy and start yelling at him, it wasn't a smart thing for me to do at that point. so there came a point when sergeant was next door watching the monitor, and i said i want you to come into the office. i want you to yell at him and
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call him a liar. that's what i told him. so i went back in, started going through the motions with the interview. >> can i talk to you for a sec? >> in here? >> and it was exactly what i was looking for sergeant culinary to do. >> i think you're a liar. and you're going to prove it to me. >> i didn't do nothing. i didn't do nothing to the baby. >> you took the baby and slammed his head. >> no, i didn't. >> the doctor said this injury was caused by rapid acceleration and sudden deceleration. >> i didn't do anything. >> he thought he was in a car accident. >> you talk to him for a while. if you need anything give me a call. >> >> don't tell me you're lying to me, man. >> i swear to god i'm not lying. that's what happened. >> after he walked out i turned it around and tried to make adrian feel bad for me because he just made me look like a fool. >> i'm embarrassed you got
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another detective walking in here and telling me you're lying to me and embarrassing me. >> i'm not. >> i just came up with that and thought that might be a good idea to get adrian realize that i am on the same level as him and he can trust me. >> maybe all this things really did happen but it's a lot worse than you're making it out to a be. a lot worse. >> they're just playing him. they're just trying to get a story from him that is even worse than the story that they have already gotten. because frankly they don't know why this baby died. >> if you were suffering depression, your mind is not in a stable frame and you don't have to think i'm going to hurt my child. you can be thinking i don't know what to do. i can't take the pressure anymore. come here settle this baby down because i can't do it. >> none of these demonstrations occurred by adrian. it was initiated and demonstrated by detective mason. >> adrian, don't mess around. stand up and show me how you
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threw that baby on the bed. >> adrian, you did it harder than that. >> he didn't like adrian's performance. adrian at that point is like a zombie. he knows he cannot leave that room until he tells the cop what he wants to hear, and once he does that he can see his wife and see his son. >> start thinking about those kids crying and nagging at you and calling you a loser. don't try to sugar coat it and make it like it wasn't that bad. show me how hard you threw him on the bed. that's how you did it? >> it was never intentional. >> once you found the buttons that you need to push. i'm going to arrest your wife. i'm going to separate your children. i'm going to take care of you if you tell a story that satisfies
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me. now you've broken them. so you tell them. i want you to stand up and reenact this, well, they'll stand up and reenact it. why? because you now control them. false confession is probably the second leading cause of miscarriages of justice. and a big part of that is because juries don't understand why an innocent person might confess. this kind of information can help a jury get to a just conclusion. uld save before i switched to progressive. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. you're not filming this, are you? aw! camera shy.
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drama." more of our story in just a moment, but first a production note. the film makers told us their rule of thumb for picking a documentary topic is to ask the simple question. will it show me something new? do you think they did it? let us know on our facebook page as we return to "scenes of a crime." >> during the course of the trial the defense calls a doctor off to the stand. we did not get any prior notice, which is pretty customary that if you're going to call an expert like that you're going to give some sort of notice because it's such a skon test contested, the false confessions. >> it's very hard for someone to understand the idea that an innocent person might give a false confession if they don't understand how interrogation works, and you can't expect somebody to understand how interrogation works just by
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watching an interrogation. >> the case was assigned to judge scorisio. he was fairly recently apointed to the bench. the court ultimately decided that they had not convinced him there should be testimony on false confession. that was not something the jury needed expert assistance in determining. that they could do it on their own. >> being denied a right to call dr. ofshe was a setback. on the other hand, we were still very confident based upon the medical evidence that we were going to win, but it's obviously a setback. the judge also said there's not an accepted field of knowledge of psychological coercion, producing false confessions. >> interrogation is a process specifically designed to bring about an admission of guilt. >> and guess what, the object of that science is to get a
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confession without any concern of whether it's true or not. >> we have to make it easy on them. we can't say, what happened? what did you do? tell me about it. >> interrogation when done properly is about getting someone to demonstrate that they have knowledge of how the crime really happened. they know details not told to them, so they're not contaminated. details that are not necessarily known to the police. >> come in here and settle this baby down because i can't do it. that's not intentional. >> everything that adrian thomas said in this case was fed to him by sergeant mason. everything. >> hicks was very cooperative with our office and also a pivotal witness at the trial in terms of being able to lay out the family dynamics. >> the police would like you to believe there was these arguments between him and his wife. he would get angry. pick up only matthew. all the kids are home.
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nobody sees anything. it's a very small apartment. 600 or 700 square feet. nobody hears anything. his wife testified she had never seen him be rough with matthew. i believe miss hicks at the time of the trial was still attempting to have returned to her custody all of her children who had been removed from the home. if she was to have any contact with him or assisted in his defense, that could impact her ability to have her children returned. >> there was definitely a long period of time when she was just getting visitation with her children. at that point in time it was important to her that justice be carried out, but it was also extremely important to her that her children being returned home to her. >> thomas testified that he took the fall for his wife saying, my wife was a good wife and i didn't want her to be arrested. he testified that his confession was a boldface lie and he wanted the detective questioning to be over. he wanted to see his wife.
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he wanted to see his son. >> he showed true emotion in the video where it was the opposite in the courtroom. you know, he had his nose up in the air, and he ignored all the evidence as they were being shown. >> adrian's appearance first in the video tape and then on the witness stand, it was like two different people. very vulnerable in the interrogation. on the witness stand, i -- some of the jurors said he appeared arrogant. >> they had testified that he wasaid he appeared arrogant. >> they had testified that he was looking for a job and i'm sitting there and i'm a human resources manager, i'm constantly looking for people. there's jobs out there. on the stande was saying that what he signed was not true and it was true because the way he acted during the actual video is -- was his real being. >> what the whole videotape seemed to me entirely that the detectives were telling adrian
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what adrian did. >> yes, they told these little lies but i don't think it was anything -- they didn't put words in his mouth. >> i was very angry at the police and the technique that they used, the lying, misrepresenting certain things, just didn't seem right at that point. >> he could have continued to deny it. if you did not hurt that baby, you would go to your grave saying, no, i didn't. >> i think after time went on, adrian finally just gave in and said, yeah. i'm not going to gave in and say that he was innocent of it, i think he finally just admitted after a prolonged time of being interrogated. but if that's what it takes -- and i guess they've done it for a long time -- then i guess that's the way to do it. >> these are alternate jurors, going home after sitting at the trial for weeks. >> i was definitely leaning towards not guilty. >> how come in. >> there was definitely too much
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reasonable doubt. >> i was only going for guilty because there was enough reasonable doubt. >> defense using medical expert after medical expert to blame infection, not the defendant. >> that also was pretty rong evidence for me as well, showing hoinfected the baby actually was with the bacteria. initiated. neural speeds increasing to 4g lte. brain upgrading to a quad-core processor. predictive intelligence with google now complete. introducing droid dna by htc. it's not an upgrade to your phone. it's an upgrade to yourself. [ sneezes ] [ sniffles ] [ female announcer ] for everything your face has to face. face it with puffs facial tissues.
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we'll get right back to scenes of a crime in just a moment but we want you to know, you can learn more about this and every documentary we run by going online to docs.msnbc.com. you'll see a schedule with video previews so you can check out any title that captures your eye. and now, the conclusion of our
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story. >> the defense table is farther from the jury than the prosecution table. i thought she said not guilty. she said it very softly. and then somebody said, guilty. i said -- [ crying ] >> adrian thomas' incon soleable finding that her sons actions were the cause of her death. >> perhaps it was a dramatic that convinced the jury, the defendants crying foul. >> we had a lot of stone hearts in that jury. it's as simple as that. >> there is some things that you can say to someone i would never confess falsely. one of the things you can say is, you don't know that. maybe you don't have any idea what an interrogation is really like and how would you behave. >> i wish we could have
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presented his testimony and let the jury decide whether the doctor had -- we never know how they would have impacted them. >> i think that would have been very insulting to us because we saw the video. you could just tell he was guilty. >> they don't realize this could be my son, this could be my brother. this could be me. you want to protect someone from impressions, humpbls, emotions, and there's nothing a lawyer can do to stop you. none of these things are evidence. that's all i can say. >> you are not going to be 100% but you've got to be close to that 100% to find him guilty and i was close enough to that 100%. is there any little doubt? well, there's always that little bit of doubt but it's not enough. it was not enough. we had to convict him.
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>> it's easy to be tricked. it's easy to sit down and talk with a police officer if you're a person who doesn't commit crime and you're a person, you can sit down and talk with them. what do you have to hide? nothing. when you're being bombarded hours -- i'm not talking 15, 20 minute. we're talking about hours with questions back to back, you know it's not the truth, i know it's not the truth. so i'm going to repeat what you're saying back to you. therefore, if you keep repeatedly telling me, i'm not going to be arrested, i'm going home tonight over and over, i figure, hey, well, let's get this over with so i can go about my business and go see my son. i'm very, very angry not just of myself for repeating for somebody else but i'm mad at detective mason. i'm mad at the other officers
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that came in. i'm mad at those three because they kept pressuring me to go in and lie. it's a traumatic experience. it's nothing that i ever experienced in my life. why lie to do your job? that would be the question. why would you have to lie to do your job? no, i didn't kill my son. no, i didn't do those things that was stated. but, yes, i don't know what happened to my son when i was telling -- sitting down with the police that night in the police station. that is the truth. that is the real truth.

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