One of the most serious questions we have frequently been asked is: Why did he confess if he didn't do it? It's a question that is not easy to answer. He hangs his head in embarrassment when it comes up, and though I try to explain, I know that the public is wary of these things. Most do not know what it is like to be in a situation where they feel they have no choice but to say they have done something they would never dream of doing. We often hear things like, "Well if I were you, I would have said..." And I don't blame them. How can they know without having been through it? We all want to believe there is no way such a tragedy could happen - that, when a police officer stares us down and accuses us of a crime, we could all answer with a resounding "No!" or "Get me a lawyer" or just stare back without a word.
The truth of the matter is not so easy to swallow. Police interrogations are no joke. Interrogators are trained to get into your head and pry out what they want to hear. False confessions are all too common. Just this year, Time Magazine posted an article on this very subject. The information is everywhere, just a Google search away! They happen all the time. The best of men have succumbed to them, only to be later proven innocent by DNA evidence (and remember, it is highly likely that even we have DNA evidence that another individual committed this crime). But not always.
Still the public remains suspicious. If nothing else, a world where innocent men are broken into confessing crimes, convicted, and punished wrongly is not a world most want to think of. It feels darker somehow. Less safe.
I'm afraid that is the world George and I are trapped in. The morning of his confession, we had barely slept a few restless hours, wracking our brains as to what to do, knowing that somewhere a young girl was fully prepared and armed to destroy our lives without a single regret. Our roomie woke us up, and we staggered into the living room to see a police officer stepping his way into the house, repeating firmly again and again and again that we had to go with him. We were nothing short of terrified; to us, it sounded like we had no choice. There was no reasoning with this guy, no telling him we weren't interested in talking. There was no lawyer in sight, none we could possibly afford, nobody to call. And when we arrived at the police station, there was nothing but a tiny, uncomfortable room, a bleary and exhausted George shaking as the officer slammed his hand to the table and worked as hard as he could to manipulate him for two and a half hours solid while I sat out in the blistering cold waiting in my car.
He said George was free to go - but locked the door. He said he wasn't arrested - but that he was going to jail for a long time. He said he just wanted to talk - but refused to hear anything but a confession. Lawyer? Absolutely not. Miranda rights? None - you see, if you say "You're not under arrest", you have invoked a legal loop hole. Two seconds later you can say "We have proof that can put you in jail for a long time", as long as you said "You're not under arrest" just that once. You can say "You're free to go", and then lock the door and smile. That seems to be the system we have found ourselves up against, at this point in time. What we're looking at are things like "technically legal" and "legal loophole" - skirting just under the radar and scoring a confession, and now, throwing George to the sharks.
There is a recording of the confession, but it is audio only. A recording cannot show the officer locking the door. A recording cannot show the desperate look on George's face, the officer towering over him. A recording cannot show the disheveled clothing and the bags under his eyes. It cannot tell you his state of mind. It cannot tell you why.
If we ever manage to find good representation, one of the first things we will pursue is a psychological evaluation. A bit of important proof of George's state of mind. A glimpse into his world, a world where, for just long enough - he truly believed, whether naively or not, that the officer standing over him had the ability to take him away right then and there and throw him in prison for 25 to life. A world where he was told, and believed - for just long enough - that if he just said whatever the officer wanted to hear, he could go home and hold his fiancee tight, and help me through another seizure-prone day. He wondered what I would do without him. He wondered what he would do without me. The choice seemed clear - if he had no other choice, he was willing to be smeared as a criminal as long as he could keep us safe.
If you felt you had no other choice - would you give up everything you loved and held dear? Or would you give up your reputation to preserve your life, freedom, and love?
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