Ex-sailor says he confessed to end grueling interrogation

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ex-sailor says he confessed to end grueling interrogation
By LARRY O'DELL, Associated Press | April 16, 2015 | Updated: April 16, 2015 7:26pm

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A former sailor testified Thursday that he falsely confessed to a 1997 rape and murder because he wanted the 11 hours of grueling interrogation by aggressive police detectives to end.

"I just couldn't take it anymore," Danial Williams said. "I couldn't take being called a liar, the pressure."

Williams and Joseph Dick Jr. testified at an evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Richmond, where they are trying to get their convictions for the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko overturned. Williams and Dick are two of the so-called "Norfolk Four," ex-sailors who have long claimed that police coerced them into falsely confessing.

The four men, who were all stationed at the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, drew national attention when their innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and novelist John Grisham. In 2009, then-Gov. Tim Kaine freed three of the men because of doubts about their guilt but allowed their convictions to remain. The fourth man, Eric Wilson, had already been released.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Ex-sailor-says-he-confessed-to-end-grueling-6204155.php

[pnwmom]

1. The Innocence Project has found that about 1/4 of people proven innocent turned out

to have given false confessions. Cracking under the pressure of police interrogations is far more common than many people realize.

When the Governor ordered the men released he should have overturned their convictions as well. There is a confessed rapist and murderer who left his DNA at the scene. The government just doesn't want to admit its mistake.

[Skittles]

2. I don't trust confessions

you just never know how they were obtained - if I was on a jury they would need to provide way more evidence than a confession