it was a beautiful May night it was
still light out and I had just been to
the ATM machine and taken out 120 euros
and I had just finished the most amazing
year of my life I had been a US
Fulbright Scholar teaching law and
journalism students how to investigate
wrongful convictions and I was leaving
for Boston the next day and so as I was
walking back to my apartment it dawned
on me like I don’t know if I’m ever
going to be in Ireland again and so I
decided you know what I’m gonna take
some pictures of the neighborhood and I
went over to this bridge that overlooked
the college where I taught and I was
leaning on the railing snapping pictures
with my iPhone when all of a sudden a
man came up on a bike behind me and
tried to grab my iPhone and like I
really wasn’t expecting this and I just
kind of reacted and I said get the fuck
out of here
and so we started hustling back and
forth and he was tugging on my phone and
I was tugging back and I actually hung
on to it and I thought great that’s the
end of it but it wasn’t because in that
struggle the handle of my bag got caught
on the handlebars of his bike and I
could tell that he could see that if he
got away he was going to get my bag and
in that bag was not only the hundred and
twenty euros but my Irish IDs my credit
cards and my passport and the reason I
was leaving for Boston the next day is I
was on my way to see my son get his
doctorate in physical therapy and I
wasn’t going to make it so my mom I just
went a little crazy
and we started like battling I mean it
was like hand-to-hand combat he ended up
on the ground I ended up on the ground
my pants got ripped my knees got ripped
I almost pulled his pants off and then I
said give me my bag and he took off he
left my bag he also left his bike and so
on that beautiful May night I became a
crime victim and I also became a witness
now crime can happen in any jurisdiction
anywhere in the world and it does and
wrongful convictions can happen in any
jurisdiction in anywhere in the world
and it does so with the next three hours
of that night I was treated like many
crime victims the police came they asked
me questions I told them what happened
they took notes and then they said to me
we have someone in custody we’d like you
to go down in ID him and that’s when the
panic set in because I know from my work
the Innocence Project says three out of
four cases of wrongful convictions are
actually due to eye witness
misidentification it’s the most common
cause of wrongful convictions and what
they were asking me to do it’s called a
show-up it happens right after a crime
usually when a victim or a witness has
taken down and asked to ID someone maybe
they’re sitting in the back of a Cruz
car now you might think well isn’t that
better I mean the crime just happened
you’re just focused on one person but
that’s not really the way memory works
the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has
actually devoted her research to showing
that memory it’s not like a video
recorder like many of us think where we
see something it’s recorded and we can
recall it later accurately what she says
is that memory is actually high
and highly malleable and especially in a
crime when it often happens in the dark
it happens quickly persons under stress
whose being you know attacked and if
there’s a weapon involved
that person’s focus might be on the
weapon likely on the weapon and not on
identifying features of that person and
so that misidentification is a huge
issue but it’s not the only one there’s
also this thing called cognitive bias
and cognitive biases it’s just human
nature
it’s that tendency to want to believe
what we want to believe and to disregard
anything to the contrary now we’re all
subject to it even fingerprint
examiner’s the psychologists Attell draw
has shown through his research that if
he takes a set of prints to an examiner
and says this person’s already confessed
the chances go up significantly that
there’ll be a mismatch and all of us as
I said are subject to it even police and
prosecutors and it’s important to
remember that they’re under enormous
public pressure to find the culprit and
convict him or her especially when it’s
a high-profile crime now there was a
case right here in Jacksonville the case
of Brent and Butler and Brenton was a 15
year old african-american teen who was
on his way to apply for a job at a
blockbuster video at about the same time
that a white couple was coming out of a
motel and they were confronted by a
black man with a gun he robbed the wife
of her purse and then shot and killed
her in front of her husband the husband
was asked to ID Brennan much like in a
show up much like I was and we have to
understand that cross racial
identification
are a challenge for all of us and he did
ID Brennan and Brenton was taken to the
police station without a parent without
a lawyer and he claims he was
intimidated he was beaten and he falsely
confessed now fortunately for Brenton he
had two very capable and very aggressive
public defenders and they did a
wonderful job in proving he was innocent
because the jury was out less than an
hour before they came back and acquitted
him so if we have been having blind
faith in blind justice and it’s really
been failing us far far too often what
can we do well I’d like to suggest that
we can all become witnesses any one of
us can vote any one of us can be on a
jury any one of us could be the victim
of a crime any one of us could be
wrongfully convicted it’s important that
we all ask questions but we don’t take
anything at face value that we don’t
believe everything we hear and
especially everything we see
so as for me on that May night I was
taken down and I saw a man leaning
against a fence with the cop on either
side and I looked at him and I thought
well I do remember he had short blonde
hair but was he that short I don’t know
we were wrestling I know he had on the
tracksuit because I nearly pulled it off
of him but with the stripes on it whiter
green I haven’t a clue and I was really
worried because I didn’t want to be
responsible for somebody else’s wrongful
conviction I know what happens to people
and how much they lose when that happens
their freedom at homes their families
their jobs and in the end I said yeah I
think it’s him but honestly I really
wasn’t sure so three hours exactly three
hours after I was mugged I got a call
from the police and they said we just
want you to know he’s confessed I was so
relieved and then they said he wanted us
to call you and tell you he was sorry
and I said well would you please tell
him thank you but would you also tell
him at some point I’d like to sit down
and talk with him and the cops started
laughing and unsaid I’m not joking I
used to work with juvenile offenders and
I just really want a chance to sit down
and talk with him and I got that chance
exactly one year and one day after I met
my mugger on that bridge in Dublin I got
to meet him again only this time it was
the day of sentencing and he was in the
foyer outside of the courtroom and a cop
came and said if you still want to meet
him he’s waiting for you and so I went
into the foyer and our eyes met and I
looked at him and for the first time I
noticed he had what’s called a Chelsea
smile he had been cut from ear to mouth
and I thought how on earth could I have
missed that and then he looked at me and
he said I’m so so sorry
he said the drugs took ten years of my
life but I’ve been clean and sober now
for eight months and I’m I’m just so
sorry and I said thank you
that really means so much to me and look
I I understand that things happen in
people’s lives and their lives go off
the rails but I said I’m a journalist
and if you’d like I’d like to sit down
and hear your story and write about it
maybe somebody will
your break and he said he’d like that
and then he held out his arms and I
hugged my hugger thank you [Applause]
still light out and I had just been to
the ATM machine and taken out 120 euros
and I had just finished the most amazing
year of my life I had been a US
Fulbright Scholar teaching law and
journalism students how to investigate
wrongful convictions and I was leaving
for Boston the next day and so as I was
walking back to my apartment it dawned
on me like I don’t know if I’m ever
going to be in Ireland again and so I
decided you know what I’m gonna take
some pictures of the neighborhood and I
went over to this bridge that overlooked
the college where I taught and I was
leaning on the railing snapping pictures
with my iPhone when all of a sudden a
man came up on a bike behind me and
tried to grab my iPhone and like I
really wasn’t expecting this and I just
kind of reacted and I said get the fuck
out of here
and so we started hustling back and
forth and he was tugging on my phone and
I was tugging back and I actually hung
on to it and I thought great that’s the
end of it but it wasn’t because in that
struggle the handle of my bag got caught
on the handlebars of his bike and I
could tell that he could see that if he
got away he was going to get my bag and
in that bag was not only the hundred and
twenty euros but my Irish IDs my credit
cards and my passport and the reason I
was leaving for Boston the next day is I
was on my way to see my son get his
doctorate in physical therapy and I
wasn’t going to make it so my mom I just
went a little crazy
and we started like battling I mean it
was like hand-to-hand combat he ended up
on the ground I ended up on the ground
my pants got ripped my knees got ripped
I almost pulled his pants off and then I
said give me my bag and he took off he
left my bag he also left his bike and so
on that beautiful May night I became a
crime victim and I also became a witness
now crime can happen in any jurisdiction
anywhere in the world and it does and
wrongful convictions can happen in any
jurisdiction in anywhere in the world
and it does so with the next three hours
of that night I was treated like many
crime victims the police came they asked
me questions I told them what happened
they took notes and then they said to me
we have someone in custody we’d like you
to go down in ID him and that’s when the
panic set in because I know from my work
the Innocence Project says three out of
four cases of wrongful convictions are
actually due to eye witness
misidentification it’s the most common
cause of wrongful convictions and what
they were asking me to do it’s called a
show-up it happens right after a crime
usually when a victim or a witness has
taken down and asked to ID someone maybe
they’re sitting in the back of a Cruz
car now you might think well isn’t that
better I mean the crime just happened
you’re just focused on one person but
that’s not really the way memory works
the psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has
actually devoted her research to showing
that memory it’s not like a video
recorder like many of us think where we
see something it’s recorded and we can
recall it later accurately what she says
is that memory is actually high
and highly malleable and especially in a
crime when it often happens in the dark
it happens quickly persons under stress
whose being you know attacked and if
there’s a weapon involved
that person’s focus might be on the
weapon likely on the weapon and not on
identifying features of that person and
so that misidentification is a huge
issue but it’s not the only one there’s
also this thing called cognitive bias
and cognitive biases it’s just human
nature
it’s that tendency to want to believe
what we want to believe and to disregard
anything to the contrary now we’re all
subject to it even fingerprint
examiner’s the psychologists Attell draw
has shown through his research that if
he takes a set of prints to an examiner
and says this person’s already confessed
the chances go up significantly that
there’ll be a mismatch and all of us as
I said are subject to it even police and
prosecutors and it’s important to
remember that they’re under enormous
public pressure to find the culprit and
convict him or her especially when it’s
a high-profile crime now there was a
case right here in Jacksonville the case
of Brent and Butler and Brenton was a 15
year old african-american teen who was
on his way to apply for a job at a
blockbuster video at about the same time
that a white couple was coming out of a
motel and they were confronted by a
black man with a gun he robbed the wife
of her purse and then shot and killed
her in front of her husband the husband
was asked to ID Brennan much like in a
show up much like I was and we have to
understand that cross racial
identification
are a challenge for all of us and he did
ID Brennan and Brenton was taken to the
police station without a parent without
a lawyer and he claims he was
intimidated he was beaten and he falsely
confessed now fortunately for Brenton he
had two very capable and very aggressive
public defenders and they did a
wonderful job in proving he was innocent
because the jury was out less than an
hour before they came back and acquitted
him so if we have been having blind
faith in blind justice and it’s really
been failing us far far too often what
can we do well I’d like to suggest that
we can all become witnesses any one of
us can vote any one of us can be on a
jury any one of us could be the victim
of a crime any one of us could be
wrongfully convicted it’s important that
we all ask questions but we don’t take
anything at face value that we don’t
believe everything we hear and
especially everything we see
so as for me on that May night I was
taken down and I saw a man leaning
against a fence with the cop on either
side and I looked at him and I thought
well I do remember he had short blonde
hair but was he that short I don’t know
we were wrestling I know he had on the
tracksuit because I nearly pulled it off
of him but with the stripes on it whiter
green I haven’t a clue and I was really
worried because I didn’t want to be
responsible for somebody else’s wrongful
conviction I know what happens to people
and how much they lose when that happens
their freedom at homes their families
their jobs and in the end I said yeah I
think it’s him but honestly I really
wasn’t sure so three hours exactly three
hours after I was mugged I got a call
from the police and they said we just
want you to know he’s confessed I was so
relieved and then they said he wanted us
to call you and tell you he was sorry
and I said well would you please tell
him thank you but would you also tell
him at some point I’d like to sit down
and talk with him and the cops started
laughing and unsaid I’m not joking I
used to work with juvenile offenders and
I just really want a chance to sit down
and talk with him and I got that chance
exactly one year and one day after I met
my mugger on that bridge in Dublin I got
to meet him again only this time it was
the day of sentencing and he was in the
foyer outside of the courtroom and a cop
came and said if you still want to meet
him he’s waiting for you and so I went
into the foyer and our eyes met and I
looked at him and for the first time I
noticed he had what’s called a Chelsea
smile he had been cut from ear to mouth
and I thought how on earth could I have
missed that and then he looked at me and
he said I’m so so sorry
he said the drugs took ten years of my
life but I’ve been clean and sober now
for eight months and I’m I’m just so
sorry and I said thank you
that really means so much to me and look
I I understand that things happen in
people’s lives and their lives go off
the rails but I said I’m a journalist
and if you’d like I’d like to sit down
and hear your story and write about it
maybe somebody will
your break and he said he’d like that
and then he held out his arms and I
hugged my hugger thank you [Applause]
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