Professor Leo's New Book Explores False Confessions
Associate Professor Richard Leo Nov 25, 2008 -- In their new book, The Wrong Guys: Murder, False Confessions, and the Norfolk Four, Associate Professor Richard Leo and Tom Wells tell the story of four men wrongfully convicted of murder and rape. "The authors passionately relate the case of the Norfolk Four as a tragic one in which facts were not allowed to interfere with a good theory, and the justice system failed to do justice," Publishers Weekly said in a Sept. 22 book review.
The case began in 1997, when 19-year-old sailor Billy Bosko returned from a naval cruise to find his wife, Michelle Moore-Bosko, had been raped and murdered in their bedroom in Norfolk, Virginia. On a tip from a neighbor, detectives focused their attention on Danial Williams, who also lived in the apartment complex. Using highly coercive techniques, threats, and lies, detectives interrogated Williams for 11 hours, Leo said.
"I often talk about misclassification errors in investigations, where police presume that somebody committed the crime and then they launch into an accusatory interrogation to get them to confess," Leo said.
Williams confessed to rape and murder and despite numerous contradictions between his testimony and physical evidence, detectives remained convinced of his guilt. When DNA evidence from the crime scene did not match Williams' DNA, police looked for accomplices, eventually pursuing seven additional suspects. Of this group, Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice would all confess and be convicted of rape and/or murder.
In Leo and Well's book, Wilson says "I never thought I could confess to something I didn't do. I never thought I could until I went through it. By the end of the interrogation your heads so messed up that you'll say absolutely anything just to get the man away from you."
Omar Ballard, whose DNA matched the crime scene and Leo and Wells argue was the sole perpetrator of the crime, was also convicted of rape and murder.
Leo and Wells spent six years closely following the case, and ultimately helped secure legal representation for the Norfolk Four's ongoing clemency campaign. Leo is a nationally recognized expert on police interrogation, false confessions, and wrongful convictions, having researched and written extensively on the topic.
Recently, 30 retired FBI agents held a press conference claiming the Norfolk Four are innocent, they were wrongfully convicted, and they should be released. Four former attorney generals in Virginia have also called on the release of the Norfolk Four, as well as 13 jurors from two of the Norfolk Four trials. Despite these and other calls for clemency, there of the four men remain in prison. Wilson, who was convicted of rape but acquitted of murder, served his sentence and was released in 2005.
Leo said the case can teach us about the problems of wrongful convictions—often false confession driven and involving tunnel vision, false plea bargains, ineffective assistance, prosecutorial misconduct, as well as withholding of evidence.
"One of the jurors said they weren't bothered by the details being wrong in the confession, they weren't bothered by multiple confessions, they weren't bothered by the DNA evidence not matching because there was a confession and innocent people don't confess," Leo said. "Somebody might say this is just one case, but the case is an object lesson of the many things that go wrong in the criminal justice system."
