Damon Thibodeau - Another False Confession — Transcript

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1. 0:08damon thibodeau hours after he walked
2. 0:10out of louisiana's death row a free man
3. 0:13his release the outcome of a seven-year
4. 0:15investigation that absolved thibodeau of
5. 0:17the rape and murder of a relative dna
6. 0:20evidence discredited his confession
7. 0:22drawn by detectives who allegedly took
8. 0:25advantage of his exhaustion and fed him
9. 0:27details of the crime thibodeaux spent 23
10. 0:30hours a day in solitary confinement
11. 0:32awaiting his execution
12. 0:34you start
13. 0:36talking to people your lawyers in
14. 0:37particular you start to think hey maybe
15. 0:39this just isn't the end
16. 0:41you you know i shouldn't be here maybe i
17. 0:43shouldn't just accept it
18. 0:45and so you
19. 0:47start to feel some hope and you start
20. 0:48fighting and
21. 0:50then eventually this is where it leads
22. 0:51to exoneration advocates thanked police
23. 0:54and prosecutors for cooperating in
24. 0:56review of thibodeau's case
25. 0:58when you think you have an innocent man
26. 1:00and people on both sides can get
27. 1:02together
28. 1:03and really share evidence and really
29. 1:05conduct an investigation in the search
30. 1:07for the truth that's what's important
31. 1:09thibodeaux was embraced by other
32. 1:10ex-convicts who have been freed thanks
33. 1:12to dna evidence
34. 1:14his release continues a flurry of recent
35. 1:16exonerations and 300 in the past two
36. 1:19decades in california john edward smith
37. 1:22was released 19 years after his wrongful
38. 1:24murder conviction for a drive-by
39. 1:26shooting a witness recanted his
40. 1:28testimony in the past two months two
41. 1:30others in chicago and texas were
42. 1:32absolved of rape and murder thanks to
43. 1:34new dna analysis
44. 1:36like thibodeau a quarter of those
45. 1:37wrongfully convicted had given false
46. 1:39confessions and admissions often
47. 1:41pressured by police to do so
48. 1:43but most of the wrongful convictions
49. 1:45were the result of misidentification by
50. 1:47eyewitnesses
51. 1:49and after many reports of faulty
52. 1:51forensic examinations the federal
53. 1:53government has announced it will take
54. 1:54another look at thousands of past cases
55. 1:56but that will take time millions of
56. 1:58dollars and years of waiting by many
57. 2:00presumed innocents languishing in
58. 2:02prisons