I Spent 16 Years in Jail for a Crime I Didn't Commit. Here's What Should Be Done.

By Jeffrey Deskovic, AlterNet. Posted September 16, 2008.

I was wrongfully convicted in 1990 of a murder and rape in Peekskill, N.Y. DNA taken from semen found in the victim did not match my DNA. But misconduct at every stage of the criminal justice system led me to spend 16 years of my life in prison. That misconduct included a coerced, false confession when I was 16, extracted after many days of interrogation overseen by current Peekskill Police Chief Eugene Tumolo and others, as well as the falsification of other evidence.

Most people think that only a guilty person would confess to a crime. But I can tell you that scare tactics, threats of violence, food deprivation, being lied to regarding lie detector results and being told that you can go home if you cooperate have produced many false confessions. Of the 218 exonerations based on DNA testing, false confessions led to 25 percent of the original convictions.

"Maybe you are innocent," Judge Nicholas Colabella said just before giving me a 15-years-to-life sentence. Former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro successfully opposed all of my appeals and even blocked several attempts to get more DNA testing. My fortune turned in 2006, when The Innocence Project took my case. With the cooperation of District Attorney Janet DiFiore, further DNA testing proved who the real perpetrator was. On Nov. 2, 2006, all charges were dismissed and I was publicly acknowledged as innocent. I received some apologies, but none were from those who played a role in wrongfully convicting me.

Readjusting to being free, dealing with the effects of my ordeal, learning new technology, trying to rebuild relationships with my family and experiencing financial pressure have all been hard. I was released with nothing. The litigation I am pursuing will take two to seven years, with the state attempting to avoid giving me anything.

But I am not angry. Instead, I channel my energy into raising awareness about the problem of wrongful convictions, and the danger that the death penalty poses in executing innocent people. I give presentations about wrongful convictions at colleges, high schools, churches and organizations throughout New York and other states. This is my main means of income, but I never know when the next chance to give a presentation will be. I also publish an article each week in the Westchester Guardian. I give television, radio and newspaper interviews, willingly sacrificing privacy in exchange for raising awareness about the problem of wrongful convictions and the need to enact legislative reforms to prevent them. I have testified at several legislative hearings, and I lobby lawmakers to enact reforms to protect the innocent and make the system more reliable. As an additional tool for encouraging lawmakers to enact changes, I collect signatures for an online petition on my Web site, www.JeffreyDeskovicSpeaks.org.

Nationwide, to date, there have been 218 wrongful convictions proven through DNA, and many additional exonerations achieved by other means, including the discovery of new evidence, materials purposely withheld from the defense, and the recantation of eyewitness identifications. During the time I spent wrongfully incarcerated -- 16 years -- I immersed myself in wrongful conviction literature. Now that I'm free, I continue to study the subject, so I'm aware of the causes of wrongful convictions, well beyond what happened in my case. Here are the reforms that are needed in order to produce a more accurate justice system. If you agree with these changes, please sign the petition on my Web site and encourage others to do so as well. Also, call your local representatives and ask them to institute them.

False Confessions

False confessions have accounted for 25 percent of the 218 DNA exonerations.

All interrogations should be videotaped, from beginning to end. This would prevent police from concealing abusive tactics they may have used from their testimony. It would allow a complete and accurate record of who said what, when, and in what context. It would also protect honest police officers from false allegations of coercion. The use of polygraph tests, lying to suspects by claiming to have evidence of their guilt, and prolonged interrogations over many hours should be outlawed. All of these tactics have been linked to false confessions. Studies have revealed that such tactics convey to suspects that, no matter what, they will be arrested for something they did not do; it's just a matter of whether they will make it worse on themselves by maintaining their innocence. It is especially critical that interrogations of the mentally ill or the mentally retarded only take place with a lawyer present, because mentally ill and mentally retarded people often try to compensate for their mental deficiencies by being compliant in the face of authority.

See more stories tagged with: dna, false confessions, criminal justice system, wrongful convictions, exonerations, jeffrey descovik

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