welcome back. convicted on a false confession, advocates were adamant that s what happened to robert davis. then, newfound hope, a new governor was taking office. would he consider the case? or was the young man so many believed innocent destined to spend another decade in jail? here s keith morrison with the conclusion of the interrogation. i ve never been emotional in a presentation as i feel in this case, because i ve grown very close with robert. for years, steve rosenfield made his case for robert davis to legal conferences, to anybody who would listen. robert remained right where he was, in prison. during those same years we tried repeatedly to contact and interview randy snead, the officer who took robert s confession. the closest we got was the current chief of police of
mail and found a letter from, of all people, rocky fugett. dr. mr. rosenfield, i have some information about robert that i think can be awfully beneficial. you re welcome to come visit me. snail mail. rest assured, steve rosenfield s drive to the prison was much quicker. coming up this is one of the most intense interrogations that i ve ever seen. that interrogation would soon be key to the case. i can t lie about the evidence. he s lying about lying. when dateline extra continues. . let s see, aleve is proven better on pain
now back to dateline extra. attorney steve rosenfield was in for a big surprise when he arrived at rocky fugett s prison. it was shocking. it certainly was. rocky wanted to sign a sworn affidavit saying robert davis was innocent, had nothing to do with the murders. that was pretty powerful for him to do that, considering his circumstances. nothing to gain. but rocky s admission wasn t enough to undo robert s confession. and then seven years into robert s prison sentence, rosenfield answered a phone call. and there she was.
37 years of practice, it is the hardest decision i ve made to strongly recommend a client to take a plea for something he didn t do. but at least it wasn t life. he was sentenced at 20, would be free in his early 40s. the day i was standing in front of the judge, accepting that alfred plea, crying, and just praying that one day, hopefully, the truth will come out that i wasn t there. the fugetts avoided the death penalty but got what amounted to life without parole. and steve rosenfield faithfully drove out to visit robert in prison knowing the only way to get him out was to persuade the virginia governor to issue a pardon. fat chance of that. it s a pretty big longshot of getting him out before the 23 years from which he was sentenced. and then? two years after robert went to prison, rosenfield opened the
steve rosenfield. what was your impression of him when you first met him? robert was scared to death from the first meeting and forever. and then robert told attorney rosenfield just about what you d expect an accused murderer might say. he didn t do it. he didn t stab anybody. he wasn t even there. he only confessed, he said, because he was so scared. did you push hard enough to find out whether or not he was actually telling you the truth or playing you? i take what the client tells me and i do an independent evaluation based on what i learn. so he watched the tape of robert s confession. which didn t look right to him. besides there was no physical evidence at the crime scene to tie robert to the crime. but just as intriguing was this question. why would rocky and jessica include a kid like robert? the fugett siblings as the