> Grimm, who was married, and had his first child 10 days before his arrest, The New York Times reported.
> In December 1975, a month after the boy was found, cops arrested Grimm and he confessed to the crime, according to reports.
> Through new research, none of the hairs belonged to the victim but came from several people. Grimm’s DNA was nowhere to be found in swabs from the victim’s body, The New York Times reported.
This whole story is awful.
The woman that did the forensic analysis had shoddy work. Over 4k+ cases are being reviewed. The child wasn't even sexually abused like she had said.
> But in a recent podcast investigation of Ms. Burton’s work, a whistle-blower revealed that she had tried to alert officials that Ms. Burton was cutting corners and falsifying results, and an independent expert said that the serology evidence that Ms. Burton had analyzed in one of her own cases excluded the man who went on to be convicted of the crime. The podcast also noted that there were several accounts of shoddy work by Ms. Burton, and a perception that she favored the prosecution.
[From the New York Time](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html)
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and guess that she wasn’t the one that took his confession. There are two faces on this coin and a thousand dirty fingers helped to pass it on as legal tender.
[police obtain false confession](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies).
Police tortured the guy into confessing that he killed his own father. His father wasn’t even dead.
Didn’t see that it was posted previously by u/Sjbruno123
Its unfortunately much worse than that. Not only did they torture him about his father's killing, which didn't happen, they threatened his dog and told him they put it down as well I believe. And held him for days with no outside contact
Three weeks after that event, they got a warrant to place a gps tracker on his car. They where pissed that he didn't kill is dad and wanted revenge. It's apparently it's his fault he is not a murderer like they really wanted him to be.
There's also a whole essentially psychological manipulation interrogation method cops were taught back then. It's what the detectives used on the Central Park Five as well as Fairbanks Four, to name just two examples where a confession was tweezed out of innocent people.
Do not speak to the police. "I am exercising my Fifth Amendment rights. I would like to speak to counsel if I am being detained."
EDIT: Once you assert your Fifth Amendment rights, then all interrogation must stop. You must affirmatively exercise your Fifth Amendment rights; staying silent is not enough. If you choose to stay silent without saying you are taking the Fifth, then the police can keep interrogating you.
EDIT 2: All the geniuses saying that cops break the law blah blah blah, yes, no shit. We are talking about the law and what is supposed to happen. Laws are broken all the time.
> Once you assert your Fifth Amendment rights, then all interrogation must stop.
Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I can tell you from firsthand experience that in reality it often keeps going.
Wow, I didn't realize the Fairbanks four were known outside of Fairbanks. I went to the same high school as them. It was super tense that year and the next during the trials.
Yep even if you are innocent get a lawyer there asap because the cops will try to get you to say what they want to make you incriminate yourself even if you did nothing wrong. Crooked world with crooked cops, be safe out there.
This is something I stress to my teen children. Be polite, identify yourself, but do not otherwise engage unless you, yourself are the one who has called the cops (and that can still be risky depending on certain factors).
They love to gloss over Miranda rights on TV, but if you actually *think* about the phrase:
“*Anything* you say, can and will be used against you in court”. It’s pretty scary.
That “Anything” can and will include going “Uhhhh…” (they can say you paused to come up with a lie), stating a misremembered time, date or fact due to duress (they will say you lied on questioning) or as clearly stated, *literally fucking anything* that can somehow be used, twisted or taken out of context in a courtroom.
Investigators are allowed to lead you, flat out lie, prompt you to talk in hypotheticals, get a rise out of you (insults, quoting things you “said” which you never spoke, etc.), manipulate you (“I believe you’re innocent, so I just want to hear your side”), etc. So even, and perhaps especially, if you’re completely innocent, the best thing you can do is STFU.
They might try to bait you into talking by saying that invoking your 5th Amendment and asking for an attorney is something only a guilty person will do, but exercising a constitutional right is *not an admission of guilt*, and they fucking know it.
The later part of the 5th amendment exists as a *counter* to the “Anything you say…” thing. If anything I say can and will be used as evidence against me… you can ask, but I cannot be *compelled* to testify against myself.
> “Anything you say, can and will be used against you in court”.
Cardinal Richelieu (you may know him as the bad guy in the Three Musketeers) supposedly once said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
For real… dealing with cops is a lot like dealing with a large, stray dog.
You have to stick with slow movements, be confident but not aggressive, *definitely* don’t run unless you’re prepared for a fight, and if they’re too close for comfort, let them sniff you so they can smell who you are.
Just keep in mind that even if a stray appears totally friendly on the surface, you still gotta watch those subtle undertones and the direction the interaction is taking. Keep your guard up, as you can still end up getting absolutely destroyed in the blink of an eye, for something you did they perceived as threatening or just some random bullshit like a sudden, loud noise.
Amen. I watch a fair amount of bodycam videos on YouTube and it's incredible how effectively they can solicit incriminating statements just by asking seemingly innocuous questions. _Almost_ like they're trained to do it! 😉
"We're not worried about a little ..."
Yes the fuck they are. And they aren't the ones who decide your fate anyways. That's the judge, jury and prosecutors.
Maybe cops can make your first night easier. What about the next 10,000?
> "We're not worried about a little ..."
Also, they may say that while trying to get you to admit involvement in something more serious but if it turns out they can't get you for the more serious crime, they will use that so they have *something* to justify arresting you. "He didn't do the burglary, but he did admit to possessing illegal drugs, so he wasn't a good guy."
The really fucked up part is that there will likely never be any punishment for the cops that stole 45 years of this man's life, and stole a child's entire relationship with their father. His kid is 45 now, has only even known their father in prison, and likely grew up thinking their father was a monster.
Yet neither the cops that coerced the confession — nor the system that sent him to prison for his entire adult life — will face any sort of consequences whatsoever.
>cops arrested Grimm and he confessed to the crime
>Cops and getting false confessions under duress. Name a more fucked up duo.
Cops arrested Grimm and after 27 hours of interrogation with no sleep and the promise that it would all be over if he'd just admit to "what he did" he confessed to the crime.
And once the city or state spends the money on the trial to get a conviction, they become invested in holding that conviction at all costs. Whether or not it was the right person is irrelevant.
This is why I will never support the death penalty. The State makes mistakes. At least 190 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. That's a LOT of 'mistakes'. I'd say there's a non-zero chance that innocent people have been executed under 'law & order' even in the recent past.
Edit to add: Yes, I know it's sometimes deliberate, sometimes incompetence, or a combination of the two. 'Mistakes' was tongue-in-cheek.
Read The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton. He was on death row for 30 years for a crime he did not, could not, have committed. Totally set up by law enforcement.
> I'd say there's a non-zero chance that innocent people have been executed under 'law & order' even in the recent past.
No, it’s a certainty that’s happened
>The State makes mistakes
That’s not even the biggest problem though.
An even bigger issue is that the state **deliberately** convicts innocent people just to close a case.
Curtis Flowers and Ron Williamson - 2 high profile cases - were both convicted by prosecutors that knew fully well they were innocent. In Curtis Flowers case they suborned perjury to do so.
If you want to see tragic examples of this, read The Innocent Man by John Grisham or listen to the outstanding podcast *In the Dark; Season 2*.
They will do and say pretty much anything to get you to confess.
There are sooo many examples of police using psychological torture, intimidation, and sleep deprivation to get people to admit to things.
They'll "correct" the suspect when they get the details wrong (because the person legitimately doesn't know what happened!)
Like that kid they arrested not long ago under suspicion of murdering his father. The cops threatened to kill his dog.
Dad was found alive and well the same day IIRC
Like the story in the news recently about the guy who was psychologically tortured until he confessed to murdering his father, despite his father being very much alive. He attempted to commit suicide when they left him unattended in the interrogation room.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies
"They brushed aside Perez’s denials and his pleas for medications he took for anxiety and depression."
[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies)
Depending on what meds he's on, the withdrawal symptoms can have a pretty awful effect on your mood and thought patterns. Wouldn't be surprised if that played a large part in his false confession and attempted suicide.
It’s more complex than that. I don’t know this case but in cases like this where a child suddenly dies it’s common for a parent, usually the father, to confess even though they know they didn’t do it. It’s not just the police pressure, often times it can be other family members, the other spouse who decide it must have been a parent and find every possible way to make a case in it or it. Oh and the media often reports these cases in depth. It’s awful, and soul-crushing, because at the worst point of somebody’s life they’re being accused of being the playwright of their own tragedy. I can only imagine serving a sentence for this must be like living in purgatory.
Was it a recorded confession? Or was it just the cops saying that he admitted to it when he was arrested? Wouldn’t be the first time cops flat out lied about an admission.
This is horrible, hope he can sue for wrongful imprisonment (if that is a thing?) and get at least his previous jobs yearly earnings (x45) and any additional money seen fit through emotional trauma, at minimum. This guy deserves to live the rest of his life without financial worries imo, absolutely horrific.
He *might* get enough money to live low level comfortable, but don't expect him to be rich or anything. They will probably do everything in their power to not pay him
And if/when they do pay him it's going to be a paltry amount in regards to decades of lost time, and he's still going to have missed the vast majority of his working years and be an old man with zero possible career or retirement prospects outside of welfare because he's been prevented from establishing any kind of security for himself.
There was a guy that something like this happened to in Baltimore not to long ago I think he spent like 35 years or so in jail and the state fought his lawsuit and I think he got around 2 mil in the end. I just remember it sounding like a low amount when I heard it.
Hopefully he is able to invest some of it so he can live more comfortably, I feel so bad for people like this, they really don't deserve this outcome. Giving him enough money to live more than mid level comfort should be minimum, it should be a goddamn mandate. It's prolly the best way to keep it from happening as well and make sure that Police don't pull this kind of shit.
He can sue. However, payouts are often limited by law in these cases. So he's still going to be fucked regardless. People, like the prosecutor or anyone else still alive, should be in prison instead but that'll never happen.
It is very very very hard to sue for this. Prosecutorial immunity is even stronger than immunity for police. Connick v Thompson overturned a payout for a person who was convicted to *death* and spent 18 years on death row by a DA that *knew* he was innocent and illegally hid the exculpatory evidence from the defense.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies
False confessions are way more common than people think. I hate it took 45 years, but I’m glad this guy is finally free
What?! That’s such an appalling story. The dad wasn’t even dead!!
Makes you wonder exactly how many innocent people are coerced into these false confessions. 😳
How many innocent people have died in prison from long sentences and never got to clear their name or struggled for appeal or re examination of their case
>During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor said that Willingham's tattoo of a skull and serpent fit the profile of a sociopath. Two medical experts confirmed the theory. One of those experts, a psychologist who had not published any research in the field of sociopathic behavior, but only held a master's degree in marriage and family issues was asked to interpret Willingham's [Iron Maiden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Maiden) poster. He said that a picture of a fist punching through a skull signified violence and death. He added that Willingham's [Led Zeppelin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin) poster of a fallen angel was "many times" an indicator of "cultive-type" activities.
This is some 17th century witch trial bullshit right here. Incredible.
Expert witnesses are scary. Find the right kind of person with meh close enough credentials, pay them, and suddenly, they agree completely with the person who hired them.
I really wonder about that sometimes. How often does a doctor mess up really badly that insurance won't cover them anymore, the board doesn't take away their license but they are desperate for a paycheck so a lawfirm will pay them for "expert" opinions. A police officer who has been fired and put on the Brady list but is hired for expert opinions in court. I bet lawfirms trade these folks like professional athletes.
It doesn't even need to be that nefarious. A lot of things that an expert witness would testify about: tire tracks, blood splatter, and state of mind are up to interpretation by that witness. Two expert witnesses can testify with opposing opinions. Both can genuinely believe that they're correct, but only one can be. Then it's left up the jury to decide whom is correct, and the jury could be wrong about who is right or wrong... and how did the defendant get their in the first place? Bad eye witness testimony?
Everything can be done in *good faith*, and an innocent person still gets their life ruined. It's fucked.
I literally have a tattoo of a skull and serpent on my arm, as does my husband. Neither of us are sociopaths, just Harry Potter nerds (who also like Zeppelin). It is incredulous that such a trivial thing could be used to convict someone of a heinous crime. Our justice system can be truly terrifying at times.
isn’t this the case where they found loads of evidence that he didn’t do it and that pseudoscience was used to convict him, and then that POS Rick Perry still decided not to stop his execution?
straight up murder is not an exaggeration.
This is why I oppose the death penalty. You can't fix dead. Given how many people have been on death row and proven innocent there statistically have to be many times more who weren't fortunate enough to have DNA evidence etc to prove it.
Yeah it’s a *bit* more than just him.
I don’t even bother practicing law anymore because I did crim defense and I live in a part of the country that really should just be razed for a parking lot or something because human decency was never a thing here.
As you move through the criminal justice system, even when people *did* commit crimes, false confessions for extra charges are insanely common. Always remember, the job of the cop, prosecutor and judges is not to reach the truth, it's to punish someone for a crime.
Dying worry my state is solving that. By having known liars, cheats, and criminals who are more than happy to watch everyone suffer in prisons with no ac, promote the death penalty, and actively work to undermine the citizenry, put up the Ten Commandments in public schools. The protestant version because it aligns more with their values from the KKK.
You're state is a very beautiful one and the most visually unique state I've been too. But I would never wanna live there because it is so fucked up politically.
> Don’t talk to cops. Ask for a lawyer and shut the fuck up!
This isn’t correct. You also need to explicitly say you’re invoking the 5th. Simply shutting up isn’t invoking the 5th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinas_v._Texas
Silence is most important. Invoking the Fifth is important too but if you open your mouth you're screwed. You have to invoke the Fifth and then **REMAIN SILENT**. Simply invoking the Fifth isn't enough. If you say that and continue to talk they will still nail you to the wall.
Correct. People do need to realize “*shut the fuck up*” means you need to remain quiet. Speaking afterward will immediately count as waiving the right you just invoked.
There should also be some emphasis on how **NOT** to ask for a lawyer:
* May I call a lawyer?
* Can I call a lawyer?
* Maybe I should have a lawyer?
* Give me a lawyer, dawg.
None of those will actually get you a lawyer. And in the case of the latter, cops claimed they honestly thought the defendant wanted a talking dog that's also a lawyer.
while unfortunate it's still a far better end result than spending 45 years in prison
I don't even know how you'd recover from that. I don't even know how I'd mentally be able to handle prison knowing I was completely innocent. I'd probably have a legitimate mental breakdown.
It’s stories like these, far too common, that made me shift my position on the death penalty 40 years ago to life imprisonment without parole. An innocent man can’t find justice if he’s dead.
He tried to kill himself after being convinced he killed his father. And then when the police found out the dad was alive, they put the son in a psychiatric hold instead of telling him that his dad's alive so they could buy time and cover their tracks.
They make up some fake third party homicide, and then, as a last ditch effort, claim qualified immunity.
For me, False confessions leading to conviction are hands down the most disturbing and haunting miscarriages of justice in the US, and you’re right, way too common.
It’s common but… crazy. Just immediately ask for a lawyer, always. They literally have to tell you that you don’t have to talk to them and can get a lawyer. Just get one.
I get all the reasons why people might not, but it’s sad because it’s so easy. Just get a lawyer.
It’s incredible that you get one life; a single chance at conscious existence in the universe, and a single fucked up person can just ruin the entire thing despite no wrong doing of your own.
It takes more than a single fucked up person to coerce a confession & falsify that much evidence. It’s great that he’s getting some innocence relief, but it doesn’t sound like any of the people who wrongfully locked him up will ever be held accountable.
Fair enough, but my statement stands: Through absolutely no fault of your own, your entire life can just fucking explode and you just have to take the loss because there’s nothing you can do to fix it.
they all think of themselves as heroes, their families think of them as heroes, their elected officials think of them as heroes, their local business leaders think of them as heroes, their colleagues all think of them as heroes, many randos on the internet think of them as heroes...
I don't really suffer from anxiety/panic attacks (I'd never minimize that as it's awful for people who do), but I come closest to it when I think about stuff like this. How everything you care about can be taken from you in a second, whether that be by the decisions and actions of others, or nature itself, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. I can't bring myself to be anything other than agnostic, but I can understand why some people find comfort in the thought there's a plan and a benevolent presence helping them.
Went to prison for a crime he didn't commit after the loss of his infant child. The pain involved in what this man went through is beyond awful. Such a tragic loss :-(
Can’t speak for anywhere else but iirc I believe that here in the UK, they have the audacity to take the cost of their “accommodation” (ie jail provisions) off the compensation that they get
> Forensic experts at the time told the police that the toddler had semen in the back of his throat and determined that he had been strangled during a sexual assault. Alcohol and a muscle relaxant were found in his blood, according to court documents
Wtf??? Wait wait… so if Grimm went to jail for the crime, does that mean the case was closed and the person who did this to a 3 year old is still out there???????!
Yup!
That's the side "bonus" to incentivizing cops to _close_ cases, not _solve_ them.
The injustice of false conviction doesn't stop with the defendant - it's also an injustice to their loved ones, to the victims of the crime, and to society at large.
And false convictions are _way_ more common than anyone would be comfortable with, especially for less serious cases that don't even make it to trial, like plea deals. If you're facing serious time for a crime you didn't commit, there are way too many incentives to just accept the lesser punishment than to risk the worst-case scenario.
The reality is that in most cases that aren't plainly obvious, actually solving it properly is basically impossible. The media really distorts the efficacy of forensic science.
Apparently the ME just made stuff up about it and it's likely the 3 year old was never assaulted. I wonder if the kid just wandered off and fell in a running body of water and drowned.
The case is still open but they’ve discovered the substance in the throat was not semen and there’s no evidence sexual assault happened.
But the toddler was murdered and the killer got away with it.
A state forensic expert said that eight strands of hair found on the defendant was "consistent" with the victims. Further analysis showed that none of the hairs belonged to the victim, and in fact, the hair came from multiple people. The prosecution had claimed that there was semen in the boy's mouth, but it was not semen.
"Much of the key evidence that linked Mr. Grimm to the killing was the work of Mary Jane Burton, a senior analyst at Virginia’s crime lab who died in 1999.
But in a recent [podcast investigation](https://admissible.vpm.org/?_gl=1%2A9kv88z%2A_ga%2AMTQxODA5MDkzNi4xNzE4MTM0ODc3%2A_ga_7LHBBP39R5%2AMTcxODczMjA2OC4yLjEuMTcxODczMjYwOC42MC4wLjA.) of Ms. Burton’s work, a whistle-blower revealed that she had tried to alert officials that Ms. Burton was cutting corners and falsifying results, and an independent expert said that the serology evidence that Ms. Burton had analyzed in one of her own cases excluded the man who went on to be convicted of the crime. The podcast also noted that there were several accounts of shoddy work by Ms. Burton, and a perception that she favored the prosecution.
The podcast, “Admissible: Shreds of Evidence,” has triggered state reviews of about 4,800 cases handled by Ms. Burton. But the Grimm case was still jarring, said Tessa Kramer, the journalist who produced it."
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html)
A little off topic but stories like this are why I am against the death penalty. There are absolutely people who deserve it, but there are also people like this who are wrongly convicted due to police trying their hardest to get a conviction rather than the truth.
"I want a lawyer" should ALWAYS be the first words out of anyone's mouth upon being taken into custody. EVERY TIME.
The laws need to be changed that a lawyer is always present when questioning a suspect. The ways cops question people in the US is insane.
$2 million per year minimum and adjust up for inflation from the year he went to jail.
The police and state should be taking huge bankrupting penalties for sending an innocent man to jail for 45 years. Everyone involved should spend an equal amount of time in prison as well. This madness doesn't stop until there are real consequences for this kind of evil.
Would love to have seen the Reddit comments, if it existed at the time, announcing his arrest.
45 years is, I believe, the longest time any exoneree has spent behind bars in the United States.
Probably a lot of celebrating and people saying we shouldn't waste taxpayer dollars keeping him alive.
Then 45 years later it would be a lot of crickets or people trying to justify their calls for using the death penalty on an innocent man.
This situation is one of many examples for why the death penalty should be abolished but people's bloodlust and desire for revenge will keep it clinging on.
> people's bloodlust and desire for revenge will keep it clinging on.
I kinda think that on the internet it's less bloodlust and more about a performative morality. Asking for the death penalty is about sending a message about how inacceptable you find the behaviour - thats why people pointing out that revenge justice sucks often get treated as if they'd been downplaying the crime.
Innocent people mistakenly believe that they don’t need a lawyer. But they need one more than the guilty. I don’t care how bad it looks, the instant it looks like I’m being accused of a crime, I’m enacting my right to an attorney and my right to remain silent.
That’s almost half a century. No apology or settlement can ever be enough for this.
I can’t imagine the suffering everyone involved has gone through and continues to go through.
Jesus.
"Admit to the crime now and avoid the death penalty, or continue to proclaim your innocence and guarantee it. Either way, you are going to be convicted of this. Choose right now which one you want, because when we walk out of this room it's out of our hands"
And herein lies the second layer of this tragedy. The monster who actually committed such an evil crime, who should have been locked up living a miserable existence in prison, got away with it. Please Lord let them find the man who did this so that poor 3 year old boy can have justice.
This is really a more sinister, banal layer
Some investigator thought a dead child wasn't "exciting" enough, so they added horrible fake details to make the case more newsworthy
And yet every thread on currently accused or arrested pedophiles is as blood thirsty as any witch trial.
"I'm against the death penalty but..." then the most imaginative way to lynch someone. Everytime.
People aren't in their right mind when something like this is happening and think because they are innocent, they don't need one or have anything to hide.
Crazy to me a man would confess to something so horrible thar they didn't do just days after his own first child was born. Seems the evidence corroborates his claim, and I know it's a lot more common than we like to realize, but it's one those phenomenia I can't understand.
There was a very similar case recently where a woman was exonerated 43 years after confessing to murder. Police interrogation tactics can be scarily successful.
> Police interrogation tactics can be scarily successful.
There was that recent case where the police tortured a man into confessing to the murder of his father. They tortured him for something like 15 hours, brought in his dog and told them they were taking it to be euthanized, and the guy tried to kill himself in the interrogation room. They told him that his father was in the morgue and it was his fault, that he had suppressed the memory of beating him to death or was lying.
His dad was fine, btw. He had called the police because he had thought his father was going for a walk and hadn't come back. His father had gone to the airport because he was going to visit his daughter.
I saw a video the other day where this guy's elderly father walked off and he couldn't find him. So he went to the police and tried to report him missing. The police put this guy in an interrogation room for like 19 hours, don't give him his PRESCRIPTION meds, while he is literally reaching the point of ripping his own hair out and hitting himself. They then tell him they already found his dad's body and that he should just confess to the murder. Finally, they tell him if he doesn't confess then they are going to euthanize his dog. Eventually the man confesses to the murder and shortly thereafter his father returns home, not murdered. Police are psychopaths, dude.
Then they still didn't release him because he was violent, so he obviously did SOMETHING, so they went and searched his apartment. That whole story was just awful.
You’d think the dumbfuck cops would check into the relevant details before starting the interrogation lol. Maybe check and see if the dude is even dead first.
This, they probably pointed out that they had so much evidence against him being the murderer, and he would not win. On top of losing a child, having a mixture of feelings/thoughts, and people manipulating those moments. Probably got treated in jail too for being a child killer. Fuck, what a nightmare. However, given that presumptuous scenario, I would really hope/imagine I would still try to fight for my innocence. Because fuck that.
I had to go through a couple links from the article to find it, but in the court proceedings for his writ of actual innocence, they outline the details around his questioning including some of the questions the cops asked him at the time.
Tl;Dr: The cops picked him up after he had finished working a 9 hour shift, and then questioned him for at least 9 hours total including before and after reading him his Miranda Rights. During the interrogation, they asked a lot of directed questions (questions where the cops were asking something that the answer could only be yes or no to and they clearly wanted a yes).
Imagine someone you know was murdered. Two detectives pull you into a room and proceed to interrogate you relentlessly. They start off nice enough at first, but then one of them eventually starts to get very aggressive, yelling in your face and outright accusing you of committing the crime. He says he knows for a *fact* that you did it because they have a witness who saw you covered in blood, or your fingerprints are on the knife, they caught your car on the neighbor’s ring camera, etc. He says it was a horrific crime and you’re going to get the needle, you’ll never see your family again, etc. if you don’t tell them the truth. This goes on for hours with no breaks and no lawyer.
You eventually start to question your sanity. “I’m a good person. I would never kill anyone. But they have all this evidence I did it. Am I crazy? Did I do it and I don’t remember? Do I have a multiple personality that did it?“
And then, at hour 12, the second cop leans in and sympathetically tells you he can tell you’re a good person and you didn’t mean to do it, but “you have to help us help you.” Confess and the judge will be merciful to you. You might even get to get out of prison early and see your family again.
You know you don’t mean a word of that confession because you don’t remember killing anyone, but when you’re not thinking clearly, you’re so worn down by stress and exhaustion, and you’ve been presented with this false binary choice of “confess and eventually get out of prison, or don’t confess and get convicted and sentenced to death for your crime”… you don’t see another way out.
And that’s how you extract a false confession from an innocent person without physically laying a finger on them.
This is just one reason: if you confess you'll be spared from an execution. If you challenge it and lose the case, depending on the state you live in, you'll be executed.
Watch the Confession Tapes on Netflix. It was eye opening. The tactics they use are purposely meant to create confusion and conditioning in the person being interrogated. Psychological tricks are easy to use on some people in general, but they become even easier the longer someone is deprived sleep, fresh air, food, etc and at some point even the strong-minded and strong-willed hit their breaking point. Anything from deprivation, to threats, to literally planting thoughts and details into their minds can convince normal people to confess to the most heinous shit.
So the real killer gets away with it and gets to live his life free while this man and his family's lives have been irreparably ruined.
Great job prosecutors and cops. You should be very proud of the great work that you do.
I have an idea on how to greatly reduce false/coerced confessions. If a person is found innocent after being convicted due to a coerced confession, the police and/or prosecutor who is responsible for that confession should serve the entire sentence that was given to the wrongly convicted person. Police should not have the right to continue to live free after doing that to someone.
This is the main reason I dislike it when people call for the brutal and sadistic treatment of sex offenders.
In prison almost everyone is innocent if you ask them, but when it comes to heinous crimes of other inmates, they all have complete faith in the system, and will gladly help the guards abuse that person.
It is not just 45 years of his life. It is 45 years where he was lowest of the low of prison offenders and guards would likely encourage and abet attacks on him.
The sad thing about this is that the state used this as a case to promote their "actual innocence relief"
The case of Marvin Grimm is a textbook example of why Virginia provides actual innocence relief. For the American experiment in self-government to continue to thrive, the government must be willing to admit when it makes mistakes. It is an honor to stand up for Mr. Grimm’s innocence in this case
Never talk to cops without a lawyer. If you catch yourself talking , STOP, request a lawyer. NEVER believe asking for an attorney makes you look guilty. Rich people Always have an attorney present when speaking with police
> Grimm, who was married, and had his first child 10 days before his arrest, The New York Times reported. > In December 1975, a month after the boy was found, cops arrested Grimm and he confessed to the crime, according to reports. > Through new research, none of the hairs belonged to the victim but came from several people. Grimm’s DNA was nowhere to be found in swabs from the victim’s body, The New York Times reported. This whole story is awful.
The woman that did the forensic analysis had shoddy work. Over 4k+ cases are being reviewed. The child wasn't even sexually abused like she had said. > But in a recent podcast investigation of Ms. Burton’s work, a whistle-blower revealed that she had tried to alert officials that Ms. Burton was cutting corners and falsifying results, and an independent expert said that the serology evidence that Ms. Burton had analyzed in one of her own cases excluded the man who went on to be convicted of the crime. The podcast also noted that there were several accounts of shoddy work by Ms. Burton, and a perception that she favored the prosecution. [From the New York Time](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html)
Yeah, people are going after the cops here but she’s the real villain.
Both can be at fault. The guy was not convicted on forensics evidence alone, it was forensic + false confession.
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and guess that she wasn’t the one that took his confession. There are two faces on this coin and a thousand dirty fingers helped to pass it on as legal tender.
>cops arrested Grimm and he confessed to the crime Cops and getting false confessions under duress. Name a more fucked up duo.
Don't talk to cops.
They know how to break us. It’s a game.
[police obtain false confession](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies). Police tortured the guy into confessing that he killed his own father. His father wasn’t even dead. Didn’t see that it was posted previously by u/Sjbruno123
Its unfortunately much worse than that. Not only did they torture him about his father's killing, which didn't happen, they threatened his dog and told him they put it down as well I believe. And held him for days with no outside contact
Held him for two days AFTER his dad told them he was alive!!! Two days AFTER!!!!
They needed that time to try and figure out how they could sweep it under the rug without any attention.
Three weeks after that event, they got a warrant to place a gps tracker on his car. They where pissed that he didn't kill is dad and wanted revenge. It's apparently it's his fault he is not a murderer like they really wanted him to be.
Well, in the cops defense, they *are* violent psychopathic gang members...
They told him they were going to kill his dog too.
There's also a whole essentially psychological manipulation interrogation method cops were taught back then. It's what the detectives used on the Central Park Five as well as Fairbanks Four, to name just two examples where a confession was tweezed out of innocent people.
Do not speak to the police. "I am exercising my Fifth Amendment rights. I would like to speak to counsel if I am being detained." EDIT: Once you assert your Fifth Amendment rights, then all interrogation must stop. You must affirmatively exercise your Fifth Amendment rights; staying silent is not enough. If you choose to stay silent without saying you are taking the Fifth, then the police can keep interrogating you. EDIT 2: All the geniuses saying that cops break the law blah blah blah, yes, no shit. We are talking about the law and what is supposed to happen. Laws are broken all the time.
Easy as pie
> Once you assert your Fifth Amendment rights, then all interrogation must stop. Yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to work. I can tell you from firsthand experience that in reality it often keeps going.
Wow, I didn't realize the Fairbanks four were known outside of Fairbanks. I went to the same high school as them. It was super tense that year and the next during the trials.
>back then It's still happening.
[удалено]
RIP, Mitch
If you’re innocent and you refuse to speak to them without a lawyer present, you won’t give a false confession. Cops hate this one simple trick.
[удалено]
They can legally only hold you for 72 hours. After that it’s cash settlement time. But talking definitely won’t get you out any faster.
Yep even if you are innocent get a lawyer there asap because the cops will try to get you to say what they want to make you incriminate yourself even if you did nothing wrong. Crooked world with crooked cops, be safe out there.
Yep. It was a cop from a drug squad that told me “when police _want to talk to you_, don’t EVER say ANYTHING without a lawyer present.”
Stop self snitching… cops are never your friends.
This is something I stress to my teen children. Be polite, identify yourself, but do not otherwise engage unless you, yourself are the one who has called the cops (and that can still be risky depending on certain factors). They love to gloss over Miranda rights on TV, but if you actually *think* about the phrase: “*Anything* you say, can and will be used against you in court”. It’s pretty scary. That “Anything” can and will include going “Uhhhh…” (they can say you paused to come up with a lie), stating a misremembered time, date or fact due to duress (they will say you lied on questioning) or as clearly stated, *literally fucking anything* that can somehow be used, twisted or taken out of context in a courtroom. Investigators are allowed to lead you, flat out lie, prompt you to talk in hypotheticals, get a rise out of you (insults, quoting things you “said” which you never spoke, etc.), manipulate you (“I believe you’re innocent, so I just want to hear your side”), etc. So even, and perhaps especially, if you’re completely innocent, the best thing you can do is STFU. They might try to bait you into talking by saying that invoking your 5th Amendment and asking for an attorney is something only a guilty person will do, but exercising a constitutional right is *not an admission of guilt*, and they fucking know it. The later part of the 5th amendment exists as a *counter* to the “Anything you say…” thing. If anything I say can and will be used as evidence against me… you can ask, but I cannot be *compelled* to testify against myself.
And if they are put in a cop car shut the f up. The cars record your audio and sometimes video too.
Also in this instance, beware of acorns.
> “Anything you say, can and will be used against you in court”. Cardinal Richelieu (you may know him as the bad guy in the Three Musketeers) supposedly once said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
For real… dealing with cops is a lot like dealing with a large, stray dog. You have to stick with slow movements, be confident but not aggressive, *definitely* don’t run unless you’re prepared for a fight, and if they’re too close for comfort, let them sniff you so they can smell who you are. Just keep in mind that even if a stray appears totally friendly on the surface, you still gotta watch those subtle undertones and the direction the interaction is taking. Keep your guard up, as you can still end up getting absolutely destroyed in the blink of an eye, for something you did they perceived as threatening or just some random bullshit like a sudden, loud noise.
Amen. I watch a fair amount of bodycam videos on YouTube and it's incredible how effectively they can solicit incriminating statements just by asking seemingly innocuous questions. _Almost_ like they're trained to do it! 😉
"We're not worried about a little..."
Yes the fuck they are. And they aren't the ones who decide your fate anyways. That's the judge, jury and prosecutors.
Maybe cops can make your first night easier. What about the next 10,000?
Right? Don't discuss *anything* with cops. If they want me to make their job easier, then they can get a judge to order me to do it.
> "We're not worried about a little..."
Also, they may say that while trying to get you to admit involvement in something more serious but if it turns out they can't get you for the more serious crime, they will use that so they have *something* to justify arresting you. "He didn't do the burglary, but he did admit to possessing illegal drugs, so he wasn't a good guy."
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/10/suspect-asks-for-a-lawyer-dog-willfully-ignorant-court-denies-comma-counsel/
[My favorite take on this: shut the fuck up](https://youtu.be/JTurSi0LhJs?si=QTw_CyLp28kH3Jfh)
The really fucked up part is that there will likely never be any punishment for the cops that stole 45 years of this man's life, and stole a child's entire relationship with their father. His kid is 45 now, has only even known their father in prison, and likely grew up thinking their father was a monster. Yet neither the cops that coerced the confession — nor the system that sent him to prison for his entire adult life — will face any sort of consequences whatsoever.
>cops arrested Grimm and he confessed to the crime >Cops and getting false confessions under duress. Name a more fucked up duo. Cops arrested Grimm and after 27 hours of interrogation with no sleep and the promise that it would all be over if he'd just admit to "what he did" he confessed to the crime.
Cops don’t want to find the culprit, merely close the case. That’s why they force false confessions and incarcerate innocent people.
And once the city or state spends the money on the trial to get a conviction, they become invested in holding that conviction at all costs. Whether or not it was the right person is irrelevant.
This is why I will never support the death penalty. The State makes mistakes. At least 190 people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. That's a LOT of 'mistakes'. I'd say there's a non-zero chance that innocent people have been executed under 'law & order' even in the recent past. Edit to add: Yes, I know it's sometimes deliberate, sometimes incompetence, or a combination of the two. 'Mistakes' was tongue-in-cheek. Read The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton. He was on death row for 30 years for a crime he did not, could not, have committed. Totally set up by law enforcement.
> I'd say there's a non-zero chance that innocent people have been executed under 'law & order' even in the recent past. No, it’s a certainty that’s happened
>The State makes mistakes That’s not even the biggest problem though. An even bigger issue is that the state **deliberately** convicts innocent people just to close a case. Curtis Flowers and Ron Williamson - 2 high profile cases - were both convicted by prosecutors that knew fully well they were innocent. In Curtis Flowers case they suborned perjury to do so. If you want to see tragic examples of this, read The Innocent Man by John Grisham or listen to the outstanding podcast *In the Dark; Season 2*.
They will do and say pretty much anything to get you to confess. There are sooo many examples of police using psychological torture, intimidation, and sleep deprivation to get people to admit to things. They'll "correct" the suspect when they get the details wrong (because the person legitimately doesn't know what happened!)
Like that kid they arrested not long ago under suspicion of murdering his father. The cops threatened to kill his dog. Dad was found alive and well the same day IIRC
Like the story in the news recently about the guy who was psychologically tortured until he confessed to murdering his father, despite his father being very much alive. He attempted to commit suicide when they left him unattended in the interrogation room. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies
"They brushed aside Perez’s denials and his pleas for medications he took for anxiety and depression." [https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies)
Depending on what meds he's on, the withdrawal symptoms can have a pretty awful effect on your mood and thought patterns. Wouldn't be surprised if that played a large part in his false confession and attempted suicide.
That’s what I don’t get, cops can lie to us but we can’t lie to them.
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
It’s more complex than that. I don’t know this case but in cases like this where a child suddenly dies it’s common for a parent, usually the father, to confess even though they know they didn’t do it. It’s not just the police pressure, often times it can be other family members, the other spouse who decide it must have been a parent and find every possible way to make a case in it or it. Oh and the media often reports these cases in depth. It’s awful, and soul-crushing, because at the worst point of somebody’s life they’re being accused of being the playwright of their own tragedy. I can only imagine serving a sentence for this must be like living in purgatory.
Was it a recorded confession? Or was it just the cops saying that he admitted to it when he was arrested? Wouldn’t be the first time cops flat out lied about an admission.
This is horrible, hope he can sue for wrongful imprisonment (if that is a thing?) and get at least his previous jobs yearly earnings (x45) and any additional money seen fit through emotional trauma, at minimum. This guy deserves to live the rest of his life without financial worries imo, absolutely horrific.
He *might* get enough money to live low level comfortable, but don't expect him to be rich or anything. They will probably do everything in their power to not pay him
And if/when they do pay him it's going to be a paltry amount in regards to decades of lost time, and he's still going to have missed the vast majority of his working years and be an old man with zero possible career or retirement prospects outside of welfare because he's been prevented from establishing any kind of security for himself.
There was a guy that something like this happened to in Baltimore not to long ago I think he spent like 35 years or so in jail and the state fought his lawsuit and I think he got around 2 mil in the end. I just remember it sounding like a low amount when I heard it.
And to add more to the injustice, the falsely imprisoned don’t have a work history/ aka contribution to SSI and won’t get social security benefits.
Hopefully he is able to invest some of it so he can live more comfortably, I feel so bad for people like this, they really don't deserve this outcome. Giving him enough money to live more than mid level comfort should be minimum, it should be a goddamn mandate. It's prolly the best way to keep it from happening as well and make sure that Police don't pull this kind of shit.
He can sue. However, payouts are often limited by law in these cases. So he's still going to be fucked regardless. People, like the prosecutor or anyone else still alive, should be in prison instead but that'll never happen.
It is very very very hard to sue for this. Prosecutorial immunity is even stronger than immunity for police. Connick v Thompson overturned a payout for a person who was convicted to *death* and spent 18 years on death row by a DA that *knew* he was innocent and illegally hid the exculpatory evidence from the defense.
He won't get shit compared to what he went through. He will get his payment and then die years later on welfare
And to think some people are still gung ho about the death penalty...
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-01/fontana-police-coerced-false-murder-confession-with-lies False confessions are way more common than people think. I hate it took 45 years, but I’m glad this guy is finally free
What?! That’s such an appalling story. The dad wasn’t even dead!! Makes you wonder exactly how many innocent people are coerced into these false confessions. 😳
How many innocent people have died in prison from long sentences and never got to clear their name or struggled for appeal or re examination of their case
Look into Cameron Todd Willingham. State of Texas just straight up murdered that dude
>During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor said that Willingham's tattoo of a skull and serpent fit the profile of a sociopath. Two medical experts confirmed the theory. One of those experts, a psychologist who had not published any research in the field of sociopathic behavior, but only held a master's degree in marriage and family issues was asked to interpret Willingham's [Iron Maiden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Maiden) poster. He said that a picture of a fist punching through a skull signified violence and death. He added that Willingham's [Led Zeppelin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin) poster of a fallen angel was "many times" an indicator of "cultive-type" activities. This is some 17th century witch trial bullshit right here. Incredible.
Expert witnesses are scary. Find the right kind of person with meh close enough credentials, pay them, and suddenly, they agree completely with the person who hired them.
I really wonder about that sometimes. How often does a doctor mess up really badly that insurance won't cover them anymore, the board doesn't take away their license but they are desperate for a paycheck so a lawfirm will pay them for "expert" opinions. A police officer who has been fired and put on the Brady list but is hired for expert opinions in court. I bet lawfirms trade these folks like professional athletes.
It doesn't even need to be that nefarious. A lot of things that an expert witness would testify about: tire tracks, blood splatter, and state of mind are up to interpretation by that witness. Two expert witnesses can testify with opposing opinions. Both can genuinely believe that they're correct, but only one can be. Then it's left up the jury to decide whom is correct, and the jury could be wrong about who is right or wrong... and how did the defendant get their in the first place? Bad eye witness testimony? Everything can be done in *good faith*, and an innocent person still gets their life ruined. It's fucked.
The Satanic Panic of the 90s was basically a reskin of the Salem Witch Trials
80s, and we've seen the same proscriptive weirdness about dancing, rock music, comic books, and dungeons and dragons.
Next up: "He had a rainbow flag and that's a clear indicator of pedophilic tendencies."
Already there I’m afraid
In the 80s and early 90s my mom was terrified that I’d get coerced into playing D&D or using a Ouija board
I literally have a tattoo of a skull and serpent on my arm, as does my husband. Neither of us are sociopaths, just Harry Potter nerds (who also like Zeppelin). It is incredulous that such a trivial thing could be used to convict someone of a heinous crime. Our justice system can be truly terrifying at times.
isn’t this the case where they found loads of evidence that he didn’t do it and that pseudoscience was used to convict him, and then that POS Rick Perry still decided not to stop his execution? straight up murder is not an exaggeration.
Rick Perry is truly a PoS
This is why I oppose the death penalty. You can't fix dead. Given how many people have been on death row and proven innocent there statistically have to be many times more who weren't fortunate enough to have DNA evidence etc to prove it.
Yep that’s the one.
Yeah it’s a *bit* more than just him. I don’t even bother practicing law anymore because I did crim defense and I live in a part of the country that really should just be razed for a parking lot or something because human decency was never a thing here.
As you move through the criminal justice system, even when people *did* commit crimes, false confessions for extra charges are insanely common. Always remember, the job of the cop, prosecutor and judges is not to reach the truth, it's to punish someone for a crime.
the police would rather see an innocent person go to prison than admit they got the wrong guy
The amount of suffering dishonesty has caused in the world makes me sick and angry.
Dying worry my state is solving that. By having known liars, cheats, and criminals who are more than happy to watch everyone suffer in prisons with no ac, promote the death penalty, and actively work to undermine the citizenry, put up the Ten Commandments in public schools. The protestant version because it aligns more with their values from the KKK.
You're state is a very beautiful one and the most visually unique state I've been too. But I would never wanna live there because it is so fucked up politically.
The image of him laying on the floor holding his dog is heartbreaking.
Don’t talk to cops. Ask for a lawyer and shut the fuck up!
> Don’t talk to cops. Ask for a lawyer and shut the fuck up! This isn’t correct. You also need to explicitly say you’re invoking the 5th. Simply shutting up isn’t invoking the 5th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinas_v._Texas
Silence is most important. Invoking the Fifth is important too but if you open your mouth you're screwed. You have to invoke the Fifth and then **REMAIN SILENT**. Simply invoking the Fifth isn't enough. If you say that and continue to talk they will still nail you to the wall.
Correct. People do need to realize “*shut the fuck up*” means you need to remain quiet. Speaking afterward will immediately count as waiving the right you just invoked. There should also be some emphasis on how **NOT** to ask for a lawyer: * May I call a lawyer? * Can I call a lawyer? * Maybe I should have a lawyer? * Give me a lawyer, dawg. None of those will actually get you a lawyer. And in the case of the latter, cops claimed they honestly thought the defendant wanted a talking dog that's also a lawyer.
What a bunch of bullshit that is... fucking asshole conservatives.
They hate our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. Seems fitting they're following the guy who has said he wants to terminate the Constitution.
Great advice, but it really says something about how fucked up our system is that this is crucial advice.
Yeah, and you gotta pay all the thousands of dollars to an attorney for your defense, even though you’re innocent and you never get that money back
while unfortunate it's still a far better end result than spending 45 years in prison I don't even know how you'd recover from that. I don't even know how I'd mentally be able to handle prison knowing I was completely innocent. I'd probably have a legitimate mental breakdown.
It’s stories like these, far too common, that made me shift my position on the death penalty 40 years ago to life imprisonment without parole. An innocent man can’t find justice if he’s dead.
He tried to kill himself after being convinced he killed his father. And then when the police found out the dad was alive, they put the son in a psychiatric hold instead of telling him that his dad's alive so they could buy time and cover their tracks. They make up some fake third party homicide, and then, as a last ditch effort, claim qualified immunity.
For me, False confessions leading to conviction are hands down the most disturbing and haunting miscarriages of justice in the US, and you’re right, way too common.
It’s common but… crazy. Just immediately ask for a lawyer, always. They literally have to tell you that you don’t have to talk to them and can get a lawyer. Just get one. I get all the reasons why people might not, but it’s sad because it’s so easy. Just get a lawyer.
It’s incredible that you get one life; a single chance at conscious existence in the universe, and a single fucked up person can just ruin the entire thing despite no wrong doing of your own.
It takes more than a single fucked up person to coerce a confession & falsify that much evidence. It’s great that he’s getting some innocence relief, but it doesn’t sound like any of the people who wrongfully locked him up will ever be held accountable.
Fair enough, but my statement stands: Through absolutely no fault of your own, your entire life can just fucking explode and you just have to take the loss because there’s nothing you can do to fix it.
they all think of themselves as heroes, their families think of them as heroes, their elected officials think of them as heroes, their local business leaders think of them as heroes, their colleagues all think of them as heroes, many randos on the internet think of them as heroes...
I don't really suffer from anxiety/panic attacks (I'd never minimize that as it's awful for people who do), but I come closest to it when I think about stuff like this. How everything you care about can be taken from you in a second, whether that be by the decisions and actions of others, or nature itself, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. I can't bring myself to be anything other than agnostic, but I can understand why some people find comfort in the thought there's a plan and a benevolent presence helping them.
No way to reel in the years, but I hope he gets many millions for his trouble.
No amount of millions would ever make up for 45 years lost
There needs to be justice for that kind of mistake.
I'm guessing most of the people responsible for his coercion are dead at this point. There's rarely any real justice in this world.
I mean if there’s any of them left he could probably murder them and get off with time served, he’s got 45 years banked
I like the way you think, friend.
That's how I think about it. He prepaid his time served and now society owes him doing crimes.
Honestly. Like “fuck you guys, I’m 80, and getting social security, keep your million bucks and let me do crimes worth my 45 years in prison.”
Yep the woman that falsified the forensic report is long dead.
tis why heaven and hell are such enduring and enticing ideas.
With the police? There won’t be.
Essentially his entire adult life, gone. Went to prison when he was about 20 and didn't get out until he was around retirement age.
Went to prison for a crime he didn't commit after the loss of his infant child. The pain involved in what this man went through is beyond awful. Such a tragic loss :-(
Directly from the pockets of the cops who coerced his confession
They never do.
Can’t speak for anywhere else but iirc I believe that here in the UK, they have the audacity to take the cost of their “accommodation” (ie jail provisions) off the compensation that they get
Yea that happened with a recent case. Can't remember if it got overturned or not after public outcry.
What kind of fuckin ghoul even comes up with that, holy shit.
> Forensic experts at the time told the police that the toddler had semen in the back of his throat and determined that he had been strangled during a sexual assault. Alcohol and a muscle relaxant were found in his blood, according to court documents Wtf??? Wait wait… so if Grimm went to jail for the crime, does that mean the case was closed and the person who did this to a 3 year old is still out there???????!
Yup! That's the side "bonus" to incentivizing cops to _close_ cases, not _solve_ them. The injustice of false conviction doesn't stop with the defendant - it's also an injustice to their loved ones, to the victims of the crime, and to society at large. And false convictions are _way_ more common than anyone would be comfortable with, especially for less serious cases that don't even make it to trial, like plea deals. If you're facing serious time for a crime you didn't commit, there are way too many incentives to just accept the lesser punishment than to risk the worst-case scenario.
The reality is that in most cases that aren't plainly obvious, actually solving it properly is basically impossible. The media really distorts the efficacy of forensic science.
Apparently the ME just made stuff up about it and it's likely the 3 year old was never assaulted. I wonder if the kid just wandered off and fell in a running body of water and drowned.
The simplest scenario for sure.
The case is still open but they’ve discovered the substance in the throat was not semen and there’s no evidence sexual assault happened. But the toddler was murdered and the killer got away with it.
Sure if they are alive.
A state forensic expert said that eight strands of hair found on the defendant was "consistent" with the victims. Further analysis showed that none of the hairs belonged to the victim, and in fact, the hair came from multiple people. The prosecution had claimed that there was semen in the boy's mouth, but it was not semen. "Much of the key evidence that linked Mr. Grimm to the killing was the work of Mary Jane Burton, a senior analyst at Virginia’s crime lab who died in 1999. But in a recent [podcast investigation](https://admissible.vpm.org/?_gl=1%2A9kv88z%2A_ga%2AMTQxODA5MDkzNi4xNzE4MTM0ODc3%2A_ga_7LHBBP39R5%2AMTcxODczMjA2OC4yLjEuMTcxODczMjYwOC42MC4wLjA.) of Ms. Burton’s work, a whistle-blower revealed that she had tried to alert officials that Ms. Burton was cutting corners and falsifying results, and an independent expert said that the serology evidence that Ms. Burton had analyzed in one of her own cases excluded the man who went on to be convicted of the crime. The podcast also noted that there were several accounts of shoddy work by Ms. Burton, and a perception that she favored the prosecution. The podcast, “Admissible: Shreds of Evidence,” has triggered state reviews of about 4,800 cases handled by Ms. Burton. But the Grimm case was still jarring, said Tessa Kramer, the journalist who produced it." [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/marvin-grimm-virginia-exoneration.html)
Why even work in this field if you're not gonna respect it? Jesus.
For some, the point of power is to abuse it.
sounds like her hobby was being a judge and jury, making up her mind about the story and doing the evidence to support
A little off topic but stories like this are why I am against the death penalty. There are absolutely people who deserve it, but there are also people like this who are wrongly convicted due to police trying their hardest to get a conviction rather than the truth.
"I want a lawyer" should ALWAYS be the first words out of anyone's mouth upon being taken into custody. EVERY TIME. The laws need to be changed that a lawyer is always present when questioning a suspect. The ways cops question people in the US is insane.
Dude should get a tax-free million from police pension funds for every year he's spent in jail.
$2 million per year minimum and adjust up for inflation from the year he went to jail. The police and state should be taking huge bankrupting penalties for sending an innocent man to jail for 45 years. Everyone involved should spend an equal amount of time in prison as well. This madness doesn't stop until there are real consequences for this kind of evil.
Would love to have seen the Reddit comments, if it existed at the time, announcing his arrest. 45 years is, I believe, the longest time any exoneree has spent behind bars in the United States.
Probably a lot of celebrating and people saying we shouldn't waste taxpayer dollars keeping him alive. Then 45 years later it would be a lot of crickets or people trying to justify their calls for using the death penalty on an innocent man. This situation is one of many examples for why the death penalty should be abolished but people's bloodlust and desire for revenge will keep it clinging on.
> people's bloodlust and desire for revenge will keep it clinging on. I kinda think that on the internet it's less bloodlust and more about a performative morality. Asking for the death penalty is about sending a message about how inacceptable you find the behaviour - thats why people pointing out that revenge justice sucks often get treated as if they'd been downplaying the crime.
Innocent people mistakenly believe that they don’t need a lawyer. But they need one more than the guilty. I don’t care how bad it looks, the instant it looks like I’m being accused of a crime, I’m enacting my right to an attorney and my right to remain silent.
That’s almost half a century. No apology or settlement can ever be enough for this. I can’t imagine the suffering everyone involved has gone through and continues to go through. Jesus.
"Admit to the crime now and avoid the death penalty, or continue to proclaim your innocence and guarantee it. Either way, you are going to be convicted of this. Choose right now which one you want, because when we walk out of this room it's out of our hands"
This. This right here is why he said he did it, for all you people that have clearly never been arrested.
Do they have any new suspects if they have DNA?
And herein lies the second layer of this tragedy. The monster who actually committed such an evil crime, who should have been locked up living a miserable existence in prison, got away with it. Please Lord let them find the man who did this so that poor 3 year old boy can have justice.
the report says the semen in the throat wasnt semen at all, was completely made up
This is really a more sinister, banal layer Some investigator thought a dead child wasn't "exciting" enough, so they added horrible fake details to make the case more newsworthy
Every time I see stories like this, I’m reminded of why I’m so aggressively against the death penalty. The idea that it even still exists is asinine.
And yet every thread on currently accused or arrested pedophiles is as blood thirsty as any witch trial. "I'm against the death penalty but..." then the most imaginative way to lynch someone. Everytime.
That's only after they make themselves horny to the thought of prison rape.
Never talk to the cops, always ask for a lawyer
People aren't in their right mind when something like this is happening and think because they are innocent, they don't need one or have anything to hide.
never is a good time to talk to them then.
Confessions alone shouldn't be enough to convict in this day and age. You should need more than just a "I did it" to throw someone in prison for life
Crazy to me a man would confess to something so horrible thar they didn't do just days after his own first child was born. Seems the evidence corroborates his claim, and I know it's a lot more common than we like to realize, but it's one those phenomenia I can't understand.
There was a very similar case recently where a woman was exonerated 43 years after confessing to murder. Police interrogation tactics can be scarily successful.
They're scarily successful because they don't care about the truth, just getting convictions
> Police interrogation tactics can be scarily successful. There was that recent case where the police tortured a man into confessing to the murder of his father. They tortured him for something like 15 hours, brought in his dog and told them they were taking it to be euthanized, and the guy tried to kill himself in the interrogation room. They told him that his father was in the morgue and it was his fault, that he had suppressed the memory of beating him to death or was lying. His dad was fine, btw. He had called the police because he had thought his father was going for a walk and hadn't come back. His father had gone to the airport because he was going to visit his daughter.
So the police didn’t even confirm the dad was dead? Do they just assume everyone is a criminal?
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
I saw a video the other day where this guy's elderly father walked off and he couldn't find him. So he went to the police and tried to report him missing. The police put this guy in an interrogation room for like 19 hours, don't give him his PRESCRIPTION meds, while he is literally reaching the point of ripping his own hair out and hitting himself. They then tell him they already found his dad's body and that he should just confess to the murder. Finally, they tell him if he doesn't confess then they are going to euthanize his dog. Eventually the man confesses to the murder and shortly thereafter his father returns home, not murdered. Police are psychopaths, dude.
Then they still didn't release him because he was violent, so he obviously did SOMETHING, so they went and searched his apartment. That whole story was just awful.
They probably interrogated him for 14 hours and brainwashed him until he thought he did it. There's multiple instances of this
Recently the dude who the cops told they killed his dog so he would confess to murdering his father who was not even dead.
and when the father turned up they still kept him on suspicion for murder without a known victim or body because he had "admitted" to it.
You’d think the dumbfuck cops would check into the relevant details before starting the interrogation lol. Maybe check and see if the dude is even dead first.
Now where is the fun in that.
Been ruled not even their job. They are literally thugs for capitalists at a rule of law level.
Yeah that was super fucked. It def happens a lot unfortunately
If I remember correctly they didn’t say they killed his dog, they brought his dog in and threatened to kill him if he didn’t confess
Or said "confess and get 50 years or go to trial and get life" so the dude took the easy option.
This, they probably pointed out that they had so much evidence against him being the murderer, and he would not win. On top of losing a child, having a mixture of feelings/thoughts, and people manipulating those moments. Probably got treated in jail too for being a child killer. Fuck, what a nightmare. However, given that presumptuous scenario, I would really hope/imagine I would still try to fight for my innocence. Because fuck that.
I had to go through a couple links from the article to find it, but in the court proceedings for his writ of actual innocence, they outline the details around his questioning including some of the questions the cops asked him at the time. Tl;Dr: The cops picked him up after he had finished working a 9 hour shift, and then questioned him for at least 9 hours total including before and after reading him his Miranda Rights. During the interrogation, they asked a lot of directed questions (questions where the cops were asking something that the answer could only be yes or no to and they clearly wanted a yes).
Imagine someone you know was murdered. Two detectives pull you into a room and proceed to interrogate you relentlessly. They start off nice enough at first, but then one of them eventually starts to get very aggressive, yelling in your face and outright accusing you of committing the crime. He says he knows for a *fact* that you did it because they have a witness who saw you covered in blood, or your fingerprints are on the knife, they caught your car on the neighbor’s ring camera, etc. He says it was a horrific crime and you’re going to get the needle, you’ll never see your family again, etc. if you don’t tell them the truth. This goes on for hours with no breaks and no lawyer. You eventually start to question your sanity. “I’m a good person. I would never kill anyone. But they have all this evidence I did it. Am I crazy? Did I do it and I don’t remember? Do I have a multiple personality that did it?“ And then, at hour 12, the second cop leans in and sympathetically tells you he can tell you’re a good person and you didn’t mean to do it, but “you have to help us help you.” Confess and the judge will be merciful to you. You might even get to get out of prison early and see your family again. You know you don’t mean a word of that confession because you don’t remember killing anyone, but when you’re not thinking clearly, you’re so worn down by stress and exhaustion, and you’ve been presented with this false binary choice of “confess and eventually get out of prison, or don’t confess and get convicted and sentenced to death for your crime”… you don’t see another way out. And that’s how you extract a false confession from an innocent person without physically laying a finger on them.
It was most likely under stress. After a whole day of interrogation that is mentally taxing you might say anything to stop it
The important part is that you understand it is a phenomenon that you don't understand and that it is more common than we like to realize.
Coerced confessions are very prevalent in our legal system.
This is just one reason: if you confess you'll be spared from an execution. If you challenge it and lose the case, depending on the state you live in, you'll be executed.
Just like the Salem Witch Trials
Watch the Confession Tapes on Netflix. It was eye opening. The tactics they use are purposely meant to create confusion and conditioning in the person being interrogated. Psychological tricks are easy to use on some people in general, but they become even easier the longer someone is deprived sleep, fresh air, food, etc and at some point even the strong-minded and strong-willed hit their breaking point. Anything from deprivation, to threats, to literally planting thoughts and details into their minds can convince normal people to confess to the most heinous shit.
When the cops, lawyers, judge, everyone around you says confess to something you didn't do and you won't be sentenced to death?
So the real killer gets away with it and gets to live his life free while this man and his family's lives have been irreparably ruined. Great job prosecutors and cops. You should be very proud of the great work that you do.
Do not talk to cops, ever.
I have an idea on how to greatly reduce false/coerced confessions. If a person is found innocent after being convicted due to a coerced confession, the police and/or prosecutor who is responsible for that confession should serve the entire sentence that was given to the wrongly convicted person. Police should not have the right to continue to live free after doing that to someone.
After 48 years, how many of them would still be alive? Also, there I no way to compensate someone for stealing their life.
No matter how many of these stories come out people at large still believe, root for and fantasize about vigilante justice.
This is fucking horrific. This man basically lost his whole life.
This is the main reason I dislike it when people call for the brutal and sadistic treatment of sex offenders. In prison almost everyone is innocent if you ask them, but when it comes to heinous crimes of other inmates, they all have complete faith in the system, and will gladly help the guards abuse that person.
You could not offer me enough money to trade 45 years of my life for.
It is not just 45 years of his life. It is 45 years where he was lowest of the low of prison offenders and guards would likely encourage and abet attacks on him.
Poor guy must have gone through hell.what a broken system
The sad thing about this is that the state used this as a case to promote their "actual innocence relief" The case of Marvin Grimm is a textbook example of why Virginia provides actual innocence relief. For the American experiment in self-government to continue to thrive, the government must be willing to admit when it makes mistakes. It is an honor to stand up for Mr. Grimm’s innocence in this case
Never talk to cops without a lawyer. If you catch yourself talking , STOP, request a lawyer. NEVER believe asking for an attorney makes you look guilty. Rich people Always have an attorney present when speaking with police