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Well. And welcome. There it is. That's what we're looking for. To my favorite murder.
00:01:55
And it all falls apart. To my favorite. to my favorite murder. Murder. That's Karen Kilgareth.
00:02:00
That is Georgia Hardstark. Hi. Hi. Hi. How are you? Good. How are you? I have a tension in my neck shoulder.
00:02:11
And so sometimes I can't lift my arm. And then sometimes I do lift my arm anyway.
00:02:15
And it makes a popping sound. You know, lifting your arm is like math. You never use it in your adult life.
00:02:21
Right. That's the thing. Is you do not need your shoulders. You do not need to lift your arm.
00:02:27
You're not at a concert. You're not going to a concert. You're not fucking hailing a cab.
00:02:32
I was told to put my hands in the air like I don't care, and I don't care. So I just needed to indicate it.
00:02:39
Yeah, if free bird comes on, you can hold your lighter up with your other hand. You don't need...
00:02:43
Like, clack, click. Yeah. What's up with the mini trampoline behind you? Oh, that's for clearing my lymphatic system.
00:02:52
Remember long ago when we were in Sweden and we got Swedish massages on my birthday?
00:02:56
Yes. Because that's somehow the life we're leading now. So ridiculous. Quick update.
00:03:02
In our lives, we've done that. Remember how we used to tour in Europe? So the second my Swedish massage therapist looked at me, she was like, you need lymphatic drainage from the doorway.
00:03:16
And that's a really good way to do it. Oh, I didn't know that. I've bought like three of those mini trampolines in my life doing that.
00:03:23
I'm going to trampoline as a hot as an exercise. And but I've done it in studio apartments.
00:03:29
So after two months, if I haven't used it, I get rid of them or like give it to, you know, Goodwill or whatever.
00:03:34
So this I'm going to buy when I know it. So it's going to be my like fourth. You know, what's interesting, too, is it is harder than you think.
00:03:43
The second you start, you're like, oh, what the hell? Like you really are doing something.
00:03:48
Yes. And you can do like, yes, 100% trampoline. It's cool. It's our new book club. Is everyone
00:03:52
going to trampoline? Mini trampoline. We're all going to start working out on the trampoline.
00:03:58
Let's do it. We'll report back about it. Then we'll act like we never started it.
00:04:02
Don't worry about it. We're here for you every week. Give it away to charity and you're done with it.
00:04:06
And give it away. The end. What have you been up to besides pushing you out a mini trampoline?
00:04:13
Let's see. I can tell you that I listened. You text me over the weekend. You have to listen to these episodes of our still favorite podcast. This is actually happening. We're like spokesmodels for this podcast, but it's worth it's so good. And there's just so many. So the one that I listened to was what if you refuse to be annihilated? Right. Episode 123.
00:04:34
three. My God, it's so perfect. Every word she was saying, I was just like, I love her. She's
00:04:43
what's happening. The quote is possible. The quote in the episode notes that she says is I
00:04:48
believe that people like me that have experienced trauma, I think were the ones that need to save
00:04:52
the world. We're the ones that actually know everything about innocence. That made me feel
00:04:57
so many feels as someone who always felt a little broken because I did and went through so much as
00:05:03
a young person and made so many mistakes. I felt like I wasn't allowed to be involved and have
00:05:10
good things. And like, I already spent all my shit. I spent my karma. I spent my good vibes.
00:05:17
Yeah. And that was just like, no, no, no, you went through that shit. And so now you have a
00:05:20
better understanding of it. You are now you, you, that experience is what graduated you into
00:05:27
humanity, into the brotherhood of human beings. That's how we're connected. That's what we have
00:05:34
in common is shame, that hideous cringe where you're like, it's just me and I'm bad. Every
00:05:42
person has it. That's the thing. And that's the thing that I think makes empathy. It has to be a
00:05:48
choice. And it's hard is because you have to acknowledge your own before you can go, oh,
00:05:53
I now see it in you Now I get it I get what going on with you And it doesn make me a broken person Well so the woman who is you know the subject of that subject episode Renee Denfeld So now I downloaded her her book because she of course came a writer which is part of the narrative called The Child Finder
00:06:09
And I'm so I'm just completely enmeshed. I'm so into it. And that's her second book, The Child Finder, because there's a couple books.
00:06:17
Her first book. She immediately got all these awards. Yeah. Like she is. You have to hear this story, you guys.
00:06:23
it's what a great podcast. Yes. Such a great feeling. So that's what I'm doing. What are you doing?
00:06:28
Nice. I just started. I realized I have a thing where I really need a series to be in the middle of.
00:06:35
Yes. Because when I finish a series, I get a little dip. Now I'm lost. There's like a big void between series where it's like, what are you doing?
00:06:44
Nothing. Then you search. And like if you try to start one and it doesn't work, it's like it's like going on a bad date
00:06:51
where you're like, I'm bad. I guess I'm the one. I give up for now. So I hooked into a new one.
00:06:57
And it is. I've heard. I heard people talk about it on Twitter. It's the one. A while ago.
00:07:01
Vince and I are. I forgot until you said this. Is it. I may destroy you. No. But I heard that.
00:07:06
That's incredible. The HBO series. We're there. It has to happen. It's on. It's on.
00:07:11
You will love it. It's. I can't believe it. That seems like right up your alley.
00:07:15
Yes. And I know what it was. I had been kind of going to what I knew worked for me, which was.
00:07:21
Scandinavian procedurals. Real specific. I'm insane. But it really, they did something
00:07:29
exact for me that I was like, no, I just want this. It's like when you just want to eat
00:07:33
the one dish over and over kind of thing. And then the other day, like the last one,
00:07:37
the Beforeiners that I loved so much it was over. And I was kind of just like, well, I might as well, because
00:07:43
The Foreigners was on an HBO series, HBO Europe. So I was like, well, I'll just go tried and true. We know
00:07:49
HBO, they make hits. That's what they do. And there was I May Destroy You. And I remembered so many people going like, this is so good. And just right away, I was like, I love her. I want to be friends with her. I have been this girl like it is really great. And but also completely not. And the fact that it's her, you know, her real experience. It's her life. It's not.
00:08:14
an actress they hired. It's really impressive. She's a really cool, impressive... It's fascinating.
00:08:24
We're all going to do it. What is it? I might destroy you? I may destroy you. In a completely different realm
00:08:32
of life and being, Vince and I have watched the first one as a joke and then are fucking in it.
00:08:40
Cobra Kai on fucking Netflix. it's like yes it's like the it's like karate kid that we all know and love if you guys haven't
00:08:49
watched the original karate kid watch it it's the two of them grown up and fight and fucking
00:08:55
fighting their adult battles ratch ralph macchio and the blonde mean guy that was the blonde mean
00:09:00
guy in every 80s movie yes it's them as grown-ups and like they keep like when they're like remembering
00:09:07
things from their childhood they actually flash back to the fucking movie they're able to be like
00:09:11
it's so good and weird and cobra kai i'm writing it down i recommend it but you got to watch uh
00:09:20
karate kid first yes if you haven't seen it you won't get it yeah karate kid which has one of the
00:09:25
greatest halloween costumes ever it's in the new one it's fucking featured oh really yes it's so
00:09:31
good like this one sun isn't getting a lot like it's almost like 90210 and it's like cheesy drama
00:09:36
but then it gets so good in like understanding of the human condition and like, you know,
00:09:42
and love and family. And it's so good. Oh my God. I haven't even heard of it. I didn't know.
00:09:50
Although I did, I saw an article about, about Ralph Macchio, you know, a couple of weeks ago,
00:09:55
but I think because for not, not like spending so much time on social media, I just thought it was like,
00:10:02
we're digging in the past because we need to write stories about something. and so I love that it's
00:10:07
obviously those actors they look the same Billy is the blonde guy's name Billy? Billy Zabka
00:10:15
Zabka thank you 80s brain it's just a great cast too everyone's like just so good
00:10:22
and such a good idea yeah it's such a good idea there's a lot of corny bits of it but it's really
00:10:29
it's touching too I love corn so really quick before we get into the details of this episode, we want to quickly let you guys know that we have heard you and we have
00:10:41
responded to you. As we love to do. As we love to do by putting out fuck you, I'm single sweatpants.
00:10:49
Yes. They are in the shop, myfavoritmurder.com in the store. And I think we have now married, divorced and single.
00:10:58
Right? Yeah. What more do we need? Widow? Well, we should definitely make fuck you, I'm other or just like a blank line.
00:11:05
You can write it in with a Sharpie. Yeah. So we're excited because we're doing a special show.
00:11:10
A special. What do we call these, Georgia? An episode? God damn you. Interview? Conversations with?
00:11:22
Conversations with. And then it's us, right? Because we're always in it. Conversations with Karen and Georgia.
00:11:27
and then a third party right we can't i can't i have to make sure people understand that i'm in
00:11:35
this too um conversations with yeah ellipse ellipses question mark in parentheses um smiley
00:11:43
face yes so uh some of you may have seen this go down on social media we'll get into the actual
00:11:49
discussion of it but david rudolph reached out to us and basically he the uh the defense lawyer from the foundational documentary series The Saircase That right Which is basically how we bonded the first time we ever met
00:12:06
They're not met, but the first time we actually, I think, became friends was at a Halloween party.
00:12:12
And we just started talking about The Staircase. I think it had just come on. We were both obsessed with it.
00:12:17
Theories abound. I changed my mind about my conclusion multiple times that night, as I want to do.
00:12:23
We've discussed it ad nauseum. We have talked about guilt and innocence ad nauseum, as you know. So when I first got this tweet sent to me, it was a little bit scary. It was it felt like it could potentially be confrontational. And then I realized I doubt it is. So yeah, we reached out and you'll hear everything else because we talk about all of it in this interview.
00:12:50
So it's really special. We hope you guys like it. We had such a blast talking to David and Sonia, like such incredible, brilliant people.
00:13:00
Yeah. So please enjoy our conversation with David Rudolph and Sonia Pfeiffer of the Abusive Power podcast.
00:13:08
OK, so this is a very exciting, special episode that we are doing today. So we'll give you a little background on on how we got here.
00:13:19
Georgia, do you remember the, I believe it was 430 in the morning when I texted you, I sent a screenshot to Georgia, because I, of course, woke up in the middle of the night and started reading Twitter and saw that I had a message from one David Rudolph that said, Karen, this is David Rudolph.
00:13:40
I represented Michael Peterson in the Netflix doc, The Staircase. Could you please DM me when you have a minute?
00:13:46
Thanks, David. And then I panicked just like you were. I broke out in a cold sweat.
00:13:51
Yep. Defamation of character. Defamation of character. We're being sued. It's all over.
00:13:56
It's over. And then I remembered the great line from Michael Clayton when the phone rings and the client goes, oh, is that the cops?
00:14:06
And then Michael Clayton goes, no, they don't call. And so I thought, would a defense, Michael Peterson, defense attorney tweet at me to let me know that he was going to sue us for some reason?
00:14:18
Or would he actually just go ahead and do it and not warn me in any way? So that's when we I DMed and said, hi, what's up?
00:14:27
And then, of course, basically, we had a nice conversation and we got here. So it's really nice to know, David, that this you wanted to talk to us.
00:14:36
our guests today, David Rudolph and Sonia Pfeiffer. We're the hosts of the brand new podcast,
00:14:43
Abuse of Power. And they're here to talk to us today about basically a whole range of things,
00:14:49
I would assume. How are you guys doing? We're doing great. Well, I'm getting better. I'm recovering from a day of fifth grade with my daughter.
00:14:57
Oh, wow. While also attending a remote deposition and managing a five-month-old puppy.
00:15:03
And just eating breakfast and lunch and cleaning up all that too. So you're having a chill quarantine.
00:15:09
Just an easy day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just needs a bottle of wine. Don't we all?
00:15:15
Yeah. It's only what? That's the answer. It's 1.20 in the afternoon? That sounds about time.
00:15:20
Well, thanks for being on, you guys. We're so excited. And we've already talked about this, that we bet you guys are so sick of talking about
00:15:27
Staircase. So we want to talk about that. But we also want to know everything about the new podcast and what an amazing thing you
00:15:34
guys are doing for Justice Reform. We're so fascinated. But we don't know how much, David, you know about the fact that the Staircase documentary is basically the reason that George and I first met and bonded over talking about and arguing about that documentary.
00:15:52
It was big. I had heard that. I was going to ask you about that because that was the rumor that was going around.
00:16:00
But I never was able to confirm it. So it's nice to hear that that, in fact, was true.
00:16:05
Oh, yeah. We started talking about it at a party and just never stopped. That was four and a half years ago, and we never stopped talking about it.
00:16:13
Yeah, really. So for better or worse, I'm responsible. Or at least... You're a big part of it.
00:16:20
All right. What are you fighting about? Well, we just... We have lots of different...
00:16:24
You know, basically, this podcast started because we both realized that our entirely
00:16:30
un-expert opinion on these, like this whole wave of true crime documentaries, because the jinx came
00:16:36
out like around the same time. And there's, you know, a whole bunch of them. But there was so much
00:16:43
to discuss that, you know, we felt of like what we thought, versus what reality is, or what the
00:16:49
truth is, or what how the legal system works. And I think that the staircase is a great example of
00:16:56
a documentary where you are led in a direction and then you get to a place and then suddenly
00:17:02
you're taking a hard left and going in a totally different direction. The way they reveal the different things that were going on inside that courtroom with those
00:17:11
experts, with all that stuff. I mean, it's truly fascinating. And yeah, so we were just thinking we could talk to you a little bit since we have you.
00:17:20
We could just like, is there anything off the top that you think we or people in general kind of got wrong about that case if we only knew it from the documentary?
00:17:31
And Sonia, you were there, too. So, yeah, Sonia, Sonia reported on it. So maybe she has a more objective view.
00:17:37
Oh, yeah, true. Well, I mean, I think you probably could answer the what did people get wrong.
00:17:43
And I think that depends on what your point of view is in terms of, you know, was it the right outcome or the wrong outcome, the jury verdict and the way it resolved.
00:17:50
What I can tell you from being a reporter is that when that verdict came in to this day I remember the moment where they said guilty and everyone was ready to go out to their live shots but it was like a freeze frame I mean I looked at this reporter next
00:18:08
to me who was, you know, a rival reporter. We were fighting for the same stories in the same scoops.
00:18:12
And she and I looked at each other like, oh my God, how did that happen? Because it didn't really
00:18:17
matter whether you thought Peterson was an odd guy, whether you thought the stuff that came in,
00:18:22
maybe, I don't know, could have done it. The truth of the matter is there was enormous reasonable
00:18:26
doubt. And even as a lay person at the time, I'm a practicing attorney now, but then as a journalist,
00:18:33
I thought for sure it was going to be a not guilty. So I think that if you covered it day
00:18:40
in and day out and you saw what the evidence was and what the evidence wasn't, you were shocked at
00:18:44
the verdict because if we believe our system does in fact work, you are supposed to vote for a
00:18:51
reasonable doubt. And there were many, many reasonable doubts. But I guess I'm wondering
00:18:56
what you think people's takeaway from it is. And when you say, what did people get wrong?
00:19:03
Yeah, it's a little hard for me to say what people got wrong. You know, from my perspective,
00:19:09
the outcome or somebody, you know, sort of deciding what happened was really not the point
00:19:15
for me. For me, it was, let me show you how the criminal justice system actually worked.
00:19:22
And let me show you what criminal defense lawyers actually do instead of how they're portrayed in
00:19:28
popular culture. And so for me, what the result was, whether somebody thinks Michael is guilty
00:19:35
or not guilty, is really besides the point. I think it's important that people come away with,
00:19:42
wow, you know, that sort of seems like reasonable doubt. I think that's important.
00:19:46
And I think it's important for them to come away recognizing that expert testimony can be fraudulent.
00:19:54
Yeah, that moment. I think what Karen and I in an hour, you know, will tell you the evidence and that's it.
00:20:01
There's no nuance. There's no, you know, there's no us deciding whether there's reasonable doubt or not,
00:20:07
or whether, you know, the expert, we hear the word expert and we're like, well, then they're right.
00:20:12
Yeah, it's blind faith. But that's not the case. And that moment in that documentary, you know, that reveal about the blood spatter expert was jaw dropping.
00:20:23
I mean, that was that thing where you as a person who likes to follow true crime and is very interested in it.
00:20:30
Those are those things where you're like that assumption that this is the expert and the expert doesn't lie.
00:20:35
And the expert is an expert knows exactly what they're talking about. the whole reveal of this stuff he was doing at his house and everything. It was just like,
00:20:44
oh my God, this can't be. And I think that's total naivete, but it was such a fascinating
00:20:49
element. I mean, it must have David Dervan you insane in that. Well, I can remember watching those videotapes of him doing these experiments
00:20:57
and thinking to myself, this is ridiculous. I mean, they're never going to show these to the
00:21:04
jury. I'm going to have to show these to the jury to show them how stupid it is. And then
00:21:09
they put them on the stand and they're showing the experiments. You know, it was amazing to me.
00:21:17
And then, of course, you know, the little victory dance at the end when they finally get the spatter
00:21:21
right. You know, and so for me, it's important that you all had that jaw-dropping moment. I think
00:21:30
a lot of people have. I think the same thing happened in Making a Murderer with the Brendan
00:21:37
Dassey interrogation. I think a lot of people had no idea that those interrogations can go like that.
00:21:44
And there's a lot of other similar things that are finally being exposed through these
00:21:50
documentaries. So I think... You know, what got left on the cutting room floor is Sammy Shabani.
00:21:56
Oh, yeah. So if you thought that Deaver was jaw-dropping, there was another expert that they brought on that David cross-examined.
00:22:03
And it turned out the guy completely fabricated his resume, said that he graduated from Temple or taught at Temple.
00:22:10
No, he said he graduated from Oxford. We're not sure about that. Right. But he was doing experiments just like Deaver was trying to recreate this blood spatter.
00:22:21
This guy, Sammy Shabani, was doing experiments in another case to try to simulate a drowning where he was taking people's heads, real people who volunteered for this, put them in a toilet to see if they'd stay in the toilet and they could drown that way.
00:22:34
No. Oh, it's one of the great video clips of all time. It's amazing. Unfortunately, I can't show it to you right here.
00:22:43
But the jury saw that? Yes. In the real case? They saw him testify, and then his testimony was stricken because he had made up his credentials.
00:22:53
But then you see this. And so, like, from the reporter's point of view, all of this stuff has been in front of the jury.
00:22:58
And even though the jury is told, well, disregard that. I mean, let's just talk about the experts alone.
00:23:03
You watch what you saw Deaver do. Then couple that with this other guy, Sammy Shabani, who was an absolute joke.
00:23:09
And you recognize that if the jury saw this, there's no way they can believe this because this is baloney.
00:23:13
This is obviously baloney. But the fact that their verdict hinged on Deaver's blood spatter evidence, and in particular, the stuff that he said was inside Peterson's shorts, it was shocking.
00:23:23
It was shocking that people would believe that. But I actually think the reality is what did it for these jurors at that time was, you know, the bisexuality.
00:23:32
And that was what did it. They didn't like it. They didn't like Michael. He was already an outsider.
00:23:38
And I think that the jury was made up of enough people who were persuaded in that way and also, you know, from the South.
00:23:47
Well, the Germany stuff didn't help. The Germany stuff didn't help. I mean, that was another trial within a trial.
00:23:53
Yeah, and I think, you know, you asked me earlier, what do people get wrong about?
00:23:57
Almost everybody who watches that says, Well, he killed his first wife. Oh, that's right.
00:24:03
No, it was his wife's best friend. And and, you know, actually, the wife who he divorced was very alive at the time of the trial and was there in the courtroom supporting him.
00:24:18
As a defense attorney, you wish that the, you know, the jury knew going in or, you know, a level of understanding.
00:24:28
Is it better if they are, you know, true crime aficionados or better if they're just coming in without any knowledge of, you know, what an expert testimony means or, you know, what do you look for?
00:24:39
Well, you know, back then, no one had seen true crime documentaries. It was all CSI and stuff like that.
00:24:48
They were basing it on shows that were complete fiction. Right. So the truth is, I think that somebody who has watched true crime documentaries, I mean, really well done documentaries like West Memphis Three or Making a Murder or The Staircase.
00:25:06
Innocent Man. Innocent Man. And people who have watched those, I think, are going to make much better jurors, much fairer jurors, because they understand that they can't take everything at face value.
00:25:18
Right, right. So they're educated jurors. And indeed, part of the reason why I went around, I didn't draw the crowds you drew, but part of the reason I went and spoke was to sort of send that message that, you know, listen, folks, you're now an educated consumer of criminal trials.
00:25:39
And so you need to serve and you need to let other people know what you know, because it really makes a difference, I think.
00:25:48
Yeah. I mean, you did get that feeling after the, I guess, escort testified where I got that sense of like, oh, no, this is going to be the thing that sticks no matter what else they hear.
00:26:03
And the thing that, although unrelated in terms of what the crime is that he's on trial for, this is just the thing that's going to make people go moral or amoral.
00:26:14
amoral. Well, then here we have it. Like they really played. Yeah. I mean, you heard that with
00:26:18
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Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Goodbye. Can we ask about ye olde owl theory and both of your thoughts on that?
00:28:37
Well, I see some owls behind you there on your wallpaper. No, those are flowers.
00:28:41
Oh, those are your flowers. But my husband was like, you see owls, yeah. And see what they say.
00:28:48
Like, that's so, I'm not doing that. You know, I scoffed at that theory when I first heard it, just like everybody else did.
00:28:58
And I heard it, you know, like two days before my closing argument, you know, at a time when, as I told Larry Pollard, even if I wanted to use that, I can't because there's no evidence of owls in the case.
00:29:13
And I scoffed at it because Larry really didn't roll it out very well. You know, he he rolled it out before he had expert support for that theory.
00:29:26
And so people were able to make a joke out of it. And that's what happened. It became a running joke in Durham and then other places.
00:29:34
The truth of the matter is that when you when you really get into it and you start looking at, you know, pictures of people who have been attacked by owls, when you start looking at stories of people who have been attacked by owls, you realize that this is this is a real phenomenon.
00:29:52
You look at her wounds. You look at some of the evidence that was at the scene like drops of blood outside the house a feather in her hair a twig on the steps
00:30:06
All of these things that, you know, back in the day, I sort of wrote off as, you know, inconsequential, take on a whole different light when you're looking at it through the lens of an owl theory.
00:30:18
Now, you know, I think a lot of people have this idea that the owl theory means that the owl was in the house and, you know, what happened to it and where is it.
00:30:27
The owl theory was never that it was in the house. It was that she walked outside and when she walked outside, an owl swooped down and then she ran in bleeding.
00:30:38
So, look, you know, can I tell you that's what happened? No. Right. But can I tell you it's at least as likely, if not more likely than the blow poke?
00:30:48
Absolutely. I mean, the blow poke theory never made any sense, particularly after we found the blow
00:30:53
poke. Right, right. You know, and you mentioned the wounds. And I mean, I'll tell you that from the reporter standpoint, and I remember everybody getting
00:31:00
the autopsy photos and looking at these very odd wounds on the back of her head, which
00:31:04
look like a talon. And there's like three prongs and they come down to a single point.
00:31:10
No one could figure out how does that happen? And if it is like a split, you know, like her head was hit on something, then how does
00:31:16
she not have, you know, any edema or anything like that. It didn't make any sense. And then
00:31:22
there was also subsequent information that there were, in fact, owls and owls had attacked people
00:31:27
in the area. And now that we have social media and ways of sharing this information, you see these
00:31:32
owl attacks on animals, on people all over the place, Durham and the Triangle. And didn't you
00:31:37
just post a picture? Oh, yeah. Somebody sent me this picture of a dog that had been attacked
00:31:43
by an owl. And when you looked at the wounds, they were like identical. It's true.
00:31:50
This theory has taught us that owls are jerks, really, more than anything. Exactly.
00:31:55
Well, you know, there's an owl that lives outside of our house here in Charlotte.
00:32:00
Oh, my God. And you can hear him. I don't know what kind of owl it is, but you can hear him at night.
00:32:04
It is the owl. And when I'm walking the dog, you know, we have a fairly, not a tiny dog, but a small
00:32:11
dog. it's scary you know now that i know i'm i'm frightened about it it would be so ironic if
00:32:18
you got attacked by an owl like that would just be wouldn't it be yeah yeah you're like not me
00:32:24
i'm not the guy i'm on your side but you know that's actually a really good point of talking
00:32:30
about social media because i bet this has changed reporting a lot um but also the way cases work
00:32:36
this way where everybody is getting an education kind of real time um we talk about it a lot having
00:32:43
followed true crime tv like cold case files dateline shows like that you know from 80s and 90s yeah
00:32:50
where um these you don't know you only know what the people who are in charge are telling you you
00:32:58
kind and so as we used to talk about how in the beginning there would be there would always be
00:33:02
reenactments in these true crime shows that were really kind of salacious. And they would,
00:33:08
they would, there would be a lot of like, blonde girls in red bras being stabbed for a long time,
00:33:14
where I remember watching it, and just being like, why are we still in this spot? Like,
00:33:18
this is gross. And not processing that, like, what we're getting is based on who's giving it to us.
00:33:24
It's not the expert. It's not, these aren't the people that know best. It's just the people that
00:33:28
have elected to produce this story. And it's starting to feel that that's kind of the same.
00:33:34
We're all our eyes are opening overall as a culture to seeing what a small group of people
00:33:41
have been in charge for so long and how they've kind of we only know what they let us know.
00:33:46
So it's like not until cameras have been in the courtroom. Do we know the kind of insane hijinks
00:33:52
that go on in a courtroom that I would have assumed before that couldn't happen?
00:33:56
Well, and it's not just in the courtroom. How about, you know, Black Lives Matter and shootings? You know, I knew I've known for decades that police abuse minorities. I saw it when I was a public defender in New York. My clients would come in. They'd be totally beaten up and they'd invariably be charged with resisting arrest.
00:34:20
you know uh and they tell me i didn't do anything they just beat the crap out of me uh and so i knew
00:34:27
about this stuff but all of you didn't now with cell phones and social media all of a sudden
00:34:34
people see it for themselves and you know what was so powerful uh about what happened in minnesota
00:34:40
and now what happened in Kenosha is how raw that is, you know, how how cruel and how and how,
00:34:50
you know, it's just shocking. But, you know, this stuff has gone on for decades. It's just that
00:34:57
none of us knew about it. And I was going to say, I don't know if you saw the story yesterday about
00:35:02
the 13 year old autistic boy in Salt Lake who his mom called for help because he was acting out
00:35:10
in the house and the Salt Lake police arrive and they shoot them. You know, I mean, part of it is,
00:35:17
I think, that the police have become sort of militarized and they no longer view themselves
00:35:22
as sort of helping the community. They view themselves as keeping law and order, period.
00:35:30
Right. And particularly order. And so, you know, I think that's a real problem. And, you know,
00:35:37
our eyes have been opened to all of that by social media and by cell phones, really. And so,
00:35:42
you know, the first step is recognizing your implicit bias and then trying to work through
00:35:48
that. So I think that's part of it is that police officers, like everybody else, have implicit biases.
00:35:56
And then the training is really not you need deescalation training You don need giving police officers bazookas and uh you know armored vehicles
00:36:07
Well, beyond that though, I mean, the training piece actually goes all the way back to basic
00:36:11
law enforcement training before we even get to deescalation training. What we need to talk about is how police officers are entered into the academy and essentially
00:36:20
taught that their lives are in jeopardy every day that they're out on the street.
00:36:23
That's not community-based policing. That's not protecting and serving your community.
00:36:28
So I think part of the problem is, yes, training at a fundamental level is not started from
00:36:34
a place of we are here to serve the community. We are here to create relationships with people in the community.
00:36:38
If you think about the best policing practices that nobody will dispute, it is when the officers
00:36:44
who are in a neighborhood know the neighborhood. Let's take what happened to Jacob Blake, okay?
00:36:49
I don't know all of the circumstances and who called what in, right? But if you have neighborhood police who know Jacob Blake, who know that there might be
00:36:58
some history and they know that there's been a call about domestic violence or whatever
00:37:02
the case may be, if they already know him as a human being and they have seen him in
00:37:07
other circumstances other than a mugshot, which by the way, they didn't know, I don't
00:37:11
think before they shot him. But if you have in your mind a human being in front of you rather than an object and
00:37:17
you understand something about that person's life, you treat them like a human being and not like an
00:37:22
object. And so I think that the training starts with basic empathy training. And I don't mean that
00:37:27
in a corny way. I mean it in a very real way. And I think it also begins with the training about
00:37:32
systemic racism and systemic biases, because it is it is simple, but it's complicated. It's simple
00:37:39
and that we live in a society that was purposely set up to discriminate against anyone who is not
00:37:43
a white male and a white straight male at that. And we have to recognize that. And when that
00:37:49
society works well, we have the outcomes that we have now. And so we have to begin to break down
00:37:56
that entire system. And it won't happen quickly because it's taken hundreds of years to get here
00:38:00
and it was purposeful. So what do we do? You know, I mean, you have these officers who are already
00:38:05
operating within a structure that is meant to discriminate, that is meant to perpetuate racism
00:38:11
and sexism, and you have them trained to believe that their lives are in jeopardy when they're on
00:38:17
the street. That's a toxic combination. And so I think that, yeah, we need better training. We do
00:38:22
need more money in police departments, but for the right things, we need to take away, you know,
00:38:26
these things that were meant to combat terrorists. And we need to really get down to the basics of
00:38:31
community policing and what that means, and then have things like de-escalation training so that
00:38:36
you recognize, you know, when a person is mentally ill, you don't put a spit bag over their head.
00:38:41
You know? Yeah. Yeah. It's also interesting. A thing I learned and had no idea because of the Black Lives Matter protests and the activism that came out of that was the size of police budgets compared to all the other services in a city.
00:39:00
And how insanely like, you know, 10 times the size and large cities, which is it's you, especially here in Los Angeles, where homelessness is so rampant.
00:39:14
And so it's such a huge problem. There's so many people that need help and the services like the money isn't there.
00:39:20
And yet it's all the money is there for these for the police. I mean, it's it's really surprising.
00:39:26
But but also there's the study that they've been doing or sorry, they've been put into practice.
00:39:34
I just read this article this morning, so sorry, I won't be able to remember the city.
00:39:39
It might be in Wisconsin, though, or but they started sending a social worker and a paramedic to 911 calls that weren't direct danger.
00:39:52
And one percent of the time, those people needed to actual police presence. I thought that was such an amazing piece of information of like a lot of the time when people call 911, they don't need guns drawn.
00:40:05
They don't. That's not what they're looking for. Right. Right. Right. Right. Well, as with that woman in Salt Lake, I mean, she certainly didn't need police with guns.
00:40:13
What she needed was a social worker. Yeah. Right. Had she known that was going to be the outcome, you know, she wouldn't have called.
00:40:21
It's so sad. Well, and imagine her guilt for the rest of her life. it's horrifying
00:40:28
what should we know as the public about when we call 911 or when we're arrested I think that when and if you're arrested
00:40:38
I think the first thing is don't talk be quiet don't answer questions get a lawyer
00:40:46
do not talk and you're probably innocent don't talk because whatever you say they'll find a way to make it sound like
00:40:54
You did do what they said you did. But the real problem, and I think what's at the root of most wrongful convictions and wrongful arrests, which is probably – wrongful arrests don't get a lot of media play.
00:41:10
But they still ruin your life. They still ruin somebody's life, and they're probably a lot more prevalent.
00:41:16
At root, it's about confirmation bias. It's about a police officer having the idea and arrogance a little bit.
00:41:25
It's the idea that, oh, I know what happened here. And so I'm going to act on that.
00:41:30
And then confirmation bias kicks in and you sort of ignore anything that's inconsistent with your theory.
00:41:38
And you focus in on the facts that are consistent with your theory. And that, I think, is, you know, you can talk about false confessions.
00:41:47
You can talk about all kinds of ways in which the conviction goes bad but it all rooted in confirmation bias It your question about 911 I mean what do people know I actually think that there frighteningly there not a good answer because what just
00:42:06
happened in Salt Lake City, you know, that I think really begins to shake those who have
00:42:13
put themselves in a place of privilege before and felt like that couldn't happen to me.
00:42:16
Well, here's what I'll tell you that you probably don't know about 911 operators.
00:42:20
9-1-1 operators are trained to investigate the call. So when somebody calls in, once they dispatch to the scene, then they're on the phone and they're trained to, in essence, do an interrogation.
00:42:39
And so if you're on the phone and you're panicked because you're in this horrendous situation and they're asking you questions, that's not just random questions.
00:42:49
It's not just, you know, to sort of keep you calm. They are doing the preliminary investigation.
00:42:56
And then whatever you say on the phone is going to end up being used against you.
00:43:02
Most people have no idea. I know. I never thought about that either. I never thought about that.
00:43:07
Well, in your in your in the podcast and abuse of power, you guys are are specifically telling stories of these people who were, you know, who the investigators had tunnel vision or, you know, they talked when they shouldn't have.
00:43:22
What made you guys want to focus on those cases? You know, it's not so much focusing on the cases are a storytelling device.
00:43:31
You know, anytime you want to educate, it's always good to have a narrative, a story to tell.
00:43:38
It's sort of a hook that people will stay interested in. But for us, it was really about illuminating the kinds of abuses that we see every day by people who are in positions of authority.
00:43:56
And it doesn't just relate to the police. It relates to prosecutors. It relates to judges.
00:44:05
It relates to politicians. You know, we can go on and on. And we're all seeing, you know, the abuse of power on a daily basis now.
00:44:15
And it's dangerous. And so for me, at least, I started feeling this about three and a half years ago that we were in for a rough go here in terms of the rule of law.
00:44:29
And so for me, this abuse of power podcast is not just about wrongful convictions.
00:44:36
No, we want it to be a lot broader than that. We want to talk about things like bail reform and, you know, the kind of abuses that you
00:44:43
see with bail. You know, there's lots of things that don't relate to wrongful convictions that are still
00:44:52
abuses of power, both in the criminal justice system and in society at large. And that's really what we ultimately want to really focus this podcast on.
00:45:02
Amazing. That's great. It's a fascinating thing to actually start really analyzing.
00:45:06
And I'm glad you guys are basically, you know, opening up on the other side, because I feel like we haven't heard.
00:45:12
This is the side we need to be hearing from in in true crime. Right. The people that actually know in the day to day what this is like and what is actually going on.
00:45:22
Yeah. You know, part of what's part of what's nice now is that people don't have to take our word for it.
00:45:29
You know, they can watch a documentary and they can see for themselves that police can be abusive in how they interrogate a 16 year old with mental problems.
00:45:42
You know, I don't have to convince anybody that that happens. They've seen it. Yeah. So that's that's that's a very important thing.
00:45:50
Sonia, having a background in journalism, originally, what role do you think the media and journalism plays?
00:45:57
I mean, we were talking earlier about social media, and I really think that that has vastly changed everything, including how reporters view their job because they constantly have to be, you know, tweeting updates or, you know, sending in, you know, new video.
00:46:11
I think that's really dangerous. But one of the large reasons I got out of reporting is because I felt as though it was such a squandered opportunity.
00:46:19
I really believe that good reporting, whether it's in print or on radio or on television, has such an incredible opportunity to educate and enlighten people, to inspire people and to really get to the truth of something.
00:46:32
So I think that the media and when I speak about the media, I'm referring to journalists with a capital J.
00:46:40
I think there is enormous value to journalists in our society. I personally am very frightened by how that institution has been chipped away at over the past three and a half years and how much doubt is out there about what you are hearing in whatever your choice of information is.
00:46:58
I think when it comes to criminal cases, there's an enormous responsibility. And I certainly recognized once I became a criminal defense lawyer that there were a number of things I did as a reporter that made me a very good reporter, but actually were kind of unfair.
00:47:12
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. He just wants to justify the times that he yelled at me so loudly. I was on the live shot at like 610. I'd see my phone ring and be like, hello. And I take the phone away. Do you know what you just did to me and my client? No, but I mean, in all fairness.
00:47:30
Was this before you were in a relationship? Oh, yeah. It was during the trial. Yeah.
00:47:36
I know. And look, and I'm with him. I love it. Yes. But, you know, there are a lot of things that you do.
00:47:43
So, for instance, I mean, one of the stories that I broke was the story of Soldier Top,
00:47:48
of the gay male escort. And that was something that the defense team was fighting to keep out of court.
00:47:56
And there was a motion hearing about that. Thank you. And I. I'm going and I'm reporting to the public about the motion hearing and about Soldier
00:48:04
Top. And actually, I think it was before the jury was sworn. Well, not no, not only that, but like even even if it had been the other thing is whatever
00:48:10
you report, the jury wasn't sequestered. And so all of these things that a lawyer is trying to do and look, and it could be the
00:48:18
prosecution also either side. They are trying to have a fair trial. And when the media has the ability to report to the public at large things that the lawyers believe should not be a part of the trial and might even be kept out because they are not reliable.
00:48:36
They should not qualify as evidence in front of the jury. You you still take the jury because then you have splashy headlines or whether it's on TV or whether it's in the newspaper.
00:48:44
And I mean, look, many times jurors aren't sequestered. But even when they are, how do you keep anybody off their cell phone these days?
00:48:53
right so i think that um well it's challenging because you have a responsibility as a journalist
00:48:59
to get the story as a reporter to tell you know but where is that balance we don't have
00:49:03
the same sort of rules that exist in other places like england where you well your mouth is shut
00:49:07
you know somebody's hard way actually yeah we learned about that oh is that right oh you did
00:49:13
i thought you're talking about the nanny what did you guys do well we haven't talked about this but
00:49:18
Karen can we should we share I mean sure I don't think because we're out of the we're in the clear
00:49:25
now but we did we did a bunch of shows in the UK and Georgia talked about a case um that had just
00:49:31
been reopened and we had we toured the UK twice we had no idea that you cannot talk about open
00:49:40
cases um like that in the media so I could have been representing you guys in the UK we were very
00:49:45
close we're very close but we and we had posted it and we pulled it down yeah and we got a letter
00:49:51
from the crown saying from the from the crown crown court yeah we might be uh in contempt
00:49:58
yep yeah might be in contempt we sent in the uh recording of the episode and then they everybody
00:50:05
got to listen to it and they decided we were not it basically we were two idiots but that
00:50:10
idea that in England, they're like, oh, no, no, you don't get to. That's not your right.
00:50:17
Yeah. Well, and here's the thing. In the United States, the First Amendment, forgive the word, always trumps due process. So, you know, due process is a right to a fair trial.
00:50:32
and every time I argue that a courtroom should be closed so that the public doesn't find out
00:50:41
about a fact that may not go to the jury, the lawyers for the newspaper or the TV station come
00:50:48
in and start yelling about the First Amendment and the public's right to know and blah, blah, blah.
00:50:53
And it's there, but there needs to be a balance. And in the United States, there is no balance.
00:50:58
The First Amendment sort of trumps anything having to do with due process. In England, because they don't have a First Amendment, due process actually controls.
00:51:10
And that's the basis of the distinction between the two countries. And, you know, look, you may remember a certain reporter standing out in a cemetery when a body is being taken out of a grave reporting there about, you know, they're lifting the casket out.
00:51:27
You know, and and then following it back to Chapel Hill, you know, that was a media show.
00:51:36
And it was all done two weeks before trial. And the jury had all gotten their notices.
00:51:43
So they all knew they were going to be jurors. And, you know, then here comes the autopsy report.
00:51:51
Oh, it's a it's a homicide, you know, and we tried to seal that. And it wouldn't be sealed.
00:52:00
So how do you get a fair trial under those circumstances? And it's all her fault.
00:52:09
So you married her. So you went and married her. Yeah, really. You know what they say.
00:52:14
If you can't beat them, join them, right? But wouldn't you say, I mean, like my first reaction to hearing that, although I absolutely understand the point.
00:52:23
But aren't there times where the media are the ones that are breaking this information that if it were up to defense lawyers, we'd never hear about anything that they didn't, you know, that was not positive for their client, which isn't always serving the reality of.
00:52:41
Let me answer so you don't have to yell. Go ahead. Go ahead. It would be an honor to be yelled at by you, David Rudolph.
00:52:49
He's going to yell anyway. I know, I deserve it. Here's the thing. I hear what you're saying. And so when David said, you know, that a fact doesn't the fact that's not going to go to the jury is kept out.
00:52:59
What you have to remember about a criminal trial is that the only things that are supposed to be considered by a jury are relevant, admissible factors.
00:53:08
And a perfect example is the relationship that Michael Peterson had with this guy, Soldier Top, these emails that they exchanged.
00:53:16
The guys never actually even met. What relevance did that have at all? It had no relevance, but it got to the jury. And I believe that's what turned the jury.
00:53:26
I mean, look, we I get that weird. OK, so he knew this person who died at the bottom of the staircase in Germany.
00:53:33
Again, not his wife. Let's be clear, not his wife. That is an important distinction.
00:53:38
It's enormously important because it is. So for that reason, it wasn't the same.
00:53:42
This was fully investigated by German authorities. Can you think of anybody on the planet who is more thorough than a German with police power?
00:53:51
I mean, come on. And there was, you know, there was no blood at the scene. It was incredibly different from what happened to Kathleen Peterson And so sure once you hear it and you see it in the documentary you think to yourself well of course they needed to hear that because it so similar
00:54:05
But it's not that similar and it's not relevant. And there's actually a legal test that you're supposed to run it through.
00:54:11
And it doesn't pass the legal test. Well, and the judge, if you remember, the judge eight years later said, oh, I guess I shouldn't have let that in.
00:54:20
And the same thing with Brent. Yeah, same thing with the bisexual stuff. Okay. Because I, you know, as an observer, I think two people dying at the bottom, two women that you're close to in your life dying at the bottom of the stairs, whether or not it's your wife or not, someone you're close to, is an incredible coincidence.
00:54:41
Yes. You have nothing to do with it. But here's, well, here's the deal. Yeah. First of all, there was no evidence that Michael had anything to do with the death in Germany.
00:54:53
Zero. OK. No evidence. Second of all. He was never even looked at at the time. Yeah.
00:54:58
Second of all, she died of a brain hemorrhage, not of some sort of trauma. And beyond that, there was no blood at the scene.
00:55:10
You know, these women came in and testified about all this bloody scene. we had and it's not in the documentary we actually had the army police officer who went to the scene
00:55:21
and wrote a report and we had the report and he testified and there was no blood at the scene
00:55:28
yeah that didn't make it into the documentary uh but that made it in front of the jury so you know
00:55:35
and and then what are the similarities i mean because because she's found at the bottom of a
00:55:41
set of stairs, that means that she died as a result of a fall or some crime. She was actually
00:55:48
found right by the front door. In that particular house, it's a very small house. You walk in the
00:55:55
front door, you're at the bottom of the front of the stairs. Right, right. I can tell you what it
00:55:59
has done is that my husband and I moved into our house that has a concrete set of stairs inside,
00:56:04
and I will not walk down in front of him ever. That's what it's taught me. Well, actually, he should make sure that he doesn't walk behind you.
00:56:15
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Goodbye. Goodbye. You know, one thing that's always driven me crazy about the cases that we that have the get overturned is when I finally I find we find these a lot that the prosecutor didn't turn over all the evidence or the investigators don't turn over all the evidence.
00:58:34
Is that something that you run across frequently? All the time. Really? Oh, my God.
00:58:40
Laughable. All the time. I mean, you know, we have we have three cases right now where we're suing police officers for exactly that reason.
00:58:51
You know, people who serve one one person served 42 years. One person served 25 years and the other person served 33 years.
00:59:01
And in each case, the police had exculpatory evidence. Well, if you listen to the podcast, Tim Bridges, which is the first episode about a case, Tim did 25 years.
00:59:14
And the prosecutor – I'm sorry, the police had a note that somebody else had been confessing in a jail in the next county and never turned that over to the prosecutor.
00:59:27
So it never got to defense counsel. Well, that's the thing where they want to – it's their caller, right?
00:59:33
It's that weird culture. It's a police culture, why they don't share evidence with with other counties or whatever.
00:59:41
And I mean, this is obviously half from movies, but it's that idea that it was my arrest.
00:59:47
I got the guy. It worked. It's good. And then they just keep working to keep that.
00:59:51
Well it partly confirmation bias and it partly by the time by the time they found that out Tim had already been arrested because of confirmation bias So now what do they do
01:00:05
Well, Tim got arrested for other reasons too. I mean that was sort of like Tim got arrested because they hadn't arrested somebody for many, many months in a horrible crime.
01:00:13
And this is always the case. They're always horrible. It was an 83-year-old woman who was raped and beaten on Mother's Day.
01:00:19
She was wheelchair bound, found the next day by her sister. That's horrible. So you get a case like that and the cops don't find anybody.
01:00:26
And Tim wasn't arrested for six, four months. Yeah, I mean, four months. But the point is freaking out.
01:00:32
Right, right. But but the point is that by the time that tip came in, that there was a guy in the jail next county who was confessing to this.
01:00:43
Tim had already been arrested. So now what does the police what does the cop do?
01:00:49
Does he say, oh, gee, I'm sorry. You've been in jail for six months, but I made a mistake.
01:00:55
Or does he or she just put that tip to one side and keep on going? You'd like to think that they go to the guy and say sorry, but that's not human nature.
01:01:08
No. And it's not police culture, I think. There's that whole part of it, too, that is.
01:01:16
Well, they convinced themselves, oh, that guy's just probably crazy. You know, he's just saying that because he read it in a newspaper.
01:01:24
So he didn't really do it. We've got the guy. That's the – look, I don't think police set out to entrap or prosecute innocent people.
01:01:37
You know, that happens rarely, and I don't think that happens in, you know, 1% of the cases.
01:01:44
It's 99% of the time they think they have the right person and then they're going to get whatever evidence they need to get to convict that person.
01:01:55
And you know what? Most of the time they're right. But when they're wrong, it is really bad.
01:02:02
Yeah. So what are we having that change? What's I mean? Well, I mean, I think you have to have you have to have independent agencies essentially investigating along with an investigation.
01:02:13
because you might have a conviction integrity unit that goes back and reviews a conviction.
01:02:17
But by then, somebody has already been convicted. If you could have within again, let's talk about these police budgets, right?
01:02:23
You've got a lot of money there. Why don't we create an independent agency that is sort of tracking things along the way?
01:02:29
But, you know, I mean, look, part of the problem is that it's human nature. It's not just that they they look for evidence that supports their theory.
01:02:37
It's that when evidence that is contrary to the theory comes in, they find a way in their mind to diminish it,
01:02:43
to discard it, to say, well, this doesn't matter. Look, we all suffer from confirmation bias.
01:02:49
Every single one of us does. Doctors suffer from confirmation bias. So what do they do?
01:02:55
They have something called differential diagnoses. When you go to a doctor and you give him a set of
01:03:02
symptoms, that doctor is at least supposed to work his way through a differential diagnosis and
01:03:08
consider various options that those symptoms can fit. And then you start ruling things out.
01:03:15
There's nothing like that for police officers. You know, they're not trained to worry about
01:03:22
confirmation bias. And I think that that is a really critical missing piece in police training.
01:03:30
Police need to be trained about implicit bias. Police need to be trained about confirmation bias.
01:03:37
and it needs to be really drilled into them and it needs to be part of their ongoing sort of
01:03:44
consciousness. But there needs to be independent review as well because I don't think that's got
01:03:48
it might not be realistic but that's what you need. Well that's not going to happen I don't
01:03:53
think but I think if you if you could get real training on confirmation bias and implicit bias
01:03:59
and and people took it seriously and and and you know supervisors took it seriously and supervisors
01:04:07
would look at cases with an eye towards avoiding confirmation bias. And if we had sentinel event
01:04:14
reviews so that when something went wrong in a case, you know, police departments don't
01:04:20
investigate them. They don't really investigate themselves. When a wrongful conviction happens,
01:04:25
they try to make excuses for what happened. They don't say, what really went wrong here?
01:04:32
Let's figure out what went wrong here and let's try to fix it for the future. That's not what they do.
01:04:40
It happens in aircraft crashes, right? Yeah. Somebody comes in and says, here's what happened.
01:04:46
And then there's fixes, hopefully. That never happens in the criminal justice system.
01:04:51
It never happens with police officers. And that's another piece of this. I mean, the police have to start taking seriously the fact that they get it wrong sometimes and the results are devastating.
01:05:06
And so they need to figure out why did we get it wrong? What happened here and how can we avoid that in the future instead of just putting blinders on and saying, well, you know, it's just the way it is.
01:05:19
Yeah, I also think there is that like you guys were talking about earlier, that idea of the external pressure, the worse the crime is, the more there's pressure to say you arrest someone now.
01:05:33
And that feels old. Like, I feel like we're all starting to understand how often that is bad, how often that goes wrong, because that is that thing where, yeah, they want results.
01:05:45
they're demanding results. We can't just have this murderer or a rapist or whoever on the street.
01:05:51
And then it like so just get anybody and then people will be satisfied That the problem Right And if you think about it and like for instance in Tim case they got the wrong person which means that the right person was still out there And if this is someone who has a you know a serial habit of raping or robbing or murdering then that continues
01:06:10
And so it really is not serving justice in any way, not for the community, not for the person
01:06:15
wrongfully arrested and convicted and not for the victim and his or her family. It is a loss all the
01:06:21
way around. And if you think of that little bit of evidence being, you know, dismissed by the
01:06:27
police officer and not being brought forward, that would have possibly led to another suspect.
01:06:32
And that suspect has committed all these crimes since then. I would, you know, think you, the
01:06:38
police officer would feel responsible for that in a way if you had done the job correctly.
01:06:42
You know, for every wrongful conviction, there's a victim who never received justice.
01:06:48
and people sort of lose sight of that. Yeah. It's such a, it's the heightened, it's worst case scenario in human experience.
01:06:57
So people want it to end. They want it to be solved. They want justice. And that's understandable.
01:07:03
It's understandable. But like I said, when it goes wrong, it goes really, really wrong.
01:07:09
Aside from the Michael Peterson case, are there any cases that are just these egregious
01:07:15
standouts to you? So you might each have a different one, but of of what we're talking about, either inside the courtroom, people making mistakes or the police or whoever that you just can't believe how the story actually turned out.
01:07:33
Well, you know, for me, it's Tim Bridges because I represented Tim. We represented Tim all the time.
01:07:40
We represented Tim. Sorry. Sorry. It's implicit bias against your own. It's true.
01:07:46
Exactly. And I pay for that. I promise you. As you should. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that this is my case.
01:07:56
You were going to talk about how good I did in the mediation. No, no, no. Oh, sorry.
01:08:00
The reason is we represented him, but it means a lot to me because I got close to Tim and I saw how devastating this was to him.
01:08:13
He's a really emotional guy. He can barely talk about, you know, losing his mother while he was in prison without sobbing.
01:08:22
And it was what happened to him was just so egregious. He was raped in prison. You know, he spent 25 years.
01:08:30
He wouldn't go into a program where he could have gotten out earlier because he had to admit that he did it.
01:08:37
And he just wouldn't do that. So for me, if you're going to listen to one episode, for me, it's a Tim Bridges episode because I just think it has virtually every – it has junk science.
01:08:54
It has suppression of exculpatory evidence. It has tunnel vision. It sort of has almost everything that shouldn't happen in the case.
01:09:06
Now, you have a different case, I think. Um, I haven't thought about what I mean, I think the reality is there were so many cases we had to pick from it was hard to narrow it down to 10. And so I think that David's right, certainly all of those things play a role in Tim's, but they do almost in every case, because we would have to go through and kind of say, okay, what are we going to focus on here? And you could focus on all of these things, whether it's confirmation bias or tunnel vision, any of the cognitive biases.
01:09:31
But I think Christine Bunch's case is also particularly moving. She's a mother. She was accused of, charged with and convicted of killing her son and something that was not even an arson.
01:09:47
Oh, that's right. Oh, it's it's I mean, it really is not only a tragic story, but one of these stories where at the end you shake your head and like, how does she not only survive this?
01:09:57
But now all she's doing is giving back and she's created a charity that helps people when they get out of prison with your basic needs, like a shoebox that has a toothbrush and soap and underwear.
01:10:07
Like, you know, you think about when you are let out of prison, you have nothing.
01:10:10
When you woke up today, what did you have? Right. You had all sorts of stuff. You had a bed. You had sheets on your bed.
01:10:15
You had a pillow. You had clothes. You had toothbrush. You had to. I mean, nothing. You have nothing.
01:10:20
So she is really focused on that. So I think Christine Bunch's case is, you know, one that stands out for me in the podcast, although they all do.
01:10:27
But, you know, I mean, I think right now one of our other cases, which is ongoing, so we can't comment on too much, but the Ray Finch case, actually, I think possibly the most egregious case because it involves such corruption in a county sheriff department.
01:10:41
But we aren't allowed to talk about it. Yeah, that's a case where somebody, an innocent person, actually consciously got blamed for something.
01:10:51
And that's all you can say. Yeah, purposeful. It was purposeful. That's a purposeful one.
01:10:56
Wow. Wow. Wow. This is heavy. It's so excited for this podcast. I can't wait to listen to it. And I'm so glad you guys are doing it. It's really it's so important. I just love that true crime is evolving in this way. And it is kind of following this.
01:11:12
you know that it's it's following for me personally the trajectory of no longer are you
01:11:20
just sitting back and kind of commenting on people far away you start you really start to understand
01:11:27
human life this is human life and and the value of it and and the idea that we could
01:11:34
we could work toward true a real justice for people if if like you're saying if people could
01:11:42
admit their mistakes, admit their faults, do the work, develop these processes better.
01:11:49
Training, the idea that I also learned in the last like four months that training only
01:11:55
lasts for six, nine months for the average police officer. Yeah. which is seems insane. I would assume like two years minimum.
01:12:04
No, no, no, much less than that. I mean, you know, here in North Carolina, they go to what's called BLET, basic law enforcement training for like four months.
01:12:13
Wow. And then they're out on the street and they get mentored, you know, by somebody else who only had
01:12:20
four months of training. Right. And that's it. And then they become a detective and there's no additional training that's required.
01:12:29
I mean, think about that for a second. You move from the street to a detective position, and you don't have to take a single course in interrogation or what the law is with regard to turning over exculpatory evidence.
01:12:47
It's mind-boggling to me that you could take somebody and put them in that kind of position without doing any training at all, but it happens every day.
01:12:59
Yeah. What's something that you both want us as the public or us as true crime, you know, armchair detectives?
01:13:08
What's something that we need to change our thoughts on or be aware of? I think the most important thing anyone can keep in mind is that we are all human beings.
01:13:20
And I think if we remember that and if we treat each other as human beings with the respect and empathy that we would hope to be treated, I think we have a far better criminal justice system.
01:13:34
And I think that goes for the public who consumes news and information. I think that goes for the public who serves on a jury.
01:13:41
I think that goes for players within the system. I think it goes for investigators, for prosecutors, for defense attorneys, for all of us.
01:13:49
I really think if we operated that way as a society, it would be much fairer and we would see far fewer pain and suffering cases, whether it's a wrongful conviction or harm to another person.
01:14:03
I think that really is the missing link. And if people could adopt that way of living, it'd be a different place.
01:14:11
Yes. I'm not quite as humanist as Sonia is. So for me, I wish that, number one, jurors would be a lot more skeptical of authority and people in positions of authority and not just defer to what somebody who's in a position of authority says.
01:14:35
I think that's really important. What else? I think we're learning that these days, actually, just to not, you know, it's not that they don't have the final say and the only narrative, you know, kind of a little more question authority going on.
01:14:54
And then the other piece is, you know, when I grew up, what I remember was always being told it was better for 10 guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.
01:15:14
And somewhere along the way, I think that got lost. and I think we need to understand the horror of what it is to be locked up sometimes for decades
01:15:27
for something you didn't do and people need to take reasonable doubt a lot more seriously for
01:15:33
that reason that's why we have a reasonable doubt standard and I also think that the verdict in
01:15:39
Scotland which is one of the verdicts in Scotland is not proven is a really really smart verdict
01:15:47
because when a juror has to say not guilty, it almost implies the person is innocent.
01:15:54
And I think jurors may have a tough time doing that in some situations, particularly if the crime is really egregious and there's some evidence the person did it.
01:16:03
You don't sort of want to say, oh, well, he's not guilty. It different to say not proven because then the focus is not on the person who on trial The focus is on the prosecutor and the evidence And so for me what I like to see people thinking about when they on juries is whether the case has been proven
01:16:26
And, you know, I'd love to see a verdict that says either proven or not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
01:16:34
So I wish people would take that whole burden a lot more seriously. I wonder, talking about, you know, there needing to be more training, because it's kind of the same thing with with serving on a jury where you go in there and you just you go in.
01:16:51
And most people are going in to try to get out, to try to get off. And if there was some kind of a way to educate or maybe and maybe there is because and I just don't know about it, but about the the level of importance.
01:17:05
Like, is there any kind of jury training if it's a murder case as opposed to like shoplifting?
01:17:11
Well, jurors in most jurisdictions get or at least here in Mecklenburg County, for example, they get shown a film and they get shown a film that has some platitudes about the importance of jury service.
01:17:23
And we thank you. And, you know, that kind of stuff. They don't hear from me. You know, they'd hear a lot different message from me.
01:17:32
It's sort of an anodyne introduction, you know, and they don't really hear about you need to take things really skeptically.
01:17:40
And you really need to to understand how horrible it is if somebody innocent gets convicted.
01:17:47
And, you know, I think I think they need to be indoctrinated, indoctrinated, maybe the wrong word, educated about their responsibility in a more forceful way.
01:17:59
I mean, there are jury instructions. So when you are, whether it is shoplifting or whether it is murder one, a jury is instructed by the judge what reasonable doubt is, how they're supposed to view the evidence.
01:18:10
But I think part of the problem is that has become such a rote sort of like, OK, I'm going to go through.
01:18:17
Here's your jury instructions. Here's reasonable doubt. And it doesn't have the same impact.
01:18:22
And it's all in legalese. It's not it's not in English. Right. And then what you have is the lawyers and closing argument telling you to be skeptical, telling you what their version of reasonable doubt is.
01:18:32
But as a juror, the only people you're skeptical of are the defense attorneys. And, you know, so the earlier one like, oh, well, you said it that way, but I don't know if I could trust you.
01:18:40
So I think that it could all be done better. I think maybe that video that jurors are shown, at least here, I mean, why aren't we showing them something that's compelling and letting every juror know that this is one of the most important responsibilities that they have as a citizen in this country to serve on a jury, to do justice?
01:19:00
And then to really impart meaningful information about weighing evidence about reasonable doubt.
01:19:08
I think that would be really helpful. It would also be really helpful if you just tell people to trust defense lawyers.
01:19:15
Then we are the good guys. I don't know. I don't know. I don't trust you saying that.
01:19:20
You saying that. I'm skeptical of that. I'm just thinking of the Devers thing where there is a bunch of blind faith and trust going on, but it's for experts and the people that get called where there should be a thing where you have to see that person's credentials or something.
01:19:39
The idea that that happens. It happens. It happens every day. And part of the problem is a lot of this, quote, forensic science is not really science at all.
01:19:52
It's anecdotal. You know, there's no testing. You know, you don't have blood spatter experts being called in and being tested on what this means or what that means.
01:20:05
Same thing with, you know, dentists and bite marks. Same thing with arson investigators.
01:20:12
Right. No matter what, now, you know, DNA was different, but now even DNA is getting a little bit subjective
01:20:21
because you have all these mixtures and you have algorithms to figure out what the mixture means And so you know people need to understand that these quote sciences are very very subjective And there
01:20:35
really no competency testing for most of this stuff. It's one police officer teaching another
01:20:42
police officer, and they're all in the same agency. You know, we need independent experts,
01:20:48
not people who are working in the same lab with, you know, with the cops. Which also removes the possibility for the prosecution to do what they did in Peterson's case, which they do in almost every case. This is your expert. He works for you for the state of North Carolina. You know, like if you can remove that bias and have somebody who's really independent, I think then you get fair information.
01:21:09
right yeah makes sense i'm gonna ask the question that nobody's ready for which is how did how did
01:21:17
you guys actually like in during the case figure out that you liked each other i did not like how
01:21:27
did it happen i'm sorry to just go totally no no no this is this is a fair question we have
01:21:34
different we have different bring our daughter in a different version we have different versions of
01:21:39
this well no let me finish let me finish let me start with the truth and then you can color it in
01:21:46
the way that you want go ahead okay which which would you prefer no go ahead we have no bias we're
01:21:51
just we're at a blank slate we're not coming out yeah come on convince us yeah who's right yeah
01:21:56
all right so um here's this is the the retelling of the story goes like this so um i end up getting
01:22:03
assigned to cover this case. And it was after the death had already happened. It was a couple of
01:22:09
months in. There was another reporter who had been covering it. We were sort of both covering
01:22:13
it for a period of time. I met with David for coffee or maybe had a phone call and I set up
01:22:18
an interview with him. And it was a big get because he hadn't done a sit down interview
01:22:23
with anybody yet. So I was assigned the best photographer at my station. Her name's Colleen.
01:22:28
She had come from Denver, which is a great photo market. We show up at his Chapel Hill office and
01:22:32
we go upstairs to the reception and he comes out and he says, oh, you guys can set up in the library.
01:22:37
So Colleen spends 20 to 30 minutes creating the most incredible set. It looked like a Dateline
01:22:42
set. The lighting is perfect. She's stacked up books behind him. I was like, girl, this looks
01:22:46
awesome. And so I popped my head on. I'm like, you know, we can tell Mr. Rudolph we're ready.
01:22:51
And he comes in and he opens the door and he goes, oh, isn't this romantic? I look at Colleen. Colleen looks at me. It was like the biggest eye roll ever. So, so David has,
01:23:07
and you asked how we realized we liked each other. At that moment, I was like, I really do not like
01:23:11
this guy, but I got to cover this case. And so I continued to cover this case. And let me tell you,
01:23:16
the more he yelled at me after my six o'clock live shots, the less I liked him. And when I say yell,
01:23:21
I mean, you heard how loud he's talking to you today, like magnify that times 20 in your cell phone and you're driving on 40 back home.
01:23:29
And he's just going off about how he's like an emergency room and his client. He's just trying to plug him up and you're right behind him.
01:23:35
Rip it out. Do you understand? I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. OK, so I've given you like the the truth of what happened on that day.
01:23:45
And I tell you that day because David seems to think differently of what occurred.
01:23:49
So would you like to. Well, I think that Sonia obviously was attracted, and therefore she had her photog set up this sort of romantic scene.
01:24:05
And books. Nothing's more romantic than a stack of books. You can go ahead and rest your case now.
01:24:10
I think we have our decision. Oh, your daughter is sick of this story. She's a teenager?
01:24:19
She's 10. She's dead, but she's still sick of it. Basically. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, no, you know, I think the interesting thing is, being serious for a minute, we both
01:24:31
saw each other at our most stressful you know in a situation where you weren on best behavior and you were both doing this incredibly difficult job very very well
01:24:48
And even, you know, even when I was angry at her, I wasn't angry at her. I was angry at what was coming out of her mouth.
01:24:54
You know, it was it was it was because it was hurting my client. I wasn't you know, I was I was concerned about Michael and about him getting a fair trial.
01:25:03
Was that seemed like you were angry at me? Well, whatever. In any event, so I think what happened is we developed this mutual, well, I'll talk for myself.
01:25:13
I developed a respect for Sonia and what she was doing and how she was doing it.
01:25:18
I hope she did the same for me. And I think, you know, that's sort of the genesis of the relationship.
01:25:25
It wasn't a like. It was a respect. And I think that's a really healthy way to start a relationship.
01:25:32
Yeah. So that's how. I think that's true. I mean, certainly watching him work on a regular basis and get such insight into what this work entails.
01:25:44
There was absolutely a level of respect that was critical and I think still is very important to our relationship.
01:25:51
Because I think if you have that, it gets you through a lot of the really, really hard times.
01:25:56
Yeah. Like now. Like quarantine. Like what's going to go down after this? There's more ahead.
01:26:03
Good luck with your podcast. Oh, my God. I'm going to be working it all out. Yeah.
01:26:09
That's amazing. Well, you guys are definitely our favorite couple that we've ever interviewed here.
01:26:14
Oh, thank you. Thank you guys so much for being on. This has been so insightful.
01:26:20
So awesome. Yes. We really appreciate it. Thank you for reaching out, David. Yeah.
01:26:24
We were scared. We were scared. We were worried. No, no. We were searching our minds of all the horrible things we said.
01:26:31
We certainly hope that your listeners will tune into our podcast because hopefully they will get an insider view of what's going on on a day-to-day basis in the criminal justice system.
01:26:45
All right. There it was, you guys. We hope you enjoyed Conversations With. Conversations With.
01:26:52
I mean, maybe we'll do this once in a while. There's so many people to talk to that know so much more than us.
01:26:58
Yeah, we love experts. If you want to go back at like 200 episodes ago, there's an interview that we do with Guy Brenham.
01:27:05
That's also really fun. Yeah. So thanks for listening. As always, stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
01:27:11
Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.
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Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be.
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Goodbye. Why is it always chaos when we link up? Because nobody plans anything, bro.
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Good thing the rug's ready like that. For real. Rain, dirt, whatever. Available all-wheel drive.
01:27:53
Five modes. We still outside. And they got some kick, too. That turbo? torque is crazy the most in its class it moves moves rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space
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merch on merch gear mics all the fits load up we out 2026 nissan rogue built for all of it
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auto pacific segmentation 2026 rogue versus latest in-market competitors in the x suv
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mainstream midsides class excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites this
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episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Have you noticed that the egg section at the
01:28:27
grocery store has gotten very complicated lately? But Vital Farms makes it simple. Pasture-raised
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eggs traceable to the farm. Their hens have outdoor access year-round with fresh air and sunshine
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and forage on rotated pastures with local grasses. Every carton can be traced back to the farm it
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came from so you can see the pasture where the hens live by visiting vitalfarms.com.
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Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more.
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Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye.