its opinion, and he gave it to us. roberts confession was not believable. what we did not expect was what happened a few months later, when this british detective spoke to steve rosenfield, and offered to write to virginia s governor, adding his support to robert davis s clemency petition. the petition, now waiting on the desk of a new governor. coming up i believe that the confession is an unreliable confession. strong words from the chief of police. and from the governor s office. the wait begins, when dateline continues. ateline continues namaste. .surprise parties. aww, you guys. dupixent helps prevent asthma attacks. .for 3!. .so i can du more of the things i love. dupixent is not for sudden breathing problems. it s an add-on-treatment for specific types
wimbledon women s champion. the 25-year-old defeated carolina preschooler in three sets, to win her second grand slam title. now back to dateline. attorney steve rosenfield was in for a big surprise when he arrived at rocky the fugett prison. it was shocking. it is certainly. was rocky wanted to sign a sworn affidavit scene 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 roberts confession. and then, seven years under roberts prison sentence, rosenfield answered a phone call. and there she was laura the, director of the
that would prevent us from other detecting anything ever again you would never solve a crime anymore? we would never solve a crime anymore it would tie our hands. detection rates in respect to homicide in the uk are very high. they are up in the 90% mark. and, along the way, said the detective, confessions of hallmark case servings in the u.s. became much less important here in britain. we would not prosecute someone solely on a confession. so somebody did make a confession, we would try to corroborate what they say but isn t a confession the strongest evidence you can get? not always. what is wrong with it? what confessions tended to do, if they shape a
confirmation bias, people look for supporting evidence just to support what is being said, it because the confession exists. so we asked the detective to watch with us, robert davis s interrogation. and what this guy s problem was, he was arrested last what they are saying is we gospel believe the people who are arrested first, so you just need to confirm what we know. and that s clearly not a good approach to investigating. you obviously think that i m lying, i swear to you that i m not. i m ready to go to sleep. so take me, because i did not do nothing. the time of day of the interview, at the length of the interview, the use of halfway through the interview, the clear requests for medication, sleep at various points in the interview, they are all red flags when you look at the whole thing as you did, you sat back and thought afterwards the lifeline of any account is reliability. and the way that this is done, is you can t vouch for reliability we had asked for
during the same days we asked repeatedly for an interview with randy snead, the officer who took roberts confession. but as close as we got was albemarle county police chief steve sellers, since retired. he wasn t in office when snead was detective. but you talk to him. what was your oppression of? him i think he acted in best interest. i don t think there is a bit of malice in his actions. i think he had a very strong relationship with robert davis. but this was interesting. chief sellers did not support snead s interrogation. not at all. i will say this, i believe that the confession is an unreliable confession. what s more, the chief updated police methods when he took over. to help prevent the kind of interrogation that ended up in roberts confession. as you look at it, or things