I was convinced that this man had raped and killed his daughter. He didn't

[NNN0LHI]

This was a local case that I followed from the beginning. I can remember discussing with my brother what a bastard he was after he "confessed." Why would the police do this to someone?

Don


http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/city/4_1_JO02_FOX_S1.htm

Judge rules Fox's lawsuit can continue

• Riley Fox murder case: Father charges he was falsely imprisoned

A federal judge denied every count but one of a motion to dismiss the lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to falsely imprison — and possibly condemn — Kevin Fox for the rape and murder of his 3-year-old daughter.

The lawsuit was initially filed in November 2004. It lists Tomczak, a jailer, a county social worker, six detectives and a polygraph examiner, charging they conspired to coerce Kevin Fox into adopting a fabricated tale of how he killed his daughter, Riley.

Fox was freed from jail when it was determined that DNA recovered from Riley's body was not his. The DNA samples were from saliva acquired from vaginal swabs, according to a police source. snip

The arrest of Kevin Fox came six months after his daughter was molested and dumped in a creek near her Wilmington home and followed a 14-hour interrogation.

The questioning culminated with a videotaped statement in which Kevin Fox reportedly told detectives he accidentally hit his daughter in the head with a bathroom door.

[DS1]

1. What a living hell

and of course, if the right-wing pundits had their way he'd have already been hanged

[Mythsaje]

2. So who's the real perp? n/t

[NNN0LHI]

3. Perp probably got away why the cops were busy framing this poor bastard n/t

[bloom]

4. False confessions are a real problem that way

The police can then stop looking for the actual perpetrator.

There was a case like that in Indiana - where someone confessed - a meth addict - maybe he didn't know what he was doing?

They did manage to find the guy who actually had DNA that matched the victim, though. Also - there was other evidence. So the case had a happier ending.

[Horse with no Name]

5. I remember this case

And I remember thinking that no way he was guilty and would have bet money that he was coerced.
HOWEVER, I was not in an area that was saturated with it, but I DO live in a state that railroads people (I think one of the biggest travesties is still occurring with Darly Routier).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4774077&mesg_id=4774077

[acmejack]

6. Tried in the media

for our entertainment and their profit. Poor Kevin and his miserable life were but unfortunate casualties.

Do you think the man will ever be emotionally sound again? Either experience alone would easily unsettle one, taken together they could be shattering.

[politicat]

7. It happens all the time. Police have an economic incentive to get

convictions, not to catch criminals. Promotions are based on performance, at least in part, and performance is rated on conviction rate.

Cops are human - if the easy way to get a confession is pressure, that's what they're trained to do. Getting out and doing actual detective work is a lot harder and takes more resources and time than a coercive interrogation is.

If the easy way to handle the case is to pressure some poor schmuck into confessing, then that's what they'll do. They use polygraphs (notoriously inaccurate) and Voice Stress analyzers (even worse) to tell the schmuck who knows next to nothing about science (because we don't teach science) that "The Machine" says you're lying. (They usually convince schmuck to take the test by saying "This will clear your name", knowing full well that the results are inaccurate and that they can use the results to coerce what they want to hear.) Enough time, and some people will break down. Most of us have something we feel guilty about, and the cops use that. And most of us are raised to respect the police and authorities, so when they tell us we're lying, we will believe them eventually.

And don't tell me that cops are just like us, trying to be good citizens. I've seen too many people railroaded, too many people jailed and held until trial because the cops couldn't be bothered to actually investigate, too many make untruthful statements to judges to get the bail hiked up out of the accused person's means just so the accused can be held in jail... No, I don't respect them. Too many are lying, fascist control-freaky asshats who would be happiest in a dictatorship, as long as they're getting to enforce the rules, and the good ones don't do enough to get the evil ones under control.

[LisaL]

8. Take a look at this case too.

This guy has been released, just recently. He was falsely convicted for rape and murder.
"An Akron man was freed from a life prison term on rape and murder convictions Thursday, the first Ohio exoneration based on work by the University of Cincinnati-based Ohio Innocence Project.

After 7½ years behind bars at Mansfield Correctional Institution, Clarence Elkins walked out of his prison cell into the arms of his wife, Melinda."
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051216/NEWS01/512160411

I was watching how this story unfolded. For a while there, his wife claimed he was innocent, his niece recanted her story, but DNA is what finally set this innocent man free.
It's absolutely outrageous. They had DNA evidence all the time, and still convicted this innocent guy based on a testimony of a little child, who must have been scared out of her mind, after all she went through.