i've heard that dozen. songs dozens of them and it wouldn't surprise me at all the three real number doesn't run into the hundreds or thousands because the same cadre of detectives that probably were two dozen of them were in place for over thirty five years. were marked on. it. with no evidence or witness statements against him on the seventh of march nine hundred ninety seven lamar monson is sentenced to fifty years of criminal imprisonment for the murder of kristina brown. only one element was used against him the confession that he signed. martin believe that this is going to be. my fish and that i would not want to be in prison on my. that's something that i wouldn't wish him off worst enemy just being

processed for you to go into a sale on the whole process of a distressed home i'm comfortable. you feel like your freedom is being siphoned away from me. and tell you one thing about them are. i think that the last time he saw his daughters they will look at the cartoons but everything he told me to do for her. in the letters and in his i did everything he do for her she never had a word for anything because the father was not around. and she was upset and angry her mother too was because them are was in here to help her train. his daughter

said they could but he had the best interests in the world for his. he just wasn't here to do it so i did it. unlike us in the world for nothing but missing of. twenty years later a single event changes the course of lamar monson's life just around the time that bill proctor the journalist who followed his case is getting ready to retire he receives a call from an unexpected witness who claims to know the real identity of christina brown's murder. two months before i retired after thirty three years in terms of that she called me on the phone it was one of the more shocking calls i'd ever taken. as an investigator and you get many but this woman said to me on the

phone. and me even if you don't remember that murder that you covered back then on boston you got it wrong. you got it wrong and i said ok i'm listening. and she explained that she was with the person who did the murder of the person in prison was not the killer that he wasn't there but she was with the man who did the killing and came back from the event dripping in blood and confessed to her that he had killed the. other garrett life. twenty years twenty plus year that and here it is and the may they. say i'm out here me.

i'm not on holiday and that. at the time of the events shalane a bentley resides in the building where the crime takes place she shares her life with her. certain mr robert louis both of them were regular crack users on the day of the crime show linda claims to have seen lewis' return from kristina brown subpart meant covered in blood. and then illegitimate t.v. . and the local m.p. thrown them out go away. with it on the. boots and it. looked like he if he is the most. males he just killed.

me. you know wrong is wrong or right is. whatever else he was charged with i feel like a thousand year he covered that with too much. i'm the one that told him that the girl was not fat she was beat they and he. know he didn't beat her. shalane a bentleys witness statement changes everything a team of lawyers and students from the university of michigan decide to reopen lamar monson's case they are part of a national network of dozens of american universities who fight against judicial errors over the course of a year they retraced the police investigation step by step trying to prove lamar monson's innocence the big problem right away with this confession was that it didn't match the crime scene so at the time they interrogated lamar and then

extracted this false confession got him asinus false confession the police believe that christina brown had been stabbed to death they believe that because near her body in the bathroom sink there was. a bloody knife and she had been stabbed so they extracted a confession or i wrote out a confession for lamar in which he says he stabbed her to death the problem was is that she wasn't stepped but the police did know that time so a few days later when the autopsy report comes out it reveals that she had superficial stab wounds but actually she'd been bludgeoned to death with a heavy object. it does not take the lawyers long to find the heavy object that allegedly killed the victim on the photos in the case file they noticed that the toilet tank lid is not in the right place. the likely murder instrument was the ceramic toilet tank with a heavy ceramic tile exactly that had blood all over it that was found in the bedroom not too far from christina brown's prints.

after this the lawyers are convinced lamar monson did not kill christina brown as such he could not have written the confession himself the team from the university of michigan then asked the judge in charge of the case for access to the objects that were present at the scene of the crime twenty years earlier. and in september two thousand and sixteen two students and i went to the to the prosecutor's office where the toilet was brought there and it was unwrapped and it was still covered in blood and amazingly not only was it covered in blood but there were bloody fingerprints all over it nobody had ever bothered to test and so this is student you know saying dave look there's a bloody fingerprint right there and i so i whipped out my i phone and i took photos of some of the bloody fingerprints on my i phone. and then brought them back

and blew them up and we could see that they weren't we had comparison samples that are and they look a lot like robert louis his fingerprints. this can state police have new technology and they found nothing. and all of them belonged to robert louis and none of them belonged to lamar months and i was ecstatic because i know the power of forensic testimony improves vs what someone might say because one is irrefutable the other can always be cut down by a nasty prosecutor. he couldn't do anything with this you should have seen the prosecutors struggle to answer the forensics that came from no less than the miss against a police crime lab. it was powerful stuff and it was

a day for celebration. in the northern. plains. weening decline. in your real thanks to this new evidence more monson is granted a new trial in january two thousand and seventeen after a one day hearing the court decides to exonerate lamar monson. surreal for me because these things i've been playing and asked and seeing things develop in before my eyes witness come for five to twelve years evidence. despite filler venda kate it in my spirit you know and i'm feeling good. i know the truth and now everybody knows the truth and so that was a blessing you know people still back me. feel good for them because now people know that they still. me and they were right to do so. lamar

munson is out on bond and heads right over to his family and supporters at the wayne county jail. and i prayed and i prayed. and i asked. please let me live seen lamar come. in with february first. twenty seventeen and i was there and he was released. on holiday in credit. and i credit my son is free at last. i just knew was a call to ask you for something being we've been waiting on something we've been up to supply for the longest on the file you came and. i can only get the glory to go does the field your mom always say she was in waiting to get that to hold your mom

right now it's all about that emotion and all this anger words to express is one of been a mark on all my life a lot more life and i'm just glad she finally got some help to be happy about. oh it's a wonderful feeling. i've had now. twenty two of these cases all together seventeen since we started six i think and i had five before and it's never gets old. is it's so wonderful when the person actually comes out of the door and they're met by their family and friends and. the students who work on the case to work on the case. you know world of big partners. lot and conspiracy it's talking. to wait

to dig deeper to hit the stories that made history media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell the same stories. were going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either there are already several generations of them so i just got this memo from the circulating branches off that says we're going to attack and destroy the government and seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with their money others with their lives if we were willing to go into harm's way

and willing to risk being killed for a war then surely we can risk some discomfort or uneasiness for. monson's name is cleared for good. robert lewis the man whose fingerprints were found at the scene has to this day still not been indicted. you have his ex-girlfriend saying he did it and then all the people in the world whose fingerprints could be on that toilet in blood it's him that's pretty good evidence i mean that's that's a case where i think the the dumbest prosecutor. the world would get when

a conviction pretty easily. but. they made it clear they're not going to charge it because charging him would be admitting that they got it wrong with them armand's. christina brows been dead now for twenty two years but she still deserves justice and her family still deserves justice and they won't get it because the prosecution to stop or. feel free want to know well and they know that he's guilty so what does that tell you about the system. system don't care about me about my. i'm a taxpayer i've lived in this city in this world over fifty years. they don't care . all they want to do is get away and people. that try to keep families

together at separate are it doesn't matter. the country is untrue. we live with certain notions of justice. of what the last word we all believe in our hearts. that the person really responsible for something as in this is the murder of a twelve year old girl should answer for that crime. yet over and over and over again. i have been party to evaluating cases where there are innocents claims and the person responsible is known and named in the current police report with the made the mistake does nothing to go back and capture and charge the person who was really responsible because it's difficult. because it takes extra work because

it takes new witnesses because it takes a harder examination of what really happened and that examination would show that the initial group of police investigators that only failed but walked away from certain facts they didn't finish. can you put a price on twenty years spent behind bars for a crime he did not commit. this man received a figure and the subsequent compensation of twenty million dollars. one rivera has just received twenty million dollars twenty million dollars for

twenty years of imprisonment for a crime he did not commit one rivera was also forced to sign a confession. in one nine hundred ninety seven he confessed to the rape and murder of an eleven year old girl. attorneys that i've seen decided to you know settle i would as i was asked by the news media you know is the twenty million that is enough and i'll tell you as i tell them you know when you keep talking in my twenty years back i miss my son he's. a minister my nieces and nephews. mother was at the time my father was i'm lost my grandparents you know there's a lot of things that i miss and is family. that i can never get back no matter how much money i get you know they can offer me a hundred million dollars when they come from yes he has given me confidence and

they. i think given my years back it doesn't give me the news that i've lost the memories that often lost i mean to this day if you ask my parents for any of my childhood photos she would say she has them because the court has them another three trials and so i'm going to try nordstrom is the one new photos she will just show you humans. i don't have no records of my upbringing because they took. my life started january sixth two thousand and twelve that's when my life started that's when i have a record of who i am. surrounded by family members and cameras want ribeiro walked out of state bill correctional center a free man all i want to do is enjoy my time with my family but it's been twenty years of separation and this is a new beginning for me so this may be one of those. not a few last months. turned to fiction that added to the water.

twenty million dollars is not enough it never will be enough nor any amount because again is the memories that mean the. not the money. one rivera is barely nineteen years old when his life turns into a nightmare on the seventeenth of august one thousand nine hundred two the chicago police force accuses him of the rape and murder of holly staker an eleven year old babysitter who was stabbed twenty seven times the case makes headlines across the country. in the space of a few hours the chicago police turns one into a publicly hated monster. i had a different sentence that's because then yes i was an innocent person going to prison is a natural a sense as for something that is new so that was this added bonus to my him going

into prison first of all i'm going to an environment that is a nexus of unknown and very very scary. second i'm going into for murder. her. name for eleven years so as if they got three strikes against him in prison and i'm like ok. but if they do i got them twice when i was in prison. to its embrace on me of course i had to fight them off thank god then i defied them off. in prison records this is what ads were doing when i was interesting. rivera was not far from being sent to the electric chair these years of violence in prison these years spent on the margins of society have forever destroyed his trust in others and in the system. for me to hear at that time

they were willing to kill in one thousand year old kid and understand what the hell was going on shows you the character of mankind you know i'm. to this day i still have difficulties in trust because he was willing to kill me then i miss him i'm not willing to kill me now when i get death threats. are going to live my life by smiling and watching my back because people still want to hurt me used in that i know that because they doing to me constantly while i'm walking in the streets and i get in the branches the general approach is that you know what i have a chance to kill you i would because you don't deserve to be alive i feel free when i still think you killed that child so this is what i had to live with but still yet i got to smile. in two thousand and fifteen when the results of d.n.a. analyses allowed want to be exonerated for good polly staker is

a real killer still roams free and no police officer seems to be searching for him out of the twenty million dollars that one rivera received two million dollars were paid in by reed following a legal agreement in spite of this compensation not a single police officer has been personally sanctioned. all the officers. that worked in my case as well it's attorneys if all retired with pension pension there was no repercussions no richard vision no criminal charges nothing i see exceeded into job they need to hire and major tenants to his is very much want to retire and they gave him a plaque for good job. there's a culture of. unaccountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with solving their crime

and everything to do with. pointing the finger at perhaps the easiest person to point the finger at and there will be no consequence and so it happens over and over and over again states. oh yeah it goes a victim. having closed idea is still only big for me i might get credit when i have credibility but what about her family do they even care no they're not even searching for the person they get these that are and because they thought in the still feel that i'm guilty. in this theory our criminal justice system is designed to correctly identify perpetrators and bring them to justice where fails and where fails because of misconduct the reaction of the criminal justice system is really the opposite of

what it should be the criminal justice system tries to cover up the failure. retain its legitimacy instead of admitting its mistakes and finding the real perpetrators the law gives police officers what is called qualified immunity for their actions which means it's very difficult to sue their after the fact for their roles in obtaining false confessions and prosecutors have what's called absolute immunity. so unless they become part of the police investigative process. they are not going to be held responsible for their role in wrongful convictions. no one should be above the law. and police officers themselves should not be above the law. reed has not responded to any of our interview requests however the firm has

informed us that their training procedures now take the risk of false confessions into account. for its part the supreme court of the united states still allows police officers to lie during the interrogation stage. i mean we're asking a couple of these guys depositions why they thought telling a lie was going to get the truth and they didn't have an answer for me they just said well that's what we do that's the way interrogations go or allowed to lie to them and i would again ask them why do you think lying to someone is going to get a truthful answer in response and they just couldn't answer it and i for the life of me i don't understand why someone would think that lying to someone is going to get a truth response back so it's a horrible practice that that goes on all the time and in the us it's just it doesn't really serve it doesn't serve justice at all.

what state does the american judicial system find itself in today with corrupt cops and untouchable magistrates the american justice system is continuously producing more inequalities and more impunity in a country that is more divided than ever. yes

. they're bred for a single purpose. they have a superman. they start training very young. eight months of intensive school. rats. and they save lives. but politicians to do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or

rejected. so when you want to be president i'm sure. most somewhat want. to do like to be for us that's what before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of how. things should. when i came back from iraq out oh marijuana her was cocaine methamphetamine see anything that's altering trying to get us out. that bad mindset using a chemical that would be self medicating. i want to be dream kenyan drink emo new just killing myself. out the whole links drink to get drunk alcoholics drink to feel normal. that's why it's this way drug addicts do what they do

shop well so for the next. star cool under which these guys are going through to get it just me. to. these need to be. pushed on by the v.a. . they need to be built. and really shouldn't be looked at like numbers they should be looked at like people if they go to a veteran it should be someone who really needs attention.

a new scandal erupts over the two thousand and seventeen state election in alabama democrats are accused of falsely. i. women in paris hold a yellow vest demonstration ending in another weekend of clashes with police. and the government's contingency plan for a no deal drawl ridicule. they staged a traffic jam near the port of.